Write a book the same way you Write Software
About the Book
We use Docs as Code to write our technical documentation these days, but what about writing a technical book?
This book outlines Alec’s experiences in taking his tools into retirement and writing a self published cybersecurity handbook for Australian seniors.
The book focuses on the process of getting a book self published using Open Source Tools and Docs-As-Code workflows.
Many of the skills and tools from Docs-As-Code work, but a some didn’t and a lot of new skills and tools had to be adopted.
This book will help any computer geek , who dreams of going into print, understand the process of book writing and some of the pitfalls. In particular it will outline how developers can use their current skills to develop a 50K+ word manuscript.
It’s a mixture of technical tips and lessons about book writing and publishing. Topics covered include:
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Writing Docs vs. Writing a Book: Knowing your audience and identifying your assumptions. Writing for print vs writing for the web
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Choosing Your Toolkit: Keep your current Dev tools, but Markdown does not work at scale
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Automation: Validation Tools and Adding a little AI to your writing workflow
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Self Publication vs Traditional Publication: Why you won’t get rich either way
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The many other things you didn’t realise about writing a book: Book design, timescales, editing, and other jobs.
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Accessibility concerns and making content relevant for a wider audience.
Read Online for Free
The book is available online for free
Note: This book is still being written and the online copy above is the regularly updated draft. This work in progress is provided "as is" in the hope it’s still useful in it’s current pre-publication form.
How to Purchase
If you prefer an physical copy of the book, or want to support the author, the book will be available for purchase online via Amazon. Also to be published on for Kindle.
Watch this space!
Complete Book Contents
📚 Want to see what’s covered in each chapter? Check out the table of contents:
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Why do you want to write?
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Learning how to write and choosing the right tools
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Planning your book
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Writing a book for real
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Publication
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Sales and marketing
Have Questions or Feedback?
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