My Gift to You, my Loyal Readers, Fans and Followers: Announcing my 10th Book - this one is Free

I have reached many delightful milestones this Autumn. I am now into my 10th year of being an independent consultant. My professional career in IT and telecoms hits 20 years. In a public speaking career that has spanned 25 years, I have been seen speaking in public in 50 countries on all six inhabited continents, where I have done over 250 public presentations to a cumulative audience of over 100,000 people (and thousands of presentations more to private audiences). My press credentials have passed 300 press mentions (excluding countless book reviews). This blog is over 5 years old, and we hit the magical one millionth visitor here, earlier this summer. The reference I am most proud of, however, is how my peers trust me: I have now passed the point where over 100 books by other authors mention me. I am humbled.

AND MY 10TH BOOK

So, in light of all that, isn't it appropriate that its time for my 10th book. Really? Has time really gone so fast? Yes, the first book came out in 2002. I wonder if any of my even most loyal fans have all nine of them, haha. But yes, its time to release my 10th book today. It runs 340 pages. And because you have been so loyal to me, buying my books, visiting this blog, following me on Twitter, and meeting up with me around the world, I am happy to announce, this book is completely free!

Yes, my 10th book is entitled 'The Insider's Guide to Mobile' so it is just what you would expect from me. My very best stories, examples, theories, case studies, calculations, analysis and opinion, about where mobile is today, in late 2011. Best of all, the full book, including all its illustrations, are available in an eBook edition, which you can download now, today, and forever, for totally free. The eBook is at Lulu publishers (address and link are below).

ON FREEMIUM BASIS

A few words about that. First, this is a 'freemium' project for me. That means, typical of freemium concepts, that there are also paid versions. I will shortly release the hardcover printed (paid) version for those who prefer the 'traditional' printed book. And I will release an edited-for-small-screens pdf smartphone version (also paid). No worry, the free full eBook edition will always be also available.

Then about the free edition. It is the full 340 page book, in eBook format, but I to make it free, I have added ..ahem.. advertisements (no! Tomi! What have you done?). No, don't panic. The ads are 'fair' haha, they are mostly chapter-length excerpts from several of my recent books! So for those who might want to 'sample' some of my books, now you can. And for those who may have seen a free excerpt of one of my previous books, these chapter excerpts are all new! So unless you've read all of my books, the free 'advertising' content is at least relevant, fresh content you can read. And the excerpts are also easily marked in the eBook so you can easily skip them if you want. But isn't that a fair bargain? You get to read the full newest book for free, in exchange for 86 pages of content from my earlier books? Sound almost too good to be true?

There are also some advertisements about my consulting work (only a couple of pages intersperced in the eBook). And then - get this - at the end of every chapter, I give you my recommendation of what one or two or three books you should consider reading next, on that topic. Yes, often that includes a book of mine, but usually also a good book by one of my friends, and on several chapters, I don't recommend any of my books to read next, only those by other authors. But isn't that also a 'good value' for why this eBook is free?

BOOK IS STILL IN 'BETA'

Oh, one more thing. The book is not quite finished yet. I wanted to get it out now, before Christmas, but it still has a lot of the 'maintenance' work to do, the pagination of the Table of Contents, the Index, the bibliography, the abbreviations etc. I will finish editing the final edition over the Christmas and New Year's break, and will upload the final version in early January. That will also be free. But the main story, the actual text will not change significantly between now and then. A few of the tables have some data which needs to be updated, there are lots of typos in the manuscript, and a bit too much repetition, but I will fix those. The stories won't change. So if you want to start to read about all the inside scoop info about mobile, you can start now, and in January just return to Lulu to download the final version, still totally free.

THE LICENSE HAS ONLY 2 RESTRICTIONS

About the license. You may freely save multiple copies of it. There is no copy protection on the file.  It is a standard pdf meaning you can read it on any PC or ebook reader like Kindle or your iPad etc. You may freely download the eBook as many times as you want. You may freely forward it to anyone via email (isn't that nice?). But two things you may not do. You may not edit the pdf document, and you may not save the pdf file online.

You may quote at length from the eBook in any context. You may make a printout of the eBook if you want. You may use the illustrations in the eBook if you want. It has tons of 2010 statistics from my TomiAhonen Almanac (and brand new stats from my soon-to-be-released TomiAhonen Phone Book - including several stats never before seen in public). You may use all of those. Just don't edit the pdf file, and don't save the pdf file online, not even at a file-sharing site. All downloads online have to come from Lulu.

SEND IT TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS

Regular readers of my books and blog know, that my personal motto (imprinted on my business cards and quoted in every one of my books) is 'In a connected age, sharing information is power.' I want you to have this information. And if you find it useful, you will probably have some friends who 'should' read Tomi's tediously long blog postings, but who probably won't. Now you can give them my book! And just point them to the chapter or case study or essay you think they should read. What could be easier? And if your friend or colleague finds value in that eBook, they will thank you - and assign power to you, for sharing. Remember, in this, the connected age, sharing information is power. And you have totally the right to send that eBook to anyone you want.

The whole file of the free edition of the eBook, Tomi T Ahonen 'The Insider's Guide to Mobile' is about 9 megabytes in size, and runs about 500 pages with the excerpts and ads.

TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK

I would love to hear from you as you read it. Please bear in mind, that it is still in 'beta' version for now, so don't tell me about editing and formating and style issues, until the final edition has launched. But on the content, I would love to hear what readers of the blog here (and my Twitter followers and other fans and friends) think of it. For once, everyone gets to read one of my books. Cool.

Honestly, the only reason I get to live this 'James Bond lifestyle' travelling around the world, pretending to be the big-shot mobilist guru, is because my publishers continue to release more of my books. I could not hope to sustain a life as a consultant, if the books died up. And the reason they want to publish more of my books, is because you - my loyal readers, fans and followers - keep buying the books! I owe my whole career to you, so the least I can do, is let you all read my latest book for free. Thank you!

(PS for those who will have a miserable time reading a late draft manuscript, which honestly still has  many typos, format errors, style errors etc, it might make sense to wait until January when the final version will be published. I will tell you when that happens)

UPDATE DECEMBER 16:

I have now posted a more 'normal' announcement of the new book, with the book cover image, the table of contents, and a description of what all the book covers (100 real world examples, 11 case studies, 8 myths, 7 essays). See the book summarized here: (Tomi Ahonen 10th Book The Insider's Guide to Mobile, table of contents, cover image, summary of book)

If you don't need more info and just want the pdf file right now, the link to the free eBook edition of The Insider's Guide to Mobile, by Tomi T Ahonen is on Lulu at this link:

http://www.lulu.com/content/e-book/insiders-guide-to-mobile-free-edition/9882582

Enjoy!

Comments

[James Barnes]

Thank you very much Tomi.

[Dominic Travers]

Many thanks for sharing this book Tomi

[Carlos]

Thank you very much Tomi
(Yes, I know that I'm not original)

[Leebase]

Great idea, and thanks. I'll be sure to read.

Lee

[Jason]

Thanks for making this valuable resource available Tomi, will study, reference and hopefully interact with feedback :)

[Juha]

Kudos.

[Harha]

Thank you very much.

My only issue with this is that now I may need to buy ipad or something to get this conveniently consumed ;)

[Sami]

That's an awesome idea, thanks!

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[Tiq Chapa]

Thank you!

[Pepe]

Thanks a lot Tomi!

[Tomi Ahonen]

Thank you everybody!

It is a book for all of you! I look forward to hearing your opinions and views, please come back to this blog to discuss it after you've read it, or if you prefer, send me a private email, I am always delighted to interact with my readers.

I am so touched by the warm reception of this book

Tomi Ahonen :-)

[Romain]

Is it Christmas already ? I thought it was only in 1 week or so !
Thanks Tomi !

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Oh mon Dieu, vous êtes une personne génie et un bon photographe i comme votre grace images.

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the bigest festival-Christmas day is coming now ,so hurry up to buy the gifts for you love.

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If I got a chance, i will prefer buying the iphone 4 white but not the iphone 4 Black. Who can tell me where is the white iphone 4 available? I would really want to take one.

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Arghh.. yeah, thanks Claus212 - I didn't notice I apparently took all numbers from the wrong column for Nokia, and didn't see that being 32% (should have been 23%). So the numbers should have read 76%, 23% and 1% for Nokia. Now it is (finally) correct. Thank you

I will return to comment to the others later

Tomi :-)

[red bull hats]

Hi Tomi,
Nice post.Thank you for taking the time to publish this information very useful!
I’m still waiting for some interesting thoughts from your side in your next post thanks

[fox hats]

I enjoyed this post Abhishek. It was certainly creative and not what I was expecting when I clicked on the title – a title I might add, which is quite good. I know I had to find out what ways ‘guaranteed’ I could grow my list.

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Je vous remercie de prendre le temps de publier cette information très utile, je suis toujours en attente de quelques idées intéressantes à partir de votre c?té dans votre prochain post merci.

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