The World of Computer Software

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Text File | 1992-11-30 | 26KB | 483 lines

╥ ╥ ┬ ╥──┐ ─╥─ ╓─╥─┐ ╥──┐ ╥──┐ ╖ ╓─┐ ╥──┐ ╥──┐ ╥──┐ ╓──┐ ╓─╥─┐ ║ ║ │ ╟─┬┘ ║ ║ ╟─ ╟─┬┘ ╜ ╙─┐ ║ │ ╟─┬┘ ╟─ ╟──┤ ║ ║ │ ╙─╨─┘ ╨ ┴ ─╨─ ╨ ╨──┘ ╨ ┴ ╙──┘ ╨──┘ ╨ ┴ ╨──┘ ╨ ┴ ╨ ╨ ┴ Redactor: with author's permission BOTH reader program AND the BOOK CONSTRUCTION program (edits BOOK.CFG) is included with the magazine and you are very velcome to test it out for yourself ... below follows the instructions for using Dream: ┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐ └──────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘ WRITER'S DREAM Unregistered Shareware Version 3.0 Copyright 1992, Jeff Napier & Another Company INTRODUCTION What Writer's Dream Can Do For You Judging by the correspondence that comes to Another Company, we have found out that most of our customers are good writers. Most of you also know something very useful and possibly unique. Perhaps you are a retired glass blower, or know everything about training seeing-eye dogs, or could teach people how to cook nutritious foods. Perhaps you could write a course in industrial grinder safety, or volleyball, or advanced electronics, or elementary geology. Maybe you would be good at writing science fiction or children's stories. But why bother? Becoming a published writer is nearly as difficult as becoming a rock 'n' roll star. Self-publishing costs money and requires marketing skill. GUESS WHAT? There is another way to be published that works for absolutely everybody! Yet, almost no one knows about it. Using this technique costs almost nothing, but literally millions of people will read your writing! You can make unlimited money! What am I talking about? The Writer's Dream. The Writer's Dream is a way to put your information on IBM-compatible disks. If you can operate any word processing program, you can do this: Let's say you have written a disk about house cats. You release it as a shareware product. This means you send copies to some shareware distributors. There are 72 million IBM-compatible computer users in America. Almost all of them are frequent shareware buyers. Some of them will get your disk, and they will make copies, which will in turn be read and copied by others. Eventually, one person out of every ten is likely to read your disk-based cat book. You, with your own little computer, will be an author with 7.2 million readers! And that's not all. You can put a commercial in your disk which inspires some of the readers to send you money. For instance, your commercial could introduce another disk-based book you have also written, called Dogs. Dogs is not shareware. The only way the readers can get your excellent dog disk is to send you $19.95! If only one out of every 100 of these 7.2 million people send you money, you'll make over one million dollars! No doubt you see the potential! In fact, since you can put text on a disk and therefore create information of interest to others, shareware is only one means of distribution. You might like to use it for in-house training or disk-based conferencing within your company, or you might like to create and sell a retail disk-based book product. Do Electronic Books Work? ALMANAC 1992 is one of the hottest selling titles in shareware. It is not a video game or a spreadsheet. No, it is just text files! I have also written several non-shareware electronic books that sell very well through mail-order distribution. Some of these are GARAGE SALES FOR FUN AND PROFIT and THE COMPLETE GUIDE TO THE HOME-OPERATED BICYCLE BUSINESS. In fact, even though I am a programmer, my single best selling 'program' is not a program, just a text-based tutorial, an electronic book. And, as you can see, I am not a professional writer! All I do is write my stuff as if I were writing a letter to a friend. So, I recommend you give it a try. Write about anything in which you have some knowledge, anything in which you are interested. Release it as shareware, and watch what happens! About the User Interface There are a few other text presentation programs on the market, but so far as I know, none are as easy-to-use for both the author and the end user as this one. Writer's Dream is colorful, even allowing the reader to change the colors to suit individual taste. Writer's Dream has some special features such as automatic electronic indexing, on-line help, and "Autoscroll." Automatic indexing simply means that the reader can press the [S] key at any time, type any word or phrase, and instantly find it anywhere within a chapter. Autoscroll is really neat. Simply type a number from 1 to 9 while reading, and the program will scroll the text past your eyes at whatever speed is comfortable. Changing the autoscroll speed is as simple as pressing another number key. Writer's Dream requires absolutely no learning on the part of the reader. They will be able to read your book instantly. Not only is it super-simple, it is becoming common. Many readers are already familiar and comfortable with Writer's Dream. The Writer's Dream main menu is mouse-driven for those who prefer a mouse interface. And, new for this version 3.0, you can now put programs on the main menu as well as text files. When the user selects a program, it will run normally, then return to the menu. This means you can mix programs to display graphics or allow user input within your text presentations! The next chapter will instruct you in how to create your own book with Writer's Dream. Note: This is the shareware version. If you create and make copies of a disk-based book, you are required to purchase a license. See the TO PLACE AN ORDER (ORDER.DOC) chapter for details. ANOTHER NOTE: Writer's Dream is presented on an as-is basis. I make no claims or warranties as to suitability to your purposes, and will absolutely not be responsible for any situations which arise due to your use of this program. _____________________________________________________________ chapter end. Chapter 2: How to use Writer's Dream The first thing you should understand is that this very information you are reading now is being presented with Writer's Dream. You are reading an electronic book. This one has only a few chapters, but your book can have up to 20 chapters. We are using Writer's Dream to teach you about Writer's Dream! As you read this chapter, you may find some items temporarily confusing. Don't worry, with some experimenting it will all make sense. In fact, unless you are already a very experienced computer user, some experimenting will probably be necessary. Be patient. Enjoy. These are the files on your disk: BEGIN.BAT - A batch file so that a beginner can type BEGIN to start reading this electronic book. DREAM.EXE - The runtime module that actually displays text files ('chapters') This program you will copy and distribute with your finished product. BOOK.CFG - A special file which DREAM.EXE needs to know your chapter names and files. This is created by BUILD.EXE and will be automatically customized for your electronic book. WHATSNEW - A text file containing a general overview of new features. CHAPTER.1 - The text file which contains my introduction to Writer's Dream. CHAPTER.2 - The text file which you are now reading. BUILD.EXE - The program which you will use to create your own electronic book. Once used, you can discard this program, it is not needed once your book is created. EXE.DOC - A text file explaining how to mix .EXE, .COM and .BAT files into your text presentations. ORDER.EXE - A program to create your own optional order form which you can distribute along with your disk-based book. ORDER.FRM - An order form with which you can order WRITER'S DREAM, also provided as a example to use with ORDER.EXE SPACE.EXE - To add a "professional" looking left margin to your text files. REPAIR.EXE - A program which will change non-standard text files created by some word processing programs into pure ASCII (normal) text. ORDER.DOC - To place an order. MORE.DOC - Instructions for the other programs on this disk. The General Principal Of Operation Using an ordinary word processor, you create files of text on disk. These files will be like chapters in a book. Using BUILD.EXE you will create a file called BOOK.CFG which will tell DREAM.EXE the names of your chapters. You create a master disk containing your chapters and DREAM.EXE and BOOK.CFG. Make and distribute copies of this master for others to read. INSTRUCTIONS 1. Make your chapters. Use any word processor. If your word processor is one that normally makes non-ASCII text, use the ASCII mode (or 'non-document' or 'print to disk', depending on your word processor). All standard word processors can make ASCII files, but you may have to read the instructions that came with your word processor for details. You can have up to 44 chapters and they can each be as long as you like. THERE SHOULD BE NO LINES LONGER THAN 80 CHARACTERS. Obviously, the total size of all your chapters cannot be more than one disk will hold. If they are, make a two-disk ('two-volume') book, using Writer's Dream for each disk. 2. Copy DREAM.EXE and BUILD.EXE onto a blank, formatted disk. Then copy all your chapters (files) onto the same disk. There must be at least 2000 bytes (2k) free space left on the disk. Safely store your original Writer's Dream disk in case your working copy become damaged. (And because the BOOK.CFG file will be changed) 3. Type BUILD and press [Enter]. This is the setup program for Writer's Dream. It will allow you to enter the title, your name, and your chapters as they will appear in the 'menu'. The menu is a 'live table of contents' - the first screen the user will see when they start to read your book. It will look just like what you see if you press the [Esc] key now, except it will have your chapters instead of mine. Your electronic book can have from one to 44 chapters, this one has just a few chapters. 4. After a welcome screen, the BUILD program starts with the title box. This resides on the left side of the user menu. You can enter up to 3 lines of text here. Our example looks like this: WRITER'S DREAM by Another Company To edit any line, just move the highlight bar with the arrow keys to the line you want to edit, then press the backspace key or hold [Ctrl] and press [Y] to delete what's there. Then type your own line. Your lines must be less than 56 characters long. Do not center your lines, the program will do this automatically later. When done editing the lines to contain your title and name and possibly subtitle, just press the [Esc] key. The program will remember your changes. 5. Now you will be shown a bigger box. This is the Table of Contents. In the left of this box you will enter your chapter names as you want them to appear on the menu. Just delete my example chapters, and type in your own. You can delete a line by using the [BKSP] key or by holding [Ctrl] while you press [Y]. On the right side of this same box are the files that contain your chapters. In other words, if you have written a chapter called INTRODUCTION and it is in a file called INTRO.DOC, you would type INTRODUCTION on the top left line, and INTRO.DOC on the right side. This is how the program knows to display the text in INTRO.DOC when the user selects INTRODUCTION. If you have more chapters than can be shown in this box at one time, simply use the up and down arrow keys to scroll through. Do not precede filenames with a drive or path. If you were to put C:\MYBOOK\INTRO.DOC, the program will not work properly on other people's computers, unless they also happen to have a sub-directory called MYBOOK on their C: drive. Do not type A:INTRO.DOC either, for the same reason. Someone might purchase your electronic book and put it in their B: drive, and it wouldn't work. Do not leave blank lines between your chapters. Each chapter must have a corresponding file where the text is to be found. You have a limit of 34 characters for each chapter name. Your filenames must be ordinary DOS-legal filenames. You can have as many as 44 chapters or as few as 1. Because the Dream menu becomes triple-wide when displaying more than 24 chapters, you must not have more than 23 characters in each chapter name if you have more than 24 chapters. When done with this section of the program, just press the [Esc] key. 6. The program will ask you some questions. The first is about sound effects. If you like the sounds, answer [Y] and the same sounds will occur for your readers. (The readers can optionally switch off the sound effects from within the DREAM program by pressing the [T] key.) If you answer the question about sound effects with [N] then there will be no sound effects in your book unless the reader presses the [T] key. Then you have a choice of centered or left-justified table of contents. The normal choice is [C], but if you want all your chapter names to be shifted to the left, press [L]. Finally, the program will ask you if you want to create a new book. This is your last chance to cancel by pressing [N]. If you press [Y], then whatever previous book setup existed on disk will be lost and a new one written. The BUILD program creates a file called BOOK.CFG. This is where the table of contents information is stored on your disks. So, before you create a new book, if you'll ever want to read this example book again, make a backup copy. 7. You will probably have to experiment with the BUILD program several times before you fully understand it and can create the perfect product of your dreams with your own text files. That's ok, in fact, just fine. Each time you restart the BUILD program, it will show your previous configuration so that you can edit only the parts you want to change. When done with BUILD, type DREAM at the DOS prompt and test your whole book. If you have accidentally misspelled a filename, or put the a filename next to the wrong chapter name, you'll see the problem. 8. HINT: To make your disk easier to use for beginners (and everyone) you can copy BEGIN.BAT from the Writer's Dream disk onto your disk-based book. Then, on the disk label you can type this line: "Type BEGIN and press [Enter]." 9. HINT #2: If you want your text to look better on-screen - just like this text - in your word processing program, set your left margin to 10 and your right margin to 70. Note to Word Perfect 5.X and MS-Word users: Your word processing programs are capable of ASCII (.ASC) files, but may not preserve the left margin when converted. To fix this problem, use SPACE.EXE, described in a later chapter. 10. DELETE BUILD.EXE from your final disk. This program is only the setup utility of Writer's Dream. The only program required for your distribution version is DREAM.EXE, and of course the configuration file called BOOK.CFG. 11. Test your new electronic book carefully. Make sure you have not misspelled a filename, or left anything out. Make sure you don't have any chapter names without a corresponding file name on the right side of the box. There are some things you can do to make sure you get more readers and that they are more likely to send you money. * Consider your title carefully. It must attract attention. * Make sure your first 100 words are very powerful. Shareware buyers often buy 20, 40 or even 100 disks at a time. As you would expect, each individual disk is not regarded as particularly important to these folks. They will put each one in the slot and give it five minutes. If it doesn't grab their attention, out it goes! If it does get their interest, they'll read it from one end to the other! * Make sure your advertising is well written. If you simply ask for a donation, you won't get much. One of the best things you can do is use your disk to sell something else. A same-subject, volume 2, or another disk-based book covering a different but related subject will be easy to sell. * If you are already in a business, consider using a disk-based book to sell your product. For instance, if you sell seeds, you could write a book about gardening and tell your readers to call or write for a free catalog. * The more copies you send out, the more readers you will get. A good idea is to send to as many shareware distributors as you can. Most distributors will gladly list your disk in their catalogs. Remember that shareware has a lot of inertia. It can take over a year between the time you introduce a shareware product and the time you start getting money. This is because it takes that long for distributors to get it into their catalogs, and for friends to make copies for friends, etc. It takes most users quite a while to switch from considering sending you some money to actually doing it. (Of course you may start getting SOME money within the first two months.) Shareware also has a long burnout period. If you put your phone number in your disk, you may be answering requests for orders or free catalogs for years into the future! Now is the time to write that book you've always dreamed about! Thanks, I hope you enjoy and prosper from this program, Jeff Napier d.b.a Another Company May 12, 1992 P.S. For your convenience I have written a disk-based book called SUCCESS WITH SHAREWARE. It is about the shareware business for programmers and text-writers alike. Learn all the professional tips for successful shareware authorship, learn all the pitfalls to avoid. Can you succeed without Success With Shareware? Yes! But why learn everything the hard way? I've packed tons of experience into Success With Shareware to save you years of fooling around. Not only is it based on my own experience but also contains the fruits of knowledge gained from conversation, correspondence and study with other shareware authors. Success With Shareware contains sales frequency charts, ideas for subjects to write about, techniques in advertising, and techniques for ensuring maximum exposure of your shareware to the public. Send $29.95 for your copy of SUCCESS WITH SHAREWARE. I'll send it to you immediately. (Please specify 5.25" or 3.5" disk size.) P.S. #2: How would you like a list of over 200 shareware distributors who would like to review your shareware products for inclusion in their catalogs? Send $29.95 for this very up-to-date list and bump your new career into high gear. (Please specify 5.25" or 3.5" disk size.) _____________________________________________________________ chapter end. How to Order Software Excitement! handles our registrations: You can phone them toll-free at: 1-800-444-5457 Overseas and questions: 503-826-8083 Fax: 503-826-8090 To place your order by mail, send check or money order to: Software Excitement! 6475 Crater Lake Hwy Central Point, OR 97502 Copying and distributing anything presented with Writer's Dream requires a license, whether the distribution is by shareware, retail sales, or merely passed around the office. If you create only one book, the cost is $19.95. You can make as many copies as you like, but they must be all of the same book. For $59.95, you can create and distribute an unlimited number of books using Writer's Dream. (A catalog which is updated periodically counts as a single product.) Site licenses also available. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Price list: WRITER'S DREAM, Single Product License: ...$19.95 WRITER'S DREAM, Multiple Product License: .$59.95 SUCCESS WITH SHAREWARE: ...................$29.95 MAILING LIST - SHAREWARE DISTRIBUTORS: ....$29.95 US & Canada Postage & Handling: add $4.00 per order Overseas Postage & Handling: add $10.00 per order 3.5" Disk size: add $1.00 per order - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Technical assistance, ranting & raving, praise (!?), site licensing information and all non-order correspondence should be addressed to the author: Jeff Napier Another Company P.O. Box 298 Applegate, OR 97530 The operators at Software Excitement! do not have any information beyond order info. _____________________________________________________________ chapter end.