My biggest tip is this: Don’t skip getting beta readers. High quality feedback is really hard to come by. I changed my tool chain to add a google form at the end of each chapter and got strong buy in from a handful of people with the finished first draft in a beta state. In the end some bailed but one left amazing feedback resulting in massive structural changes.
The process of writing a book is two things (to me). The most obvious is sharing information. The second, often overlooked, but biggest benefit IMHO is how you will grow and learn the source material even better than you already do. Even if you don’t ever publish it, it’s still worthwhile to putting in the effort to write a book. GLHF.
For very long documents Word can be very difficult to maintain. Anything that requires you first write in simple text and then compiles is preferred. I tried Skrivenr, but found it old, clunky, buggy and poorly designed. I was far more productive in LaTex, but encountered problems when converting to Word (which most publishers prefer). Sure I tried Pandoc, but maintaining flow between versions of my book was a small hell.
In the end, I believe that there is no easy solution.
Typst has excellent collaboration tools. Both Typst and Overleaf do not support Doc export, but pdf to doc is relatively easy.
For beta ebook publishing I can't help but recommend my friends at https://leanpub.com where my latest book is currently at the top of the charts.
I've been publishing with them since they launched (a long time ago) and have made nearly six figures lifetime revenue. Plus they give you one-button push to publish to print versions at Amazon.
4 times. Each time it took me a year. The last time together with an editor. And I could have gone on, over every word, every sentence again. In the end my editor forces me. In the end you just have to publish it, otherwise it does not exist.
Still think I did good, even after more than 7 years I still sell a few paper and some more e copies per month just by WOM, so yeah, must be some value in there.
I agree with this take. Blogging is a the first step towards writing a book.
However, through blogging I've realized just how impressive book writing is. I work really hard to build coherent blog posts, I cannot begin to imagine scaling that to a book.
It's kind of like software in a way. Anyone can code a toy, not everyone can build a product.
As a university lecturer, I have interviewed many people… academics and admins. I have taught in many S E Asian universities and multi-lingualism is the norm, with English assumed to be the ‘Lingua franca’. Almost everyone I interview claims to have ‘excellent’ skills in written and spoken English. Almost none of them could produce so much as a single paragraph of English that did not burn my eyes.
Prior to starting writing my first book, I had already accumulated some experience in academic writing. I thought it would be a doddle. I can honestly say that it was one of the most demanding experiences of my life.
The worst thing is the degree to which I was blind to my own shortcomings… just like all those people I interviewed.
Moral of the story… "writing is easy; you just stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead" (Gene Fowler).
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My biggest tip is this: Don’t skip getting beta readers. High quality feedback is really hard to come by. I changed my tool chain to add a google form at the end of each chapter and got strong buy in from a handful of people with the finished first draft in a beta state. In the end some bailed but one left amazing feedback resulting in massive structural changes.
The process of writing a book is two things (to me). The most obvious is sharing information. The second, often overlooked, but biggest benefit IMHO is how you will grow and learn the source material even better than you already do. Even if you don’t ever publish it, it’s still worthwhile to putting in the effort to write a book. GLHF.
https://hypermedia.systems/ was written with it.
I bought a prince XML license for PDF generation. It was a hodgepodge of stuff.
In the end, I believe that there is no easy solution.
Typst has excellent collaboration tools. Both Typst and Overleaf do not support Doc export, but pdf to doc is relatively easy.
Dead Comment
I've been publishing with them since they launched (a long time ago) and have made nearly six figures lifetime revenue. Plus they give you one-button push to publish to print versions at Amazon.
I wrote Understanding SEO https://fullstackoptimizatio.gumroad.com/l/understanding-seo...
4 times. Each time it took me a year. The last time together with an editor. And I could have gone on, over every word, every sentence again. In the end my editor forces me. In the end you just have to publish it, otherwise it does not exist.
Still think I did good, even after more than 7 years I still sell a few paper and some more e copies per month just by WOM, so yeah, must be some value in there.
1x to actually write it + 1x to call it done.
I also have a hardcover photography book.
Happy to help if you have questions.
http://theroadchoseme.com/how-i-self-published-a-professiona...
- The bar to releasing the first thing to the public is lower,
- The regular cadence builds an organic following,
- You can iterate on subjects in the open,
- You have more freedom to organise content non-linearly.
The main drawback I can think of is you cannot call yourself "author of book X". Are there any other reasons not to blog instead of book?
However, through blogging I've realized just how impressive book writing is. I work really hard to build coherent blog posts, I cannot begin to imagine scaling that to a book.
It's kind of like software in a way. Anyone can code a toy, not everyone can build a product.
The main reason to do so is that I get paid for book sales, but not for the blog.
As a result, I have various sources of notes I've figured out and get high use/reuse from.
I also do a lot of technical training at work, for both beginners and advanced users, so have a wealth of tried and tested content there.
I've often contemplated writing an eBook on each topic and selling them on Leanpub/Amazon/Google for 5 or 10 bucks each.
The idea of limiting myself to 6 pages per topic is appealing. That would force an economy of writing and density of content which appeals to me.
Here are some of my tips from when I wrote Debugging Your Brain.
How I developed my ideas for the book (discussions, conference talks) https://www.caseywatts.com/blog/casey-s-writing-process/
How I got feedback from beta readers https://docs.google.com/document/d/13EwX8L6RCUbiu86Lik1xZ8eX...
How I wrote and typeset my book from markdown to an eBook and print book, via pandoc/latex https://gist.github.com/caseywatts/3d8150fe04e0d8462cfc4d51b...
Prior to starting writing my first book, I had already accumulated some experience in academic writing. I thought it would be a doddle. I can honestly say that it was one of the most demanding experiences of my life.
The worst thing is the degree to which I was blind to my own shortcomings… just like all those people I interviewed.
Moral of the story… "writing is easy; you just stare at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead" (Gene Fowler).