4 Old Things That No One Told You About Writing a Book, Actually Tech Book

In this era of technology and rapidly changing world, we see a lots of new things and new tech coming up everyday. Being a hardcore programmer for like 7 years, I have learned a thing or two about the cycle of incoming and outgoing of new technologies and what effects happen in the domain of reading, writing, and literature.

I always use to say to my subordinates or junior developers or students: > # We sleep at night working on some technology, and next day when we wake up, a new technology is already introduced and old technologies are already deprecated.

So what I have learned about this cycle is that a technology comes, developers start to use it, authors start writing books on it, and users start to read it. Then some new technology comes and this cycle repeats over and over again.

So, any tech book’s average life span is 1 year. Until then, some new technology or some new upgrade version will hit the market, and new books will be written for new versions then.

After writing two tech books (300 pages and 400 pages), here are some things I have learned which you need if you want to write a tech book. Learning Android Intents *Explore and apply the power of intents in Android apps *www.amazon.com

A lot of experience on practical work

Writing tech book needs a lot of experience in the domain. Since you are teaching some technology to developers, you must have practical hands on experience in that technology. Having a little know how isn’t gonna be enough. You can write a simple article or tutorial with little experience, but writing book is entirely different thing. You will have to give tips, tricks, hints, info notes, warnings, do’s, don’ts, and list goes on. You will have to take reader from initial level to final level in constructive way. Its not a single topic, it’s whole 300 page book with 10 chapters.

A lot of reading

Not only experience on field and technology is enough for writing tech books. You need to have words which express your message. You need to have a teaching style which will convince readers to buy your book rather than attend some workshop or watch any YouTube video tutorial. You need to have a plan to teach everything step by step. And you can learn all these things from reading. Read other books as much as you can do. > # You become better in coding by reading and understanding other developers’ open source codes. Similarly, you will become better writer, when you read other writers’ books.

A lot of motivation (literally a lot)

To complete any objective, you need a lot of motivation. I always say this about motivation. > # Motivation is like ice. It melts everyday a little. Your whole day objective should be to refill it to full somehow.

For book, you need seriously a lot of motivation and lot of courage. You will be fighting with yourself every single day. You will fight with words, pages, and chapters. You will fight with your brain and heart. You will fight with the technology to go deep. You will fight with time and your environment. You will fight with your life. And you will win, if you are motivated. And you will learn that it was all worth it when your book hits the shelves. Mastering Android Game Development with Unity | PACKT Books *Exploit the advanced concepts of Unity to develop intriguing, high-end Android games*www.packtpub.com

Most important, a lot of consistency

The last and most important thing you need to write book. This is where 90% writers fail. This is what separates from good writers to bad writers. And that is focus, and consistency. If you want to write a book, you need to be regular and consistent. If you write 1 page a day, you will end up having 300 plus page book after one year. But yet, it’s too hard to write even that single page. I am fighting with myself to write even this piece of article. No matter what happens, be consistent and regular with writing. You need to do it and you need to achieve it. The book is a beautiful thing you will ever see in your life.

Summary

Writing summary at each chapter’s end have made me habitual. So I am writing a summary section here as well. If you want to write a tech book:

• Have lot of practical experience

• Do lot of reading

• Be highly motivated and excited

• Be consistent, focused, and regular with writing.