Authors love to get feedback on their work. Here, I reprint a few from the other day.

Did you know it took 9 months, 20 hours per week, for a total of 720 hours to write GIS Cartography: A Guide to Effective Map Design? And more than that, the concept was simmering for many years prior, at the beginning of my GIS analyst career, when I realized there was an extreme dearth of accessible cartographic design guides available.

@kbrennangisp That’s one of the best cartography books available. Very practical.Great choice! @PetersonGIS

— Timothy Hales (@GISpathway) June 5, 2012

@kbrennangisp It’s a great book, Keri! I have it and love it. @PetersonGIS

— Amanda Taub (@amandahstaub) June 5, 2012

I’ve been getting some questions about the forthcoming book release. This is a good sign.

We are putting the finishing touches on it right now. The book cover and a few last minute edits are all that remain. We’ll aim to have it available for purchase–via your book retailer of choice, or through the library, though you usually have to make a special request at your library for a niche book like this–within the next month. A list of map makers who contributed to the the book were listed in a prior post.

For those who already have the Colors For Maps and Type For Maps ebooks, you will be interested to note that this upcoming book will be a print-version of those, plus an extra chapter on patterns (map techniques). The Colors chapter will also have the addition of a CMYK column. The typeface descriptions have been updated in a few cases and a few new font variants are included. So, even if you already have the Colors and Type ebooks, you may want to consider taking a look at this new print book as well.

A few “teaser” page spread thumbnails:

The list of cartographers who are contributing to my upcoming book has almost doubled since the last post on the subject. This is the list of individual authors. We’ve got one that’s a historic map and a few that are made by large groups that aren’t listed here.

Hugo Ahlenius
Allison Bailey
Chris Behee
James Cheshire
Lena Corwin
Eric Fischer
Francois Goulet
Daniel Gray
Danielle Hartman
Brendan Heberton
Christopher Helm
Benjamin Hennig
Chris Lamphear
Hans van der Maarel
Eliana Macdonald
Kris Peterson
Gretchen Peterson
Kevin-Paul Scarrott
Mike Schley
Nick Springer
Ann Stark
Matt Stevenson
Kristian Underwood
Fernanda Viegas
Martin Wattenberg

My newest cartography book (more information on the new book here) will include many map examples from a diverse group of excellent cartographers. Here is the current list of contributors, though this could be added to in the next week or so.

Nick Springer
James Cheshire
François Goulet
Allison Bailey
Mike Schley
Christopher Helm
Brendan Heberton
Lena Corwin
Ann Stark
Matt Stevenson
Hugo Ahlenius
Chris Behee
Hans van der Maarel

Don’t see someone you think should be on the list? The book required examples of specific cartographic techniques. Maps had to be identified that were both excellent and exemplified those particular cartographic techniques. Also, we’re still working on this so the list is incomplete at this time.

I’ll be judging the GISCI map contest again this year. The deadline is fast approaching for getting your entries in–April 15. See the GISCI home page for more details.

On my radar today:

1) Tom Patterson’s Shaded Relief website, wherein he offers up the spectacular FREE seafloor map of Hawaii, other great maps, data, articles, and tutorials. If you haven’t already checked out his site, it is a must-see for every cartographer.

2) I follow @cornellalumni on twitter, and today they tweeted about a Dragon Day video. I was in the midst of watching it (at minute 1:04 to be exact) when I spotted a crowd member holding up a sign saying “ArcGIS 4 FREE.” I was certainly not expecting a reference to GIS software on this video so it took me by surprise.

3) The O’Reilly Where Conference 2012 is being livestreamed via GISuser today through Thursday April 4.