我学到了什么撰写一本书。

优雅拼图（9）， 写作（33）

释放我最喜欢的故事An Elegant Puzzle是关于假定的。

After a few days of preorders, Amazon asks you to ship them a certain number of books that they’ll use to fulfill your orders. They originally asked us to ship some number of thousands – exciting! Then they asked us to double the shipment – more exciting! A day later they asked us to quadruple the shipment, which was almost our entire first print run – concerning.

我们花了一点时间来庆祝。

也许这本关于制定道德管理决策的奇怪书本真的会起飞！但我很可疑。I’d love for the book to be a runaway success, but I’m careful not to get my hopes up, and we started to dig in. As we dug in further, it became clear that the second shipment should be more than enough, and there was simply no basis for sending the third requested shipment.

到这一天，我们根本没有Clue为什么他们要求这么多的副本，但对我来说，这是整体过程的良好综述：学到了巨大的数量，有相当长的骄傲，以及一些混乱的巨大。

我理解它，一本书不是真的writtenif you haven’t knocked together a blog post about writing it, and who am I to defy that standard. This reflection is roughly structured into the experience, motivations and learnings.

经验

在过去十年中，我写了一个比特超过五百张帖子在这个博客上，不合理的繁荣。我的写作节奏随时加速，每当我发现自己在学习丰富的环境中，这就是为什么我在我的前两年内在学校和过去三年中写得那么多。

As I went into 2018, I wanted to refocus my writing practice and also work on distributing my writing more widely – how could I get more folks reading? I set a goal of one post a month, but momentum gathered and the posts kept popping up, altogether about seventy posts that year.

在这一点左右，我有几本书出版商伸出兴趣，我想由于Camille Fournier的大部分The Manager’s Pathestablishing a clear market for books focused on engineering leadership. My sense is that Camille’s book is the progenitor of a veritablewave在这个领域出来的伟大的书籍，包括朱莉卓的经理的经理和Lara Hogan的弹性管理： 它是good time to be reading and writing about engineering management。

Of the publishers I spoke with,条纹媒体was the one I ultimately wanted to work with. Part of this is that I’ve gotten to know and work with the team leading that effort during my time at Stripe, but even more important for me is that Stripe Press is a bit unusual: they typically buy完全的手稿，而不是提案。这在我的写作的方法中给了我一个非凡的纬度，这本书的格式和营销这本书。

我开始勾勒出来的内容，我想为这样一本书写作，然后我构建了那个内容进入章节。之后，我把每个章节写着博客帖子，让我进入“习惯的运输”（引用我的同事Davin）和用读者测试内容。我一周写了一个或两个部分，每周从清晨和周末每周泄漏大约八小时。这是一次研磨，但我能够构建写作过程，以滑下我长期博客习惯的轨道。

After I’d written the content, I worked with Stripe Press to finalize their interest in publishing, and happily they were.

As an aside, I’m fortunate to have written this book at a point in my life with fewer commitments outside of work, and I am truly amazed by folks who are able to write when raising young children, caring for their parents, or otherwise committed: it takes a great deal of privilege to write a book.

一旦我们有所内容，我就在书籍的详细信息上与Brianna和Tyler一起工作：封面，将图表翻译成统一的系统，如何处理链接，等等。这是一个极其合作的过程，能够依靠他们非凡的味道水平升高了书中，因为我已经走出了自我发布的路线，我从未创造过的东西。

在我们合并内容，布局和艺术之后，我们打印数字前进副本并开始收集人们阅读这些提前副本。我们很幸运能够获得许多人来阅读早期版本并提供反馈，这导致了许多复制编辑和调整。这本书的核心内容没有基于反馈更改了很多，但一切都改变了一些东西，一些事情发生了很大的变化，特别是章节过渡。

一旦书本自己开始走在一起，就是时候将齿轮转移以专注于营销。人们会发现这件事是如何存在的？

我们构建了我们的营销，即释放后有效的书籍宣传填补了三到六个月。立即重点是：

  • 在模糊上使用早期读者（谢谢辛迪那Orenand杰弗里- 还有其他人提交了令人惊叹的模糊，我们最终无法适应，而且我也特别感谢那些人：让我知道我是怎么回事的），
  • 让一篇文章去发布的一天（愉快地聚集在一起First Round Review）， 和
  • 添加人三个不同的邮件列表the launch announcement (这个博客的帖子，另一个我跑到想要了解释放的人和第三个条纹压力机）。自从看到以后，我会考虑设置一个B0RK的时事金沙手机APP通讯但是，只有即将到来的书籍发布，将我踢过边缘。

Beyond launch week, we’ve worked with a number of amazing podcasts that’ll release over the next couple months, I’ll get to host small events at a bunch of Bay Area companies, I’m speaking at Velocity about投资技术基础设施金沙手机客户端，我会经常写作。我们还研究了一些可能超出湾区的不同Q＆一种格式，也许是Reddit AMA或其他一些。

包裹一切，它略有不行，但我相信如果我试图自己制作它，那么优雅的拼图将不那么粘性和内部一致：我只是缺乏能力做我们作为球队所做的事情。使用条纹压力机，我必须做出我想要的书，所以由这些才华横溢和周到的人们支持。

It’s been a really amazing experience, and I’m deeply grateful that I’ve gotten to do it. So far, I think the hardest bit will be a small sense of loss after it all quiets down, e.g. the return to normalcy. Perhaps long-term that might even lead to writing another.

生活中存在这种经典绑定，有时您的最大机会在您最不具备利用时抵达。Towards the end of finishing the book, I found my patience and joy in writing declined – I was burning out – which isn’t too helpful as my continued writing is a big part of marketing the book, and it’s also a unique opportunity to get more folks reading this humble blog if I can keep writing good things.

我一直在努力管理我的感受和需要，同时也很有利于。我的写作体积有been high，但我用一点格式播放（书评，系统思考探索那etc) and have written more short pieces than usual. My energy levels are also very topic specific – there are some posts I really want to write but feel draining to even contemplate, so I’m leaving those for later.

在这种方法之后，我已经能够在今年到目前为止我为我感到骄傲的好数帖子 -良好的过程是演变的，而不是设计;不可估量的指标;为什么限制正在进行的工作作品;How to invest in technical infrastructure;特权面朝上窗口– without feeling the wall encroaching.

工具

A quick aside on tooling. I wrote the book in Markdown, along with a script that converts each section into LaTeX and merged the sections into an overall book. There is long standing advice to avoid building your own tools for book writing, and I think this is pretty good advice. At minimum, constrain the time you spend on your tooling since the publisher is going to rework all the formatting and such anyway.

Motivation

My motivations were pretty much the same as why I write in general: I write to learn and share.

In terms of this book in particular, my approach to management is grounded in a different set of perspectives than most others I’ve worked with. I believe this perspective and the ideas behind it are useful, and I hope sharing them will help others to lead healthier teams and more effective organizations.

我写的另一个原因是建立对我的认识和我的工作。我在首次尝试进入业界前期之前开始写作，并且仍然希望它会说服更多的人，他们可能希望共同努力。

从来没有一个明确的联系，从写书籍到金融奖励，所以金钱从来没有是写作的主要原因。但是，我可以想象，从撰写一本书中有长期的专业价值，就像写这篇博客一样。

最后，我是非常激励的，在我的生命中拥有新的和熟悉的东西，写一本书完全是新的。做新事物 - 很喜欢得到帮助增量的发射那starting to do more公开演讲等等 - 依此类推 - 始终为我的好东西。

我学到的东西

I went into the process of writing and publishing my book as an experienced amateur blogger, and that practice writing and marketing my writing was hugely helpful for me, but I didn’t understand the book publishing process at all, and I’ve learned a lot by publishing AEP.

我沿途的一些事情是：

  • 大纲，大纲，大纲。我知道这本书的唯一事务是我应该在我开始写作内容之前概述一切，这是一个很好的建议。如果我写了另一本书，我会花更多的时间详细概述，在书的过程中有意地建立小块。
  • 书籍以适度的数字销售。即使是一本成功的书籍卖出的书籍比你换出的任何数字小装用具都要少了。在我的目标线上早期超出了市场规模 - 不是在我所期望的意义上做的事情，而是我觉得有必要认为这是一个“真实”的成功。
  • Print runs are permanent,并在印刷的东西永远持续的错误。大多数错误都很小，但我很沮丧我错了牵头作者 - 显着Ncole Forsgren！！- 的加速并且无法超越推文和更新数字版本。
  • Lean on the experts.我进入了了解我所关心的过程，也知道我不知道的区域。对于后期类别中的东西，我试图为他们创造空间，让自己进入这本书。这本书，特别是封面，确实与我的审美谈话，但细节与泰勒的优异品味和经验交谈。
  • 营销是一半的工作。在完成书写后，您的工作是诱人的诱人，但营销同样重要。在个人营销这本书的时间投资水平非常高。
  • “Twitter卖书。”This insight is attributed toBrianna，并且令人惊讶的是：良好的Twitter参与可以真正卖书。最清晰的例子慈善的推文哪个 - 归属数据在这里非常缺乏，所以这是一个估计 - 我想想到500到1,000份销售副本。
  • Reach sells books.第一轮审查中的文章还推动了与受益于管理和工程领导书籍的那种人的巨大参与。当FRR电子邮件出去时，我有伙伴伸出援手，我没有谈过年那and books were sold.
  • 批判性反馈是金色的。A few folks gave critical early feedback, which was some of the most important feedback I got along the way, and I’m particularly grateful for their willingness to deliver it. Honest feedback is very hard to find when writing a book, since you have to find (a) someone who will give hard feedback, and (b) someone who is willing to read your book. That’s a small intersection.
  • Feedback is hard to incorporate.将有反馈既有反馈，也很难合并。在一个点，我们讨论了三到六个月的延迟，以完全返工内容。最终，我觉得这够好了，前进，我很高兴我做了，但如果我们花了更长的话，我敢打赌这本书会更强大。
  • 了解你的写作风格。I’ve gotten much more feedback on my writing that any other point in my life, including a lot of descriptions that just wanted to describe it as opposed to change it. This has been pretty cool.
  • 模糊。获取书模糊并不比我预期的更难，但这是因为我甚至没有意识到这是我需要做的事情。愿意写模糊的人是真正的宝藏。（如果您在一个地区寻找一本书，我觉得在这一点上，我觉得在这一点上欠宇宙很少有利于。）
  • 时间表转移发生。The original release date for An Elegant Puzzle was about a month earlier than the final release date, and I was heartbroken when we missed that date. In that specific moment, I was managing writing burnout and thought I would be able to just squeak over the finish line, then the line moved and I wasn’t about it.
  • 亚马逊具有非常令人迷人的经济学。我已经了解了亚马逊销售书籍的经济学！他们服用A.很多比我最初假设的较大切割，但是采取这么大的切割也允许他们动态折扣书，以推动自己的削减。我也没有弄明白我需要声称我的作者页面until a bit late in the game, about a week before the launch date, which I’m still a bit ashamed about.
  • Selling rights in other languages is weird.我仍然弄清楚这个，但在发布一本书之后，您可能会发现自己获得多个请求在其他市场中翻译和发布它。我仍然试图弄清楚这个过程，因为我想让更多人提供AEP，但我也不想分开地谈判数十家公司。（感觉就像某人的机会。）
  • QR码很酷。我们所做的一件事之一就是所有的尾注是您可以使用手机打开的QR代码链接。我认为有一堆比我们做得更好的方法 - 使用短链接服务来拥有支持较小的QR码的较短链接，并启用更新链接 - 但我认为这是值得偷窃的想法。
  • 将要it change anything?现在对我来说最大的未知未知是“我现在写一本书的情况如何变化？”我最好的猜测是事情可能不会发生太多 - 这很好，事情已经很好。我很想找出我是否低估了事物。

Ah, I’m sure there is a bunch more, but that seems like a good start.

完全是，如果您正在考虑撰写一本书，我真的建议给予它。我不知道很多人有兴趣撰写第二本书的人，但我不知道任何后悔写第一的人。

就个人而言，我确信我想在某个时候写一本书，但现在很难想象有能量做所有的零件around再写这本书！