"So far, I'm looking at it as a way to get the published book in front of my eyes and be practically usable to me in a much shorter time frame," Rogers said. "I'm a big fan of it, and they've done a reasonable job implementing Rough Cuts. It's a homerun for me."

Before trying the Rough Cuts service, Rogers was a regular user of Safari's electronic books program, which allows him to download a technology book onto his computer. Rogers said the downloads are easy to read and he consult them while traveling without having to carry a heavy book. That's a valuable tool, he said, especially when he is on the road at customer sites for weeks at a time and needs to easily access the book contents.

Rough Cuts is also changing the ways authors do their work, said Portland, Ore.-based Lucas Carlson, who co-wrote The Ruby Cookbook with Leonard Richardson.

"It's been an interesting process," Carlson said. The two-dozen comments received from online readers about the chapters as they were written provided help on parts of the book that were "overdone or underdone," Carlson said.

One example was a chapter on the Ruby on Rails project, which is a hot topic for many Web developers. "People wanted more information for that chapter, and we worked on providing more on that," which wouldn't have been possible under a traditional book-publishing model. "It gives the book more value to get it in before it's published," rather than adding notes in future editions. The Ruby on Rails software went through several versions while the book was being written, and the input from online readers helped keep the book up to date, he said.