Today we reached an important milestone. We have registered over 10,000 confirmed eBook downloads. Of course we are thrilled! Over the years, we aimed to contribute relevant content to the community. For some time, we have blogged and conducted webinars on the latest technology, methods and best practices. Our eBooks were the latest addition to this mix. We received a great response with the release of our first eBook in 2014, Clinical Next-Gen Sequencing Analysis. Then again later in the year with the second eBook on Genomic Wide Association Studies (GWAS). Since then we have released five additional eBooks:
- Genomic Prediction in Agriculture
- Genetic Testing for Cancer
- Precision Medicine
- Genetic Data Warehousing
- Teaching Bioinformatics Concepts & Practical Skills
The most popular book so far has been GWAS which as received more than 3,000 downloads, followed closely by Clinical Next-Gen Sequencing Analysis with more than 2,300 downloads.
Why eBooks? Over the years, I have published with established publishers such as Springer and Addison Wesley on various computer science topics. The cycle time to get a book to market easily exceeds 18 months. Very often it takes 24 months and more if you factor in the actual time to write the content. In our industry, the shelf-life of information is very short. eBooks give us the opportunity to create content and distribute it within 3-4 months.
I want to thank our customers and the genomics community for their continued support of Golden Helix and our efforts. Since we started the eBook series, I have received great feedback and encouragement from this community. So, it will come to no surprise that there will be a new eBook coming soon! It will be released in October. Pleased stay tuned!