*Doing Data Science* now available on Kindle!
My book with Rachel Schutt is now available on Kindle. I’ve tested this by buying it myself from amazon.com and looking at it on my computer’s so-called cloud reader.
Here’s the good news. It is actually possible to do this, and it’s satisfying to see!
Here’s the bad news. The kindle reader doesn’t render latex well, or for that matter many of the various fonts we use for various reasons. The result is a pretty comical display of formatting inconsistency. In particular, whenever a formula comes up it might seem like we’re
screaming about it
and often the quoted passages come in
very very tiny indeed.
I hope it’s readable. If you prefer less comical formatting, the hard copy edition is coming out on October 22nd, next Tuesday.
Next, a word about the book’s ranking. Amazon has this very generous way of funneling down into categories sufficiently so that the ranking of a given book looks really high. So right now I can see this on the book’s page:
- #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Computers & Technology > Software
but for a while, before yesterday, it took a few more iterations of digging to get to single digits, so it was more like:
- #1 in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Computers & Technology > Software > New Yorkers > Women nerd authors > one of whom is an occupier > & the other one grew up in New Jersey
But you, know, I’ll take what I can get to be #1! It’s all about metrics!!!
One last thing, which is that the full title is now “Doing Data Science: Straight Talk from the Frontline” and for the record, I wanted the full title to be something more like “Doing Data Science: the no bullshit approach” but for some reason I was overruled. Whatevs.
It’s been a very, very long time since I used TeX or LaTex, so what I write next might be nonsense, but have you considered which font you are using? I’ve been advised by someone who self publishes on Kindle that Georgia is the “best” font to use.
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The problem in rendering formulas is general for Kindle, they don’t size well compared with normal text.
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When does the paperback version come out?
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It is possible to buy it DRM-free in multiple formats directly from the O’Reilly site!
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Bought the ebook from O’Reilly! I’m enjoying reading it!
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Woohoo!!
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I don’t know if you saw this Economist article on the role of “data” in science.
http://www.economist.com/news/briefing/21588057-scientists-think-science-self-correcting-alarming-degree-it-not-trouble
This is an amazing article, that touches on a number of important topics, not including the title/issue:
– big problems with experimental psychology as a discipline
– Harry Collins on “tacit knowledge” as an obstacle to replicating results
– statistics
This article should be required reading for high school and first year college students, if not for their teachers and administrators.
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Thanks, an interesting and sad state of affairs.
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Cathy, just curious, who exactly sets the sale price on Amazon? Right now it says the book is on sale for $25 when the list price if $40.
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no clue.
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For what it’s worth, I just read a sample on the iPad Kindle app and the text looks just fine. It’s the intro, so no equations or code there to read. I’ve encountered this before with technical books. On the Kindle they aren’t properly formatted, but on the iPad they look great. So here’s hoping!
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Great! Thanks!
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Pre-ordered the paperback on Amazon. My eyes need real paper. Plus I don’t have to worry about it falling in the bathtub while I read it. Hopefully it will be available soon.
(DELIVERY ESTIMATE We need a little more time to provide you with a good estimate. We’ll notify you via e-mail as soon as we have an estimated delivery date.)
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Yay, just preordered the paperback.
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Just bought it. Great book.
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