I finally completed the book and delivered it to the publishers, Springer-Verlag London Ltd., yesterday. It was good to meet the folks I had been corresponding with via email. They seem very tuned in to issues of open access, visibility and the value of the long tail. I was also pleased to hear that they will be making one or two chapters of the book openly available online once it gets published.
Executive Editor, Beverley Ford and Sales Director, David Anderson even treated me to lunch, which was very decent. David suggested we change the title from 'Back to the Future: Digital Decision Making' to 'Digital Decision Making: Back to the Future', which I had no objections to, though I'd still be interested in the opinions of readers of this blog on the change.
Whilst I was being wined and dined, Jo Cooling and Helen Desmond were dissecting my printed manuscript and we had a meeting about it after lunch. They seemed genuinely enthusiastic about the final result and did a great job of making a new author feel he might have produced something worthwhile.
Beverley was interested in what my next book might be which I guess is a good sign and she asked me how I felt now the first one was completed. I told her I'd let her know today. I'm not sure it has even sunk in yet, though. Which reminds me - I have a leak in the kitchen that I've been promising to fix for the past ten days and I no longer have the excuse that I have a book to finish, so I'd better get on with it.