My second attempt at writing a book in public
Added 2024-02-16 11:44:22 +0000 UTCI planned to write a book last year, but 2023 had other plans for me, and that didn't happen. This week's video is about what happened, and why I decided I'm writing a different book instead. I take you through the current setup of the book, the Obsidian plugins I'm using, and even another tool i'm using in conjunction with Obsidian for the actual writing.
Spoiler: it's iA Writer.
If you'd like to read the introduction of my book, Doing It in Public, here it is. The best way to give me feedback is to join my Discord server, but if you're a patron, connect your Discord account with Patreon first and get access to a Patreon-only channel.
I'm writing this book out in the open, for free, and you can probably guess that's a lot of work to give away. This kind of thing is only possible because of your support, so thank you, lovely Patreons, for letting me do cool things like this!
Have a great weekend!
Comments
Thanks! I did consider LeanPub, but decided against it for the reason you state. It's a lot more difficult to share it in a way that would get people to comment on it. It's a lot easier to share a webpage. I might still go to it for compiling later... I guess we'll find out!
Nicole van der Hoeven
2024-02-16 18:37:14 +0000 UTCThis is a great idea for a book and a great way to create a book. I've used LeanPub in the past to create incremental versions of a book that I wrote and it works well for creating PDF / mobi / ebpub versions (plus a printable version of the PDF). Unfortunately I couldn't get enough people to comment on it at that time, so it was a rather solitary affair. So I'm particularly interested in your approach. Good luck with the book, I look forward to it's development and the final dead tree / live pixel versions.
Andy Hunt
2024-02-16 17:56:10 +0000 UTCOh, that's good to know! I do feel very strongly about learning in public, and I do it quite a lot for work too, so there are a lot of overlaps to explore there. I've already been living it, so I feel I can say a lot. I'm pretty sure I'll still compile DIP into ebook format at some point, but honestly, I haven't quite worked out how I'm going to do that. I am sure I want to self-publish, but I really don't know how that all works. I guess I'll figure it out as I go! I totally agree with your thoughts on iA Writer. I could not switch entirely to it, but as a unitasker - something that is just for writing - it's pretty great. Thanks for cheering me on! Appreciate you. <3
Nicole van der Hoeven
2024-02-16 14:58:27 +0000 UTCI think this is a great move for you, to write your book on learning in public. While I might have found you because I was searching for YouTube videos on Obsidian, the first time I ever heard about learning in public was from watching one of your videos. So it’s a topic that I associate with you in particular, and it’s a great area to lean into with your personal brand — there are so many possibilities. Do you think you’ll be releasing DIP at least in ebook format when it’s complete or will it live on its website? On tools — I used IA Writer prior to finding Obsidian. I liked it, but part of why I was so excited when I found Obsidian was the fact that it could do so much more than IA Writer. I can see how Obsidian is not ideal for avoiding distractions however. I think there’s always some part of my mind that is looking to optimize my processes when I’m using Obsidian, because with plugins and if you can code, the possibilities are pretty much endless. This can take time away from the actual work I’m trying to do. I can see how IA Writer can help with that — it’s like, you get what you get with it, so just write already! Anyway, really looking forward to reading DIP, and I’ll be “peering over your shoulder” in the meantime. Good luck and thanks Nicole!
Chiza Barber
2024-02-16 14:50:20 +0000 UTC
