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.

Future of Writing in a Digital World?

Came across “Clive Thompson on the Future of Reading in a Digital World” in the June issue of Wired and wanted to capture a few thoughts about the article.

As mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been working on a book on Patterns-Based Engineering for some time now. In discussions with the publisher regarding timelines, production efforts, etc – I’m hoping that the finished product sees the light of day before the end of the year. So I’m living in the current of producing a book – and wondering - how will this future view of reading change how the book gets released and then read?

Looking at the stories listed in the article, as well as other successes out there such as Cory Doctorow or even the open source movement, its fascinating/appealing/scary to think of putting a book out there digitally with no restrictions. So much effort and time goes into the writing – it’s a challenge to think of just opening it up and letting it go.

I’ve not looked at the system yet, but CommentPress sounds quite interesting as it allows a book to become much more interactive – allowing the readers to start conversations on the content of the book – with very fine grained starting points – right down to the paragraph level. (As an aside, it would be interesting to look at comparing this to the capabilities of Google Wave)

We’ll be having some discussions with our publisher about how digital copies will be made available and their plans for interactivity. At a minimum, we’re looking at setting up a site along with an associated wiki for the EPF practice that we are producing in association with the book. In the meantime, we’ve been talking to many people about the book and looking to incorporate as much feedback as possible.

I’d be interested in any comments/suggestions anyone has on how they’ve changed their authoring efforts based on the “future” of reading and some of the new offerings out there such as CommentPress.

Lee.