I was told in the past week that writing books isn't a good way to get info to the avg #nlproc person because the avg CS student doesn't read books---only web pages, I guess. (& videos.) I'd love for that claim to be proven wrong. If it's not wrong, how can we change this?
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If I knew I were to start working on a larger project for a longer time frame, definitely! Unfortunately, all I projects I currently work on are fairly short-term, which makes it difficult to prioritize reading books over "Getting Things Done".
Just coming across this conversation (as the author of http://neuralnetworksanddeeplearning.com ). @emilymbender's original question is of great interest to me. I've published two books the conventional way, as well as that book-length "web page".
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The process was very similar in all cases, although the webpage has the benefit that I was able to make some pieces live and executable (very helpful in places).
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The larger benefit was in reach. A very successful specialist text will be lucky to reach tens of thousands of readers. Optimistically, perhaps 10,000 will engage seriously with it. My online book has had 3 million readers from 229 countries.
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Google Analytics suggest several hundred thousand have engaged moderately seriously with the book, and perhaps ~100,000 have used it extensively. In addition, Google Scholar picks up citations, even though self-published. It's hard to imagine going back to the conventional form.
End of conversation
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