CPCWiki forum

This is where I'll be updating you guys with the progress of the book thus far... currently it's around 30% complete, I have already completed the book cover, along with many articles including the CPC intro and history. Please pledge your support for the upcoming book, and remember all I wanna do is break even... not make a profit. I'm thinking of only making ten full colour books available.

I think the PDF is more likely to be around £3-5 - It all boils down to what amazon and Lulu charge.

FYI - The book will also cover Speccy, Atari XL, BBC and Commodore content... but is primarily written for users of the Amstrad CPC, with the other machines used for reference and comparisons. 

So Far:

Book cover - 100%
Intro - 100%
Begineers guide - 100%
Alan sugar
Amstrad CPC 464 history - 100%
Amstrad CPC 664 history - 40%
Amstrad CPC 6128 history - 90%
Magazines
Public domain
Top 100 1984 - 30%
Top 100 1985 - 5%
Top 100 1986
Top 100 1987
Top 100 1988
Top 100 1989
Top 100 1990
Top 100 1991
Top 100 1992
Interviews
DIY
Worst games on the CPC
Bloodiest games on the CPC 40%
The CPC can scroll - 90%
Speccy Ports

While I would get the Full Colour version, the PDF will be the most popular choice for many buyers.

Quote from: Nreive on 17:40, 18 January 10
While I would get the Full Colour version, the PDF will be the most popular choice for many buyers.

I would like to buy 2 copies of the full color version (One for myself and one for a friend of mine, very much into CPC).. But I think Nreive is right the PDF version would be a popular choice by many!!

/Ygdrazil

For sure, and hopefully that's what will happen. Although owning the book in full colour will be very desirable, as only a few will ever own it.

Hm.... nothing beats the smell of paper in your hands (ok, so I can think of some alternatives, but let's just keep it on topic! :D ).

I'd say you could offer the pdf only some time after the print edition comes out...

How much would a smaller colour version cost?

PS I stickied the topic, let's also add it to the wiki's homepage. But you should change the topic's title if you'll be reporting on the progress here, since it'll not be a mere poll...

Hi

I don't think 20-25£ is too much, anyway that's what they charge for a book of this size here in DK!!

If prize is of essence (which is suspect it is) what about a mixed color/BW edition like seen in some pages in old computer mags(Eg. Amtix). Can the printing company do this? And would that affect the price? (make it cheaper)

/Ygdrazil

Quote from: ukmarkh on 17:12, 18 January 10
This is where I'll be updating you guys with the progress of the book thus far... currently it's around 30% complete, I have already completed the book cover, along with many articles including the CPC intro and history. Please pledge your support for the upcoming book, and remember all I wanna do is break even... not make a profit. I'm thinking of only making ten full colour books available.

I think the PDF is more likely to be around £3-5 - It all boils down to what amazon and Lulu charge.

FYI - The book will also cover Speccy, Atari XL, BBC and Commodore content... but is primarily written for users of the Amstrad CPC, with the other machines used for reference and comparisons. 

So Far:

Book cover - 100%
Intro - 100%
Begineers guide - 100%
Alan sugar
Amstrad CPC 464 history - 100%
Amstrad CPC 664 history - 40%
Amstrad CPC 6128 history - 90%
Magazines
Public domain
Top 100 1984 - 30%
Top 100 1985 - 5%
Top 100 1986
Top 100 1987
Top 100 1988
Top 100 1989
Top 100 1990
Top 100 1991
Top 100 1992
Interviews
DIY
Worst games on the CPC
Bloodiest games on the CPC 40%
The CPC can scroll - 90%
Speccy Ports

Ygdrazil, maybe this is not too much for us (I'd pay double that!), but it may be too much for others. For instance, there are those lovely Speccy/c64 books out there but I'm not touching them because of the price - I'm simply not THAT interested...

Heh ...

I see what you mean!!

Well then back to the idea

A limited edition in full color, and the PDF version!

Could this be done :-)

/Ygdrazil

PS. I am really looking forward to the book in any form it might come!

Quote from: Gryzor on 13:12, 21 January 10
Ygdrazil, maybe this is not too much for us (I'd pay double that!), but it may be too much for others. For instance, there are those lovely Speccy/c64 books out there but I'm not touching them because of the price - I'm simply not THAT interested...

I already own the printed version of the Amstrad Action Tribute Magazine and paid nearly 25 EUR for the magazine, so I wouldn't mind to pay that or little more for the CPC book, too. The CPC is my hobby and there is not much to buy these days, so why not spend some bucks for your hobby ;-)?

I spoke with LuLu and a few others, and they aren't interested in doing a mixed B/W & Colour book... it's B/W or colour only :-[

I really wanted the book to be cheaper, as I were hoping for around 350 pages, but that would have bumped the cost up massively. Instead I've planned to release a Vol2 if Vol1 does ok. Again, I just need to tread water, and hopefully not make too much of a loss.

What's the minimum order qty for Lulu?

Quote from: Gryzor on 16:37, 21 January 10
What's the minimum order qty for Lulu?

Not sure... I'll have to check

Quote from: ukmarkh on 15:52, 21 January 10
I spoke with LuLu and a few others, and they aren't interested in doing a mixed B/W & Colour book... it's B/W or colour only :-

I really wanted the book to be cheaper, as I were hoping for around 350 pages, but that would have bumped the cost up massively. Instead I've planned to release a Vol2 if Vol1 does ok. Again, I just need to tread water, and hopefully not make too much of a loss.

Yeah, it's B&W or Colour at Lulu.com and as we know a full colour book is expensive to publish at Lulu.com

I don't see how you would make a loss, certainly no worse than break even, unless you're going to ask for an order requirement and sell them on.  if you're going to do this, you could bump up the cost of the PDF version to cover any shortfall from the printed version.

Have you considered approaching Hiive Books ? (http://www.hiivebooks.com/).  They have no CPC book planned and may be interested in publishing your book.

Quote from: Gryzor on 16:37, 21 January 10
What's the minimum order qty for Lulu?

There is no minimum order requirement at Lulu.com: buy as many or as little as you want.  When we did the AA tribute mag, it was done on a print-on-demand basis.  This meant that customers would purchase the book and it would be printed there and then and sent out - no upfront cost to buy a certain amount of copies (which to sell on) and no financial loss.

Quote from: Gryzor on 13:12, 21 January 10
For instance, there are those lovely Speccy/c64 books out there but I'm not touching them because of the price - I'm simply not THAT interested...

BTW, The ZX Spectrum Book - 1982 to 199x by Andrew Rollings is now available as a free PDF download: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=2000926

Ok, this is what I was wondering... if there's no minimum qty then there should be no financial risk...?

Just had a guick browse in the ZX Spectrum Book. Well I am not particular into Sinclairs line of computers, even though my first Z80 computer was a bamboo clone of the ZX81. It's graphically pretty, but it would have been nice with more background info and stuff besides endless game reviews. In this respect I think the proposed contents for the CPC book sounds much more interesting..

A bit like the C64 book which I liked, the book I mean as I am even less in C64's!

Cant wait for the CPC book!

/Ygdrazil

Quote from: Nreive on 11:02, 22 January 10
BTW, The ZX Spectrum Book - 1982 to 199x by Andrew Rollings is now available as a free PDF download: http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=2000926

I agree - I'm not too fond of books only featuring games reviews. Well, especially when it comes down to our CPC, for which there's little coverage in other publications...

I spoke with Hive books a while ago, but they were not convinced a CPC book would be worth the trouble. So I'm basically on my own. The Book of Arnold will be about 20% techy, 20% History and 50% games... with 10% coverage of the other popular 8-bit systems.

I think this is a great balance... As long as the "other systems" is discussed under their relation to the CPC...

Good news! Richard Clayton, the chap behind Locomotive has agreed to do an interview for the upcoming book. He has also agreed to do the preface at the begining of the book. I felt it was important for either Roland Perry or Richard to do this, and lets face it without the locomotive basic, the CPC just wouldn't have been the same machine, or worse; never existed.

Rest assured, a Roland Perry interview will hopefully feature, but towards the end i.e. in closing.

Thats great. Info on the arnold 2 please

Yeah great news!

More info on the ANT!!!

/Ygdrazil

Hahaha! And here I was, trying to find his address to drill him about those prototypes... :)

Is it possible you could video this meeting, rather than the seemingly usual email exchange. That would be fun

Quote from: Trebmint on 10:30, 28 January 10
Is it possible you could video this meeting, rather than the seemingly usual email exchange. That would be fun

Oooh now there's an idea!!!!! :)

Probably... but I'd prefer a pod cast if I were to do it. Don't like the idea of my ugly mug being seen across the internet.

Quote from: ukmarkh on 00:52, 28 January 10
Good news! Richard Clayton, the chap behind Locomotive has agreed to do an interview for the upcoming book. He has also agreed to do the preface at the begining of the book. I felt it was important for either Roland Perry or Richard to do this, and lets face it without the locomotive basic, the CPC just wouldn't have been the same machine, or worse; never existed.

Rest assured, a Roland Perry interview will hopefully feature, but towards the end i.e. in closing.

That's great news and I will definitely buy a copy of the book for my coffee table.

Sorry for my ignorance, but surely the ANT just became the Plus in the end?  Or was the ANT planned after the Plus (that would seem a weird waste of time considering the Plus's commercial failure)...?

Quote from: ukmarkh on 11:13, 28 January 10
Probably... but I'd prefer a pod cast if I were to do it. Don't like the idea of my ugly mug being seen across the internet.

No just record him, sitting infront of a bookcase and a computer is usual :P

Do you have a beautiful wife or girlfriend who could be the interviewer. sex it up a bit woo hooo ... haha

This could be the start of the CPCWIKI-TV channel  :o

/Ygdrazil

Quote from: Trebmint on 12:23, 28 January 10
No just record him, sitting infront of a bookcase and a computer is usual :P

Do you have a beautiful wife or girlfriend who could be the interviewer. sex it up a bit woo hooo ... haha

Woo now CPC TV would be good.

It'll just be a book interview and preface i'm afraid, if someone here wants me to ask him about a video interview, I'll pass on the message?

Quote from: redbox on 11:26, 28 January 10
That's great news and I will definitely buy a copy of the book for my coffee table.

Sorry for my ignorance, but surely the ANT just became the Plus in the end?  Or was the ANT planned after the Plus (that would seem a weird waste of time considering the Plus's commercial failure)...?

ANT was planned before Plus I believe. It is mentioned in the PCW specification, so it seems it is a mix of CPC and PCW.
Same kind of video hardware possibly but in colour.
Maybe ANT 2 became the PCW16? This has roller ram like the PCW but with colours?
So please ask if ANT 2 became PCW16 in some way.

Quote from: arnoldemu on 15:29, 28 January 10
ANT was planned before Plus I believe. It is mentioned in the PCW specification, so it seems it is a mix of CPC and PCW.
Same kind of video hardware possibly but in colour.
Maybe ANT 2 became the PCW16? This has roller ram like the PCW but with colours?
So please ask if ANT 2 became PCW16 in some way.

Having developed for the pcw16 I can say that the 16 doesn't have roller ram, was just a straight bitmap over 38k's worth. Strangely it did have colour though the monitor was decidedly monchrome. There was a 320x480 mode which was 4 colour, though those colours were white, gray, gray and black. The two grays being the same, which is weird, guess its the gate array.

Given the added speed of the z80 compatable in the 16, if only they had allowed a 320x240 - 16 colour mode. With 1mb ram and the added processor we could have done some pretty stuff. Oh well atleast the OS sucked bigtime

If only symbos had existed they could of had a real nice machine.

Quote from: Trebmint on 16:30, 28 January 10
Having developed for the pcw16 I can say that the 16 doesn't have roller ram, was just a straight bitmap over 38k's worth. Strangely it did have colour though the monitor was decidedly monchrome. There was a 320x480 mode which was 4 colour, though those colours were white, gray, gray and black. The two grays being the same, which is weird, guess its the gate array.

Given the added speed of the z80 compatable in the 16, if only they had allowed a 320x240 - 16 colour mode. With 1mb ram and the added processor we could have done some pretty stuff. Oh well atleast the OS sucked bigtime

If only symbos had existed they could of had a real nice machine.

I don't agree - it does have a form of roller ram and the asic "anne" specification mentions this.
The document was given to me by Cliff Lawson a few years back.

In the ram there is a list of memory addresses defining the start of each line of the screen.

In addition the top two bits of the address was the display mode to use.

The modes were the same as the cpc (160 with 16 colours, 320 with 4 colours, 640 with 1 colour) however the encoding of the pixels was different:

aaaabbbb for 16 colour mode
aabbccdd for 4 colour mode

So you could easily mix modes as you want and you could scroll the screen by changing the addresses in the table. I think it also had the same kind of control features as the pcw asic where you wrote a control code to one of the ports.

I think it always displayed in colour, but the monitor was greyscale so ended up producing a poor picture as a result.

I agree about the speed, and it could have had an improved 320 mode that would be nice.

The OS, well I don't know because I never used it.

I don't recall any roller ram, it was as I remember very much in the cpc mould of arithmetic fixed addressing, unlike the Pcw range which you could define an address each pixel line. There was a special 512 byte table to hold each pixel line address, unless I'm mistaken that's not the case on the pcw16.

I do remember having a discussion with the guy that wrote the underlying screen routines for the OS and he explained they were so slow because on the bank gap that happened twice a screen, which I do recall thosuhg what it was exactly I can't. If they had a definable table for each line this wouldn't be the case surely. But then again it was 16 odd years ago and my memory sucks. Not read the Roseanne docs for years upon years

have you thought about using a website like http://www.blurb.com (http://www.blurb.com) to upload your finished Arnold book to?

Have you thought about publishing your unfinished book in the CPCwiki for other to finish?

So is it abandoned? 

If others are interested in writing -NOT an easy task, mind you- we could perhaps organise it and even crowsdource its publishing...?

I am just assuming, I think I read so years ago over at Retro Gamer

This would be a great shame :(

I've only just seen this.  I'd like a copy.  I'm sure if you got a buch of pre-orders a publisher may take you more seriously.   Alternatively, perhaps a kickstarter would work?   Finally, perhaps approach the publishers of the recent commodore / amiga / atari history style books?


It would be a massive shame if this was abandoned.

Yeah, I'd love to see one so much, too...

I started reading Speccy Nation yesterday. It's very basic (only B&W, only one screen/game and it's only a printout of a Word document unfortunately), but very nice to read and hey, it was only €4.5...

To anyone intrested, I'm in the progress of writing a CPC 30th Anniversary book which I'd be publishing (hopefully) through Lulu..

Quote from: Trebmint on 16:30, 28 January 10
If only symbos had existed they could of had a real nice machine.

Maybe we will see a PCW16 version soon? I had a look at the screenshots of the standard PCW-version. Looks really nice for a Z80 computer

Quote from: Trebmint on 16:30, 28 January 10
Oh well atleast the OS sucked bigtime

What's bad about Roseanne? (I got a 16 too).

Just finish it we need reminder of our youth to be in physical form.

I'm a bit late to this, but I would say: please add £££ to the price but get a good editor so the text and the layout are as professional as possible.

There are too many publications recently that let me down because I can't ignore how amateur they look and feel, and it is a shame. The CPC deserves better!

Quote from: reidrac on 11:16, 06 May 19
I'm a bit late to this, but I would say: please add £££ to the price but get a good editor so the text and the layout are as professional as possible.

There are too many publications recently that let me down because I can't ignore how amateur they look and feel, and it is a shame. The CPC deserves better!

Somebody give the man a medal :)

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Quote from: Vince on 15:47, 26 June 20
Kizza being one. His A-Z of Amstrad games is possibly the worst of his 'books'.

Agree. Bought that book. Udderly junky and a couple more for the Kindle, they are only 1.99 $. Which is actually a fair price. Of course, you have to buy "Volume 1" and "Volume 2" - only purpose seems to be to maximize revenue. And the selection of reviewed games is just junk. No Fruity Frank, No Sorcery Plus, come on! Do you know *anything* about the platform? Apparently not.

For a bit of drama on the A-Z series, read https://atariage.com/forums/topic/300891-the-review-of-a-z-of-atari-st-games-volume-3-book-retrolaird-is-trying-to-delete/ or go on twitter :D

Hahah, a 67 pages long thread! My lord. Atari(r)Age, the retro drama specialists  ;D

Yeah, a very slow day here and even I am still on page 4 :D

Wow, I had no idea this book / author was so infamous! Seems someone from the CPC community needs to put out a review of the Amstrad version of the A-Z...  :laugh:

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Quote from: Vince on 17:04, 29 June 20
Someone clicked that he has actually selected the same games over and over for each of the 'books', in a lot of cases he has reviewed the game on say Spectrum, then bunged the same review into each C64, Spectrum, Amstrad even Amiga and ST editions and just changed the words a wee bit.

They are not worth even £1.99. He claims to be 'Mr Atari' but he isn't Mr. Anything, has no actual retro game knowledge and just bangs them out to cash in.

Yeah, I had mentioned his copying the reviews in my review, though I was trying to take it in good faith. Back when I bought some of these and reviewed them I quite enjoyed them as cheap, throwaway fun, but only because I didn't know who the guy was. Some time ago I caught some of the drama on Twitter and now I wouldn't touch them with a ten-foot pole since it's obvious the guy is a con man and these books, far from being cheap and cheerful, are just a moneygrab.

I made the mistake of shelling out for a few of these A - Z books before I twigged they were a cut & paste job with minimal effort. Wouldn't do it again or recommend them to anyone.

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The AA thread is now 70 pages & it's been closed for posting.


As an aside, the folk at World of Spectrum are not very impressed with the guy, either (14 page thread(.

My two cents on this subject would be;-


Make the book the same dimensions as the Amstrad books published by Melbourne House back in the day, which was 14cm wide X 21cm high. It would be better to increase the number of pages (if necessary)  and make it a more readable size to hold.


Secondly, does it really need to be colour? Unless you can really justify the colour (e.g. 25% of the book has colour pictures), then stick with black and white.


As for the price, that really depends on the content. If the book isn't much better than a year of Amstrad Computer User magazines, then it is too much. You need to ask yourself what are you bringing to the market that is new and fresh, or much sort after by the people that collect CPC computers. If the book can be considered a definitive work on the subject of the Amstrad CPC computers (or near as damn) then £20-£25 for a black & white print copy is not too much to ask.


I shouldn't worry too much about a pdf or kindle version, unless either of the following criteria are met,
a) You've had at least a year of good sales, and considering a reprint, and an e-book version will help to pay for the reprint.
b) It's such a dismal flop in the first 3-6 months after release, that you want to try to get some money back on the print copies that have failed to sell.


As for me, I would buy it as long as it is professionally done. I suspect your biggest hurdle would be to let the many CPC collectors know that it is out. I would also suggest that once you have your printed book then you should also put one copy at a time on e-bay with a buy it now price, so that any collector that doesn't frequent the on-line forums will see it, and know that it is available. Selling on e-bay one at a time, could be a cheap form of advertising to collectors like myself who have "Amstrad book" as a saved search with email notifications every time somebody posts one for sale.

Would you consider to release it under Amazon self punishing? Then everyone can get a printed copy on demand.

I do not exactly know how it works, but this here is a book released that way:
https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B08W7DWZB3/ref=ox_sc_act_title_1?smid=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&psc=1

Here the author talks about it
https://youtu.be/lfIgG2WbmGw

@SerErris  I have that book it's really good.
The author is a forum member  :D

Excellent news! Richard Clayton, the man behind Locomotive, has agreed to be interviewed for the book. He has also agreed to write the preface for the book. (https://pettihome.shop/collections/accappatoi-microfibra) I felt it was critical for Roland Perry or Richard to do this because, let's face it, without the locomotive basic, the CPC would not have been the same machine, if it existed at all.

i think the history of the plus machines would be a good addition

Why not call Sir Alan Sugar also?  he is contactible via phone actually - via his reception.