Great idea for an eBook. As a developer without a design background, it would be really handy to know the basics so I could bootstrap things without having to bring in a real designer early on in a project.
Funny thing is that I'm currently "pair-designing" with a designer. He told me he is actually really happy that there are books like that and frameworks like twitter bootstrap out there: it allows him to start working from higher grounds (logo, branding) and avoids dealing with the very basics.
Yeah. There's also just a huge amount of boilerplate HTML an CSS you need when you start a project, it would be great to be able to leap frog some or all of that.