Why Authors Are Reluctant Six book publishers have approached me about writing books on Java. Information is needed now, within hours. Traditional book publishing has far too long a lead time to provide current information. Many people would need just a little of the information in the book, not the whole thing. They will not be prepared to buy the whole book.
Information goes stale.
In A Nutshell contains errors because the language specification changed. The author needs the right to update the book. Trees are sacrificed for books that may be read only once or not at all. It is a waste of effort to research information and then restrict its audience only to affluent North Americans who buy the book. The need for knowledge is global.