I'm glad to see that you have taken over WROX.

I own 6 Wrox books and the experience has been mixed. I found Beginning Active Server Pages to be a generally good book, but other books were not so helpful. Particularly- Professional ASP.NET 1.0 was perhaps the worst technical book I have ever purchased. The other books suffered from some of its problems.

Briefly...

Multiple Authors...
The whole multiple author concept produced redundant material which, combined with Wrox's poor editing, produced a hodge-podge, patch-work of merely semi-useful information.

The error plauged examples...
When I pay $50 for a technical book I want the examples to work. I it was simple enough for me to figure it out on my own I wouldn't be shelling out the money. Don't disappoint me. Charge me $60 if you want, but don't waste my time. Many professionals are very ticked off at WROX and have forsworn their stuff if my circle of aquaintances is any indication. Wiley is going to have to work hard to improve the reputation of WROX and regain trust.

Redundancy and lack of cohesion...
The content of the book should be cohesive in an organic sense. Get a general editor who understands the big picture. It is painfully obvious when you don't. Also, don't repackage the same book and resell it to us with 2% different material as the 'Professional' version. That only works once. And I certainly don't want to read the same exact information covered by multiple authors within the same book.

Finally, don't rush to be the first to press with a book on a hot technology, only to produce a book full of circular explanations that reveal that the authors themselves have not come to grasp the subject. It was almost excuseable in a book on something so amorphous as .NET, but not quite. More time spent actually explaining the principles and larger concepts of using a particular feature would be appreciated. 'ASP.NET Unleased' by Sams publishing was a much better book than the WROX's 'Professional ASP.NET 1.0' for exactly these reasons. Guess which company's books I have subsequently purchased since that time.

In spite of these complaints, I am willing to give WROX another chance to see if Wiley will steer it in a new direction.

Give us clear, helpful and insightful books and we will gladly become loyal customers.

Trey Carroll

---------------
Trey Carroll