I've been on holidays for few weeks so that the User Manual has been written very slowly during this period.
But I've seen on the website that there was a particular wish to publish such a book. I always think precise documentation is a good thing for softwares. This a kind of respect for users (who cannot know everything!!)
For this we need two things :
A) a very good/precise manual, eventually with creative exemple and some step by step tutorials (I think there are good basis for this). All this means that there's a need of criticism in a reader team. This may need a special discussing line. This is very long to explain each option, but I think this necessary. What should be exluded is something like this found in the Gimp user docs (approximative translation) : "Sobel: less interesting than specific Sobel; Prewitt: result not very different from Sobel. [...]Roberts: no difference with Sobel. Differentiel: border less clear. Laplace: Less intersting than specific Laplace." Of course there are many good pages in this manual, nut why not this ? because i suppose the aim of a manual is to explain how it works in general and how it behaves in specific case and not only give opinion (the user can do this alone). And that's why it is hard, and that's why it is long to do. I have myself some difficulties in understanding some inkscpae or gimp functionnalities. That's also why, it would be easier if we where more at writing, but that's the way it is. The other difficulty is that the manual should be complete but understandable, even for non initiated people. B) as most of user can read a bit of english/us, a good english translation should be interesting (I'm trying to make my best but it's very hard for me).
And issues : A) Ask for a well known publisher, that will give large diffusion of the book. But regarding at this : 1. Vector drawing is not as popular as bitmap 2. Inkscape is still young and this will be kept as a default and economically very risky 3. Gimp is much more famous than Inkscape, but you can just count books about it with the finger of a unique hand I know some people at Oreilly, I can ask what they think about this, but I've already put it in some discussion and it has never been kept. B) Do our best to do a self-published one. As a Gimp book author and editor, I have already done this (french only). I still have a free ISBN number that could be used for it. Blender Manual has been made with a subscription. Why not, because it worked ! But the difficulties are : 1. to do advertising for it 2. to a sufficient number of commands to get an interesting price (For the gimp book, there was not enough, so that I've made it in numeric printing which is not the best, especially for pictures)
If there is a particular wish for this, I'm very interesting in working for it. May be may little experience in the subject could be useful. Let me know.
Cedric