Two very different publishing experiences!

It will probably never happen again (at least for me) but having never published a book before I had two books hit the market in the same month! My book on IT Governance in the Networked World http://www.igi-global.com/reference/details.asp?ID=33275&v=tableOfContents went down the traditional route ... 6 months to write and then 12 months from final manuscript to book on my shelf. Several editing and reviewing stages, marketing etc etc.. The second book was unplanned. A German academic publisher found my PhD thesis on-line and offered to publish it in book form at no cost. All I had to do is upload it with some additonal information and select some cover designs and press the button. All in all about 6 weeks from submission to book on my shelf (actually beating the conventional book by 2 weeks, not to mention the conventional book being sent not to my home address, but to the address of an old employer of more than 2 years ago ... you would think a simple email confirming an address might be more effective than I suspect googling me!). Both books now sit proudly together on the Amazon site http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Laurence+Lock+Lee&x=14&y=17 showing publications dates just 7 days apart, making me look a far more prolific a writer than I really am. Now I'd have to say that the traditional path book is of a much superior quality, hard covered and very professional looking. But you can't tell that on Amazon :)

One can't help but think that there has to be a middle ground and I think it will be through the use of social media. I had a conversation with Wiki evangelist Stuart Mader http://www.ikiw.org/stewart/ in a cafe in San Fancisco last year where we chatted, amongst other things, about our book publishing experiences. He managed to convince his traditional publisher to use a wiki to develop his book on wikipatterns. His time to market was similar to my second experience, though with a superior editing process happening concurrently as the book was being written. I'll definitely be trying this path next time!