End of the Beginning

About a week ago, Celso and I submitted our final manuscript for our PBE book to the publisher. We now move into a production phase - focusing on editing, cleaning up graphics, and getting the manuscript to look like a book. We also have some additional work to do in wrapping up and packaging some collateral that we will be making available as associated downloads. Domain name for a website is registered, and now we have some work to do in setting up the site and publishing our collateral.

The effort and time to get to this point was much more than what was anticipated when we set out to write a book. However, I'm not sure how we could have shortened the time or lessened the effort. Much knowledge was acquired along the way, the manuscript is better now than it was six months ago - incorporating reviews, rewrites, edits and feedback.

I've always been impressed with those that can write and create a book. However, having gone through the process - my amazement and admiration has grown.

And - this is really just the end of the beginning. Sure there's been a great deal of effort, but now how do we leverage this investment? We'll be involved in promoting the book, building and supporting the associated website (and downloadable collateral), discussing the book, some additional conference presentations, and leveraging the book in our day-to-day work efforts.

If you're interested, Amazon has pre-order (.com, .ca) links up at the moment. I'll also post updates as we get closer to the release date.

Lee.