In early 1990, Adam and Tonya Engst founded TidBITS. A little over 25 years later, they are still providing the weekly insights, news, tips and guidance that their wide-spread readership enjoys. In fact, TidBITS is so popular that volunteers translate their weekly articles into Dutch and Japanese for their worldwide readership.
By the time Adam and Tonya began Take Control ebooks, they had authored or edited more than 25 traditional books and written hundreds of magazine articles for major Mac magazines. And, they’d spent the last 15 years gaining experience in Internet publishing with TidBITS, their Web site (updated quite often) and weekly email newsletter about Apple and Internet topics. These experiences helped them develop the Take Control model, which results in highly practical ebooks that cover much more detail than a magazine article but that are shorter, more focused, and more timely than a typical printed book. Better yet, they are author driven, bringing the best technical writers and the best ideas to press quickly and efficiently. The Take Control ebooks bring you savvy, real-world advice on how to get the most out of your Apple devices and software.
Each Take Control title is a true ebook, featuring a hot-linked table of contents and quick start, internal and Web links, and a layout that’s designed for a screen. Each ebook comes with an Ebook Extras link that gives you any free updates plus any format—PDF, EPUB, or Mobipocket.
Several Take Control authors are experienced with giving MUG presentations and would be happy to give a demo relating to one of their current ebooks. If your MUG is nearby, they can come in person, and sometimes (especially if you can help with travel costs), they will come to you. Otherwise, some of our authors can do a remote presentation. Contact tc-comments@tidbits.com with ideas for books that might be of interest to your group. Our authors appreciate a stipend or a flurry of book sales, since they do need to make a living.
If a MUG has a local member who has one of our ebooks and wants to give a presentation based on it, that also tends to work out well. A few of our titles, such as “Take Control of Your Passwords” even comes with a Teach This Book chapter.
Adam and Tonya Engst explain what they do all day.
Chris Breen interviews Adam and Tonya Engst at Macworld in 2010
http://www.macworld.com/article/1146428/expo_tidbits.html
2003 article introducing Take Control
http://tidbits.com/article/7405
Follow TidBITS on Twitter.
Follow TidBITS history by reading their annual issues.
http://tidbits.com/series/1166
