I'm writing a book!

As the great fictional professor Hubert J. Farnsworth said: "Good news everyone!". I'm going to be an author! After a short process of creating an outline and some back and forth between a publisher, I've been given the green light on writing a book on VueJS projects.

This is something I've never done before. The most writing experience I have so far is writing on my personal website, posting articles on Medium and Dev.to and one publication, which was my sole experience working with an editor.

And in the spirit of Astrid Lindgrens Pippi Longstocking, my mantra will be:

I have never tried that before, so I think I should definitely be able to do that.

That was somewhat of the mindset that brought me to do speaking engagement last year, which I really enjoy doing.

I figured that, while honing and practicing my writing, it makes perfect sense to log the process. This way I can always backtrack my personal progress, but also serve as a source for future readers who might have a similar opportunity. That's why I will make an effort in logging progress and milestones I'll encounter along the way.

Chapter zero

So it began a month ago to the date. I was contacted by a publisher looking for a writer for a book concept they had in mind: on Vue3 projects.

I was actually playing with the idea of writing something bigger than a series of blog posts, since I've learned that I like telling stories and sharing knowledge. In my mind, I would first create the content and then either publish it via some open source platform, or (if I'm lucky) find a publisher on my own.

Having it the other way around does affect the process a bit though, since I am not in full control over the pacing and editing of the book. So I did gave it some thought and reached out to some people to discuss this opportunity. Obviously I've also discussed it with my wife, since I did figure out it will also have somewhat of an impact on my private life.

Weighing all the pros and cons, I thought it would be an excellent opportunity to:

• Get some professional help in getting started;

• Experience working with an publisher and editor;

• Lean on the publishers expertise and network in terms of marketing;

• Create content that I'm interested and comfortable in sharing;

• Help fellow developers in landing an entry level job;

• Get a bit of compensation for the time invested;

• Expand my personal brand and network.

The Outline

The first thing we've been focusing on was to create an outline for the book. Together with the publishers' agent we were aiming for a book that would help junior developers build a portfolio with varied VueJS 3 project to help them land an entry level job.

Creating an outline was hard for me. It's like that blank page sitting in the typewriter where you have to decide what goes where and how much pages any given chapter (and subheading) will take. It's in a rough stage, but still pretty tricky. Together with my agent we did a lot of back and forth drafts which eventually settled into a decent structure with a logical buildup and set of deliverables for the reader.

The outline is important to get right because it provides a structure for the entire project but was also needed to get the go-ahead for the actual writing from the publisher's board.

At this point, this is where we are. Next step is to finalise the planning, sign the agreement and then we can get cracking! ✍️