Colleagues,

Over the weekend I attended the 40th Anniversary of the Center for  
International Education at the University of Massachusetts at  
Amherst. Among its many highlights was a keynote by Dwight Alan,  
former Dean of the School of Education there, and Professor Emeritus  
at Old Dominion University. In his fascinating talk,  Web 3.0, he  
mentioned Philip M. Parker, the author of 200,000 books (yes, two  
hundred thousand, with 85,000 of them listed on Amazon.com) .  
According to an article about him the Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_M._Parker

Parker, now in his late 40's, was born dyslexic. "He gained  
undergraduate degrees in mathematics, biology and economics. He  
received a Ph.D. in Business Economics from the Wharton School of the  
University of Pennsylvania and has Masters degrees in Finance and  
Banking (University of Aix-Marseille) and Managerial Economics  
(Wharton)"

How does he write so many reputable books -- so quickly? According to  
the Wikipedia article, they are automatically generated books  
targeting niche markets, books such as:

* a series on rare diseases. A typical title of this series is The  
Official Patient's Sourcebook on Spinal Stenosis
* a series on the future demand for certain products in certain  
regions in the world, largely consisting of tables and graphs. A  
typical title is The 2007-2012 Outlook for Bathroom
   Toilet Brushes and Holders in Greater China. It retails for $495.
* a series on cross-language crossword puzzle books, e.g. Webster's  
English to Italian Crossword Puzzles: Level 1. The clues are in the  
foreign language but the words to be
    filled in are in English.
* a series of cross-language dictionaries and thesauri, e.g.  
Webster's Quechua - English Thesaurus Dictionary

The books are self-published paperbacks and are printed only when an  
order arrives; Parker estimates that production of a book costs him  
12 pence and ranges from a few minutes to a few hours. Ninety-five  
percent of the ordered books are sent out electronically.

Parker's mashup software programs can also produce rudimentary poetry  
as well as scripts for animated game shows intended to teach English  
to non-native speakers and available on YouTube:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=SkS5PkHQphY

Mashup?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mashup_%28web_application_hybrid%29

Would that I had the software to read one of Parker's books, written  
in  a few minutes, in the same amount of time!


David J. Rosen
djrosen at comcast.net



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