Books-As-Code
Room A | Fri 23 Jan 10:45 a.m.–11:30 a.m.
Presented by
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Alec Clews
@https://mstdn.social/@alecthegeek
https://alecthegeek.gitlab.io/
Alec is old school and wrote his 1st computer program on an ICL mainframe computer using a 10cps printing teletype terminal. Code was stored on paper tape.
He's now semi-retired, delivering community training, and writing a book for Australian seniors on personal cyber security.
Alec's 1st public content was handcrafted HTML (using Vi of course) in about 1995. However writing a long form, self published, book for general a audience has required a whole new set of technical and soft skills.
He uses developer workflows and Open Source tools to write. Sometimes he still writes code.
On the Internet he can be found as alecthegeek (since 2006).
Alec Clews
@https://mstdn.social/@alecthegeek
https://alecthegeek.gitlab.io/
Alec is old school and wrote his 1st computer program on an ICL mainframe computer using a 10cps printing teletype terminal. Code was stored on paper tape.
He's now semi-retired, delivering community training, and writing a book for Australian seniors on personal cyber security.
Alec's 1st public content was handcrafted HTML (using Vi of course) in about 1995. However writing a long form, self published, book for general a audience has required a whole new set of technical and soft skills.
He uses developer workflows and Open Source tools to write. Sometimes he still writes code.
On the Internet he can be found as alecthegeek (since 2006).
Abstract
We use Docs as Code to write our technical documentation these days, but what about writing a technical book?
This talks outlines Alec's experiences in taking his tools into retirement and writing a self published cybersecurity handbook for Australian seniors.
The talk focuses on the process of getting a book self published using Open Source Tools and Docs-As-Code workflows.
Many of the skills and tools from Docs-As-Code work, but a some didn't and a lot of new skills and tools had to be adopted.
This talk will help any computer geek , who dreams of going into print, understand the process of book writing and some of the pitfalls. In particular it will outline how developers can use their current skills to develop a 50K+ word manuscript.
It's a mixture of technical tips and lessons about book writing and publishing. Topics covered include:
-
Writing Docs vs. Writing a Book: Knowing your audience and identifying your assumptions. Writing for print vs writing for the web
-
Choosing Your Toolkit: Keep your current Dev tools, but Markdown does not work at scale
-
Automation: Validation Tools and Adding a little AI to your writing workflow
-
Self Publication vs Traditional Publication: Why you won't get rich either way
-
The many other things you didn't realise about writing a book: Book design, timescales, editing, and other jobs.
-
Accessibility concerns and making content relevant for a wider audience.
Hopefully Alec's book will be available by the conference date.
People not familiar with Docs As Code may want to review my LCA 2020 talk ahead of time at https://youtu.be/QqgaX8JFyB8?si=nNjCNEU2eA3Z-upM&t=151
We use Docs as Code to write our technical documentation these days, but what about writing a technical book?
This talks outlines Alec's experiences in taking his tools into retirement and writing a self published cybersecurity handbook for Australian seniors.
The talk focuses on the process of getting a book self published using Open Source Tools and Docs-As-Code workflows.
Many of the skills and tools from Docs-As-Code work, but a some didn't and a lot of new skills and tools had to be adopted.
This talk will help any computer geek , who dreams of going into print, understand the process of book writing and some of the pitfalls. In particular it will outline how developers can use their current skills to develop a 50K+ word manuscript.
It's a mixture of technical tips and lessons about book writing and publishing. Topics covered include:
-
Writing Docs vs. Writing a Book: Knowing your audience and identifying your assumptions. Writing for print vs writing for the web
-
Choosing Your Toolkit: Keep your current Dev tools, but Markdown does not work at scale
-
Automation: Validation Tools and Adding a little AI to your writing workflow
-
Self Publication vs Traditional Publication: Why you won't get rich either way
-
The many other things you didn't realise about writing a book: Book design, timescales, editing, and other jobs.
-
Accessibility concerns and making content relevant for a wider audience.
Hopefully Alec's book will be available by the conference date.
People not familiar with Docs As Code may want to review my LCA 2020 talk ahead of time at https://youtu.be/QqgaX8JFyB8?si=nNjCNEU2eA3Z-upM&t=151