Last week I was asking around* about how to publicize Cartographer’s Toolkit more. The reason this came up was that I finally sat down and calculated total sales since publication for Cartographer’s Toolkit vs. total sales for GIS Cartography. Now, there are a few important differences between the books:

Cartographer’s Toolkit

• published in paperback in 2012, published in electronic (pdf) form in 2011
• not available on kindle due to kindle publishing not being good enough for such a graphic-intense book (there are about 30 individual graphics on some pages)
• Aimed at providing an easy-to-flip-through experience for experienced cartographers seeking fresh typeface, color palette, and map design ideas
• self-published and therefore self-marketed
• marketed via messages on twitter (many), cartotalk (1), a small email group I belong to, and a few other small outlets. Also featured in GIS User and a few international cartography publications.
• mentioned and reviewed on several blogs
• almost 3 times cheaper than GIS Cartography

GIS Cartography

• 1st edition published in 2009, 2nd edition published in 2014
• available on kindle
• provides a comprehensive textbook for undergrads, graduates, improving and experienced professionals
• published by CRC Press
• present at many conference venues via CRC Press
• marketed to professors via CRC Press

Cartographer’s Toolkit is being under-marketed as shown by the fact that total sales have been at about 1/2 those of GIS Cartography. Even though GIS Cartography has been out much longer, it is also much more expensive. This makes me believe that Cartographer’s Toolkit has the potential to reach a much wider audience. All this is to say that I’m tossing around ideas to get the word out about the book more. I got some great advice via twitter, so I’ll start to implement some of those ideas in the future (including emailing groups that have people who may not read twitter). One of the nicest things about asking on twitter was all the positive feedback I got on the book from those who have actually used it in their own cartographic endeavors.

Brian Bancroft said, “Cartographer’s Toolkit has been a boon to me. Some of my private sample maps even scored me a job as a field cartographer in the resource center in a faraway province. I will have a lot more spare time on airplanes to do reading as a result [to read GIS Cartography]. Thanks again for doing what you do. You do it well.”

When, in other ages, have authors been able to get such direct and quick feedback from their readers? I think that’s part of the reason that books are still being created at a fierce pace these days: the interactive component with readership.

Onward to marketing. A writer’s job is never done.

*Asking around = asking on twitter

The Tableau Conference 2014 (#DATA14) was held this week, featuring some outstanding speakers: Hans Rosling, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Michael Lewis, to name a few. Alberto Cairo, @albertocairo, also gave a talk but contributed a tremendous amount by live tweeting for those of us who couldn’t be there in person. In particular, his tweeted pictures of Rosling holding a giant arrow pointer, with an actual arrow at the end, were both amusing and informative. It’s nice to learn facts about the world while also learning how best to chart and display data.

I've seen @HansRosling do this 100+ times, but it still makes me laugh every single time pic.twitter.com/CeGsKcIgBK

— Alberto Cairo (@albertocairo) September 11, 2014

Visualization is always based on compromises. You cannot answer every potential user's question with just a single chart @acotgreave #data14

— Alberto Cairo (@albertocairo) September 11, 2014

That assertion applies equally well to a very common problem we have in both paper and digital mapping, one that has been with us for decades: the boss or client who wants 10 data layers on a single map when it would be best to separate the layers into individual maps.

The FOSS4G (Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial) conference is still going on, finishing with a code sprint on Saturday and Sunday. You can view the live stream of the talks for the rest of today and the recordings will be available sometime in the near future according to @foss4g.

Ian Schneider, who has been at Boundless a lot longer than I have, gave a great introduction to MapStory. I liked his talk because it focused on how four power-users of MapStory use the product. This makes it personal, interesting, and at the same time introduces us to the concepts behind the site. It’s a good presentation technique.

Our colleague, Benjamin Trigona-Harany, gave the QGIS for Analysts workshop for the first time at FOSS4G. I had a very small part in producing the workshop materials and it was a lot of fun to put together. To try and come up with a “typical” GIS analysis workflow while using interesting data that would yield interesting results and show off the capabilities of QGIS was a much harder thing to do than I had realized! But in the end we settled on showing off the processing capabilities of QGIS (it has an interface that allows you to link multiple processes together and run it like a program, similar to other products) via a Wyoming antelope habitat analysis. Essentially, we figured out what types of habitat the antelope favored based on their ranges overlayed with raster data like elevation and landuse.

URISA’s GIS-Pro Annual Conference finished up yesterday. The tweets revealed that there was a good mixture of professionals at the conference and a good turnout. I wish I hadn’t missed NOAA’s talk on sea level rise and coastal flooding. Now that would have made a very interesting QGIS analysis too. I’m very impressed that part of the conference program included a half-day community project involving property condition field data collection. Hey, that would have been another good case study for a QGIS analysis workshop. One’s work is never done.

Full house #GISPro2014 pic.twitter.com/8E3BzX5KCf

— URISA (@URISA) September 9, 2014

The long-awaited (at least by me) second edition of GIS Cartography: A Guide to Effective Map Design is finally in stock and available for purchase.

With Special Thanks to the Following For Their Contributions:
Kyle Schaper
Mamata Akella
Cezar Buterez
Michael Bowser
James Whitacre
Matt Layman
David Nash
Allison Bailey
Matt Stevenson
Elliot Hartley
Evan Centanni
Hans van der Maarel
Jack Dangermond
J. Edward Pickle
Dave Imus
Karsten Venemann
and many more

With extra-special thanks for the cover map conceived and designed by Dan Bowles.

You may want this book for its two new chapters on projections and zoom-level design. Many of the examples were updated and a lot of the text was updated.

Memories:
And Now, a Picture From A Satisfied Customer, in which someone sends me a picture of their baby looking at the 1st edition! If this doesn’t motivate someone to write a 2nd edition, nothing will. Afterall, somebody is actually reading it! Okay, looking at it. Okay, drooling on it and probably chewing on it. But still.

Quietness, in which a cat symbolizes quiet typing time and an undercurrent of impatience at the long process of writing a book is hinted at.

Ice Cream and Topology, in which I promise myself an ice cream cone for finishing and describe how one of the example maps was updated. Yes, I did get the ice cream, though I think I went with Cold Stone ice cream cupcakes (6 pack) instead, which I’m sure we can all agree was the better choice.

Party Time, in which I finish writing. Also featuring a globe, a wig, and a glass of wine.

Just a few short notes for this Friday:

• Follow Mike Bostock on twitter. He’s the d3js guy and the NY Times Graphics Editor.
• You might have seen my video on using QGIS to enter in the SF Bike Share Open Data Challenge. Here’s the blog post to go with it and here are the winners of the challenge. I was disappointed not to see much geo / mapping going on in the entries.
• A lot of geo people still don’t get projections. Who can blame them. If you want a really good intro to projections, I have to recommend the treatment of it in several chapters of Dent’s book. I don’t normally recommend this book since it is quite dry, but if you are willing to get into the weeds of the subject, this would be the best place to start. I’ll recommend my own chapter on projections once the 2nd edition is published (May 22!).

It’s been a busy few weeks around here so there hasn’t been a post. But that’s okay, nobody was around to read posts anyway, I’m sure! We’ve been doing lots of skiing at our favorite out-of-the-way podunk downhill place in Wyoming. Which reminds me of this old Wyoming map:

Now I’m started on The New Year’s Project. Painting the dining room to create a swanky new room-scape. We’re going with dark purple. If I’ve got the time I’ll paint two huge acrylic black and silver owl paintings to go on the wall. And we’ll put the black map sticker back up too.

Black, silver, and dark purple. Now there’s a sweet color palette for a dining room. I say this now, before it’s done. You know, Helen Keller said, “Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.”

Confidence at the beginning of a project is often due to sheer ignorance of the size of a project and the effort required to finish it. This goes for map making as well. In the middle of the project is where you start to lose faith but hopefully perservere to the last phase of the project, which envelopes you in exhaustion and hatred for all things related to what you’re doing. The only thing that allows a person to finish is determinitation not to be a loser. Basically.

Mark Twain: “To succeed in life, you need two things: ignorance and confidence.”

Someone asked me the other day how I have been in business for so long (since 2001) when a lot of other solo GIS consultants have called it quits. They thought for sure that I must be a whiz at networking. On the contrary, I wish I were. I’m terrible at networking. But somehow I manage to hold on to clients who stay for many years. It’s probably that dogged need I have to finish something as well as I can.

Once I spent an entire weekend, almost around the clock retrofitting a client’s backpack GPS unit so it work with an HP iPAQ (remember those?). It required a special ferry trip to Seattle to go to an electronics part store and many calls to an electrical engineer who I got on board to help out with the wiring. I was given the task literally on a Thursday and had to have it delivered to the client by Monday morning so his field crew could go out and survey manholes before he left for a 6 week Alaskan fishing trip.

Another time a client needed a cms “like yesterday” for their website. I knew nothing about it but I broke out my superperson costume and saved the day (okay, it took a couple of days to implement, but still.)

One client has stayed with me since 2003. My hope 2014 brings more work from old clients and perhaps some new.

What are your 2014 projects? What are your “I need it yesterday” client moments? Let’s hope I don’t have to call in a superman consultant to finish this New Year’s dining room ren-o.