Tales of the Turing Church, second edition: Published!

The second edition of my book “Tales of the Turing Church: Hacking religion, enlightening science, awakening technology” is available for readers to buy on Amazon (Kindle | paperback).

I published the first edition of this book in December 2018. At the time, I didn’t plan to publish a second edition.

However, I realized that the first edition contained far too many typos and inaccuracies, and some passages weren’t clear enough. I can’t promise that this second edition is bug-free (there are always some more bugs), or that everything is crystal clear, but I can say that this second edition is better than the first.

I also updated the book with new material based on essays written after the publication of the first edition. I published this second edition in February 2020, with a new chapter added at the end and all chapters revised and often expanded, some less and some more. This should be the final edition of my book.

This second edition is also informed by feedback from readers, and discussions with them.

Buying and reviewing my book is the best way to support my work.

For those who are unable to buy the book at this moment, there’s a free web version.

KDP publishing process

I published the book via Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), with some unexpected problems (detailed below) and many consultations (timely and mostly helpful) with Amazon support staff.

I downloaded the book from Google Drive, converted it to a single Word file, and used Kindle Create. The current version of Kindle Create permits creating a paperback edition as well, so I used the KPF output of Kindle Create for both the Kindle and paperback versions.

Amazon KDP says that a new version of a previously published book should be published as a new book if there is more than 10 percent change. If there is less than 10 percent change, there is the option to update (overwrite) the existing book.

In my case the change is just about 10 percent, so I first published the second edition as an update, hoping that the readers who had already purchased the Kindle book would be able to download the updated version. Unfortunately, it is not so (see below).

Another problem was that I wasn’t allowed to change the size of the paperback, which was too big (8.3 x 1 x 11.7 inches).

Then I found out that the readers who had already purchased the Kindle book would NOT be able to download the updated version, NOT EVEN if they purchased the Kindle book again!

So I also published the second edition as a new book, with different ASIN and ISBN. The readers who had already purchased the old Kindle book will be able to purchase and download the new Kindle book (or just let me know and I’ll send it to you, see below).

I set the size of the new paperback to 7 x 1.3 x 10 inches. With this new size I was able to enroll the new paperback in Amazon’s Expanded Distribution, but I had to set the price of the new paperback higher ($22.95).

In summary:

There are two edition of my book, each available in Kindle and paperback formats:

• The first edition is published in December 2018 (Kindle | paperback).
• The second edition is published in February 2020 (Kindle | paperback).

The content of the two editions is the same (because I updated the first edition). This ensures that new buyers who follow an old link to Amazon get the current edition.

The two Kindle editions are identical and priced $5.85.

The first edition paperback is large (8.3 x 1 x 11.7 inches) and priced $14.95. The second edition paperback is smaller (7 x 1.3 x 10 inches) and priced $22.95.

If you have already purchased the first edition of my book and don’t want to pay again, please let me know and I’ll send you the second edition in Kindle (AZW), EPUB and PDF formats. In return, I would appreciate a short review on Amazon and/or a longer review elsewhere.

Cover image background: Stars over Berlin, from Wikimedia Commons.