Cyberlaw Book - Prepublication Readers

Prepublication reading of Book: Cyberlaw

Law for Digital Spaces and for Information Systems

By John Bandler

This page is for pre-publication readers only.

If you are reading this page, it is probably because I asked if you were interested in reading it and providing feedback before I publish it.

First, thank you. It helps to have others with fresh eyes read and offer their diverse feedback. It makes the book so much better and I appreciate your time.

This will be my next book, to be published January 7, 2025 (fingers crossed). This means I need any feedback well before that.

Here's some basic information

Read as much of it as you like, or as little.
Provide feedback on whatever area you like.
- Subjects you know little or nothing about (and you want to learn it, or test how the book comes across to a regular reader)
- Subjects you know lots about
Provide feedback to whatever level of detail or generality.
- Details, including commas, grammar, sentence structure, etc.
- Big picture stuff
The best way to provide feedback is whatever is convenient for you.
- If you got a Word document, I love tracked changes within the Word document, or comments within the Word document.
- If you got a Google cloud shared document, edits (suggestions) or comments within are great (check you are "suggesting" not "editing" to make changes easy for me to see, and I should make you a "commenter" not an "editor")
- Any method of providing feedback works.
Don't change the filename too much.
- Consistent filenames help me sort them and know the version date.
- You can add your initials at the end of the filename (but it's fine if you don't).
Value for me:
- Every reader has the ability to make the book better in some way
- Any correction or suggestion that might make the book better
  - Correct a mistake
- Any suggestion to help it land better with the audience, or for marketing
- A law related correction or addition
- A technology related correction or addition
- Spelling, grammar, readability, repetitiveness, clarity
- Citation consistency or accuracy
- Some other feedback.
Value for you
- Reading "like an editor" can help with learning
- Readers can learn about law, cyberlaw, and writing
- A complimentary copy when it is published
- For appropriate effort, an acknowledgement in the book and/or other places (but only if you want the acknowledgment and affirmatively consent to it).
  - (sorry, I can't offer this acknowledgement to students doing it for extra credit)

The deadlines and current stage and limits

You saw the anticipated timeline above -- that's coming really soon.
If you receive a draft and then wait a while and then decide to dig into it, consider checking back with me for a more current version. I am constantly revising (and getting sidetracked too).
There is a practical size and word count limit in the book. The book is a mile wide and an inch deep. In other words, I can't build out another X00 or X,000 words in an area. For many areas it needs to be a concise summary.

Book description and layout and audience

See chapter 1 that tries to explain who the book is for, and how it is organized.
See my main book landing page
I am already traveling down a path of a certain format and organization. It may be a little unique. Feel free to suggest anything and everything, including for next book and next edition.
The book is for:
- Anyone interested in cyberlaw
- College students (undergraduate) learning cyberlaw
- Graduate students in information systems, learning cyberlaw
- Maybe law school students in cyberlaw but as a simple initial layer, supplemented by more in-depth exploration or activity, such as reading and analysis of statutes and cases. (The introductory law portions would need to be covered quickly, and other areas would need a deeper dive than the book provides)
- Maybe high school students
See other information about the book on my other book pages (see bottom).

Book citation format

I am using (will use) a hybrid book citation format, designed to be clear and convenient for the layperson reader. It needs to be consistent and helpful. It will not rigidly track Bluebook, or ALA, or Chicago Manual of Style, etc. I will not use terms like "id" or "infra" or terms unfamiliar to non-lawyers. I will try to make it easy for the reader to find additional reading. I will provide links to the statutes and cases so readers can click in the Ebook version, or know exactly where to go.

Acknowledgements for readers

If you devote time to reading and providing feedback (as a favor to me) I will be very grateful and willing to acknowledge your help.

Then, it will be your decision as to whether you want to be acknowledged or not, in places such as (i) the book (printed for all time and cannot be changed for that edition) (ii) my website (easily changeable) and/or (iii) a social media posts. I will check with you before I name you anywhere because I know that some would prefer not to be named, for a variety of reasons.

Full disclosure that I will be self-publishing this and it will not be a NY Times Bestseller. I realize that a credit in my book is not worthy of being at the top of anyone's CV.

That said the book will be good quality (I am trying for excellence), I will be able to bring it to publication promptly, and the price will be reasonable (not exorbitant like other course books, including those on cyberlaw).

If you are doing this as an extra credit option in a class, I do not intend to acknowledge individual students who participate. The granting of extra credit and the learning value is the benefit. See next.

Extra credit in school?

If a student is reading the book to earn extra credit in a course I teach, the main principles above apply. You may need to provide a reflection submission and a time-spent estimate. As above, you should work under the assumption that there will be no acknowledgements in the book for your reading because the benefit is the extra credit and learning. See further instructions within the course module.

Publisher and best sellers list?

As above, and for full disclosure, this will not hit any best sellers list, and I am self-publishing. Mostly, it allows me to set a fair price for the book and bring it to print rapidly, in time for the next semester's teaching. I have worked with publishers in the past, and they typically set a high price, the process takes longer and I do not have as much control over the process and product as I would like.

I self published for my last book, liked doing that, and this article explains why.

Why I self-published my new book on policies and procedures

Links

Cyberlaw Book (main book landing page)
Cyberlaw book FAQ (a frequently asked questions page)
Cyberlaw Book Resources (a resources page to track the book)
Cyberlaw (a simple article on the topic)

This page is for pre-publication readers only. It is not supposed to be indexed by search engines, but it will be available via my internal website search (unless I figure out how to prevent that).

Originally posted 10/2/2024. Updated 12/19/2024.