Over the last few weeks I have been working on producing another ebook release, which is part of my ongoing experimentation with the Amazon Kindle platform.

What Is the Publication About?

It all started with a post I had written a while ago that gave the name for this release which is called “Education Is A Cow That Anyone Can Milk” (see cover below) – which is a modified quote of something my high-school maths teacher was fond of saying.

Basically, this release is a collection of essays that have originally appeared on this blog, coupled with an introduction and a conclusion. The essays have been polished and re-edited and arranged in a completely new way.

The nine essays included in this volume all express a simple idea from different angles: Education is Changing.

Like in any era of change the number of false prophets and premature conclusions is high.

Anyone is “milking” education, be it startups looking for new markets or politicians.

In Hong Kong private tutors are raking in millions while public education all over the world is plummeting.

It’s a time of great changes and even greater confusion.

These essays are not designed to give final answers but to outline the spectrum of discourse and (hopefully) further the debate by introducing more perspectives.

From the beginning, I planned to submit this publication as part of the Kindle Single program.

What Is Kindle Single?

In Amazon’s own words the Single format is “writing that doesn’t easily fall into the conventional space limitations of magazines or print books. Kindle Singles are typically between 5,000 and 30,000 words” with a list price between $0.99 and $4.99

“Education Is A Cow That Anyone Can Milk” is 8072 words long, fitting perfectly in the range. (Price is still unclear but will probably be between $0.99 and $2.99)

The moment I send it to Amazon, its editors will review it carefully. If it will be accepted it will be published in a designated area of the Kindle Store under Kindle Singles and hopefully reach many more readers beyond this blog.

UPDATE: This feed-back round is over. Amazon is busy reviewing.

UPDATE 2: Amazon didn’t want it (their lack) but it’s now available to the public, here.

And this is where you come in… How You Can Help I want to make sure that this release is the best it can be before I submit it to the Amazon editors. If you want to help me with this, I’ll send you a PDF copy of the text as it is now so you can read it, add comments (preferably by inserting comments directly in the PDF) and send it back to me. In return I’ll post your name (and webpage or blog, if you got one) both at the end of this book and in a follow-up article on this blog so that you’ll get a bit of link-juice for your efforts. Interested? Here’s how it goes: Since the Kindle Submission Policy demands that the release is not published anywhere else on the Web in its entirety I cannot put a download link here. Therefore, if you want to help 1. Leave a comment below. Just a few words like “I want to help.” or “send me a copy” will be enough. Make sure, though, to enter your correct email address and webpage in the comment submission form so I’ll know your name and website. 2. You’ll get an email from me with the book attached as PDF 3. Take your time to read it, add annotations, jot down thoughts, etc and send it back to me within the next 7-14 days. I’m planning to submit the final version to the Amazon team in about 20 days from now. Again, it’s rather short with its 8,072 words, filling only 42 PDF pages, so for average readers it won’t take a long time. I’m planning to collect as much valuable input on this publication as possible. Even if you wildly disagree with or seem to find argumentative holes in my essays, tell me all about it. Make sure to be constructive, though, so that I will know how to improve something or why you think I should. Even if you just find a typo or a missing comma, I’ll be grateful. You don’t have to be a professional copy-editor. Just read the text casually and leave a few thoughts for me along the way. Ready? Leave a comment below and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks so much, André P.S: Please share this blog-post on your favorite network so that it reaches as many people as possible.