Hi All

Sorry for the lack of contact over the past month. Lots of things have been happening and it has been very exciting.

1. General Progress
2. Editors
3. Hackathons

1. General Progress

We've been doing some research into printing costs so here is some trivia for those of you interested in the financial bottom-line. It will cost < R30 per book for a bulk (10000 books) print of a 560 page B&W textbook with a firm cover and thread binding. That's for a book covering 3 grades, compare that to the ~ R450 you would pay for 3 R150 publishers textbooks.

If we break that into three 200 page books, 1 for each grade, then it costs R20 per book. The comparison is still significantly in our favour, R60 vs. R450!!

2. Editors

We would like to welcome another Mathematics editor, Diane Mulcahy, to the project. Dee jumped right in and has been doing a great job editing mathematics. The editors have been working hard and it looks like we really are going to finish these books!

3. Hackathons

These have been going very well. We ramped up to fortnightly events in September and in October we went weekly! More than 200 pages of material has been generated at hackathons thanks to a great bunch of regulars (dominated by 3rd year physics of course!! ;). We've stopped hackathons during the exam period but will hopefully prey on our post-grad volunteers for a few more before the end of the year.

I am convinced that Scooters Pizza revenue has dipped since exams started.

Thanks to everyone who has been helping out! We're making really good progress and the end is in sight. We'll keep you posted on developments.

Mark