I love books, and I’m a voracious reader. But books pose a few problems in the techie space:
- they are out of date the day they are printed
- they can be cost prohibitive – lots of pages and a small audience
- folks go to Google for answers now
However I think I have a solution that skates past these issues – a free e-book. Self-published in PDF format, I can distribute it for free, and update it as time allows and changes to the product demand. So now the problem boils down to focus and time.
Focus – what shall the book be ‘about?’ Time – can I find time to write it?
Content isn’t an issue. It’s in my head and on this blog. But I want a book that addresses multiple audiences, both the beginner and advanced user. And I don’t want it to be JUST a mashup of existing content from here. I’ve written a similar book before, but it didn’t quite have the impact I wanted it to. Hopefully lessons learned a few more years experience will result in a much better product.
So all this being said, I’m putting it in writing and out there on the innerwebs, my 2013 resolution is to make this book happen. If you’d like to encourage me with ideas on what you’d like to see covered, please do 🙂 I like to use stories to demonstrate technical features, and you folks have given me SO many.
If you have a story of how SQL Developer has helped ‘save the day’ – please tell me about it here and I’ll include it in the book. Your reward will be a free copy and the warm feeling one gets knowing that they have helped the community by sharing their experiences and knowledge.
They say resolutions don’t work without a plan. So here’s my plan: outline it, write it, have it reviewed, publish it. And do so BEFORE Summer 2013. Now make it so!
6 Comments
Dear Jeff, so what about your book about Oracle SQL Developer?
Can’t wait to buy it..:)
It’s still stuck in my head, but if I do write it, I will self-publish and it will be free 🙂
Glad to hear this Jeff! There is definitely a need for the book.
Have you considered releasing it as a series on Kindle? With Kindle you have the ability to indicate a book is part of a series. Then you could release it one chapter at a time. There is a free Kindle app for pretty much every device so folks do not need a Kindle to read it.
One of the benefits (as I see it) of using Kindle is that if you need to make a change, the update is automatically pushed to everyone that downloaded the book previously. So for a tech book, that would be very convenient if there is a product change or you discover a mistake in your text.
A format that will work on Kindle – yes 🙂
Sprinkling out updates chapter by chapter – don’t know about that. Somehow seems like MORE work?
Actually the chapter by chapter series approach is not really more work (same amount of writing and it is pretty easy to create a Kindle book and upload it) but it does allow you to deliver the content in smaller chunks in intervals instead of having it all written before you publish anything (think agile vs. waterfall).
Of course you would want the outline and table of contents done first so oyu know how long the series will be. But again since all updates get pushed to your readers, even if you change your mind and have to redo the TOC, it is not a bug deal.
Anyway, just a thought…
Happy New Year Jeff!
Great to know of your plans for the book.
Most of the books on tools that I have seen focus more on the features than on how they are used in practical situations. I would suggest that, in addition to the features, you could perhaps include a real-world example of developing a PL/SQL application on SQL Developer. And you could demonstrate the various features of SQL Developer using this application throughout the book.