Sunday, February 1, 2009

The Blog is the Book

Today is the first anniversary of this blog (see the first article here) and I am celebrating by answering this question:

Q: When are you going to write a book about SQL Anywhere Version 11? I really like the Version 9 book.

A: This blog is that book.
It was a wonderful experience, writing the V9 dead tree edition, where "wonderful" means "I survived"... somewhat similar to basic training... painful while proceeding but prideful when complete.
(Not that I have actually attended boot camp, of course.)
Like basic training, or a car accident, writing an actual book not an experience I want to repeat. Especially not the financial aspect... first-time technical authors make very little money, where "very little money" means "5 dollars a day".

On the other hand, a blog doesn't require my full attention for six months at a time, where "full attention" means "unemployment".

The good news, a blog is easier to write. The bad news, the current product is not nearly as good as a book. Maybe I should say...

This Blog Will Be That Book

Maybe it will be, with some decent V11 content, and some kind of Table of Contents, and ... ?

No promises, but it's a new year, wish me luck!
PS: In a previous life I started publishing daily "Tips" (see list here) back in 1996 (see the first Tip here). Not exactly a true "web log" but sometimes neither is this blog.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yeah, most people don't realize that writing a non-fiction book, especially a tech book, is not something you do for the money. I wrote an essay about this a year or so ago:

The Uneconomics of Book Publishing

and I'd have to say that I probably won't be writing another book unless a publisher waves a lot of money under my nose...