To my amazement, here we are in mid-2008 and my little book on mashups continues to sell and get good feedback.
In the past 12 months I have received a good amount of emails from readers, mostly with questions but almost all emailers tend to include a brief word or two on how much they've enjoyed the book. As my first effort into the world of writing this is great to hear.
Within that feedback I've heard a few consistent messages:
a) This book does a good job of laying out the solution from a 50,000 foot level. It seems this is missing from most tech books (something I was conscious of when writing).
b) This book then does a similarly decent job of describing the details.
c) Lastly, and this is probably why it's still selling; this book not only provides specific examples but more importantly it lays out generic techniques, not tied to any one API that are broadly re-usable across many different use cases. Yes the book highlights Amazon (and Google, eBay, etc.) but since it has a technique focus rather than an API focus the book seems to have a bit more longevity.
So I just wanted to thank all those that have read the book and reached out to me. It's been a very rewarding experience for me personally and I hope folks continue to find this book relevant for many years to come.
-Francis Shanahan
http://www.FrancisShanahan.com