{"id":12583,"date":"2024-11-16T11:46:40","date_gmt":"2024-11-16T16:46:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=12583"},"modified":"2024-11-18T12:18:58","modified_gmt":"2024-11-18T17:18:58","slug":"writing-a-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/?p=12583","title":{"rendered":"Writing A Book"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nOver at Parenthetically Speaking<\/a>, there’s an interesting post on why you should write a book<\/a>. It’s mainly aimed at academics but its lessons apply to anyone who has something to share. That’s actually a lower bar than you might think. You don’t have to have a PhD to have something worth saying. Most practicing engineers with a bit of experience have things to say that would be useful to other, especially younger, engineers.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe post is is divided into three parts:\n<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. You can<\/i> write a book<\/li>\n
  2. You should<\/i> write a book<\/li>\n
  3. Mechanics<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    \nThe first two parts are written specifically for academics but can, as I say, can apply to anyone with something to say. The interesting part, to me, is the mechanics. “Mechanics” in this context means not so much the tools you use as the actual means of publishing. The idea is to eschew “professional” publishers and make your material available for free.\n<\/p>\n

    \nI published both my books through a publisher and although it can be a bit more work, you do<\/i> have the cachet of having an actual publisher putting out your book. On the other hand, making your text freely available gets the word out to more people more efficiently.\n<\/p>\n

    \nCurrently, it’s easier than ever to write a book. These days, I prefer to write everything in Org mode. With Org, it’s easy to rearrange material and edit your text. When you’re happy with what you’ve written, you can export to HTML, PDF, or even Docx with a simple key press. The process could hardly be easier. The writing part is still hard, of course, but the mechanics are easy, especially if you leverage Emacs and Org.\n<\/p>\n

    \nUpdate<\/b> [2024-11-18 Mon 12:16]<\/span><\/span>: Added link to post.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Over at Parenthetically Speaking, there’s an interesting post on why you should write a book. It’s mainly aimed at academics but its lessons apply to anyone who has something to share. That’s actually a lower bar than you might think. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[18,4,37],"class_list":["post-12583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-emacs","tag-org-mode","tag-tech"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12583"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12590,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12583\/revisions\/12590"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/irreal.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}