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Questions posted in forums during book promotions

 
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It is indeed encouraging & fortunate to have authors with us during the book promotion week to promote their books as well as answering our queries.

However, I noticed that many a times, the same old standard questions get posted/asked over & over again during different book promotions. And sadly, these don't add any value at all. They don't address any real technical issues. They just take up the bandwidth and hog the forum with unnecessary postings.

How often have you not read about posts asking for the book's TOC, sample chapters, URL, etc? With Tiger in the limelight now, we could almost always see post asking if the book addresses Tiger, or not.

I know these are some of the fundamental questions, but honestly, a search on Amazon or the publisher's website could get us the answers we're looking for. Its just a matter of whether we want to look for these basic information or we just want to post something, hoping to win a book.

Perhaps next time when we announce a book promotion, we could provide all these information together with the message. Or lock such threads once an answer had been given.

I think its kind of difficult for someone who is a total beginner in certain topics to ask technical questions on the book, especially if he doesn't own one. Thats where the importance of sample chapters come in.

Sadly, some publisher choose to offer sample chapters that just touches the surface of the topic. It's perhaps some marketing gimmick to get people interested & buy that book. But reading a chapter full of basic knowledge that most people already know, would hardly be compelling to make anyone purchase the book.

Its like entering a seminar, without given any materials in advance to read, & having the presenter flashing through his slides, and then asking if you'd any questions to ask. Kinda difficult to ask any intelligent questions since we probably cannot absorb much of the information given during the talk.
 
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