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Writing A Book On Web Design


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Hi!

 

So I just finished the principle writing for my new web design book: Web Design Start Here! I did not choose the title or the style and layout. This is all in the hands of the publisher.

 

The Process of Writing a Book

 

It took me about 1.5 months to do - it is hard to say exactly, because initially the process was erratic and I had also written a good 100 pages before getting the book deal. That said, I had to do major edits to the first 100 pages since they were based on really old and dated content.

 

It is a beginners book mostly on HTML, HTML5, CSS and CSS3 - code centric. The hardest part about it, is explaining the basic concepts. Beginners topics like the cascade is CSS and the rules of the cascade were a challenge. These are things we take for granted as experienced web developers, but man ... trying to explain it concisely is a real pain! Teaching / writing for people who already know their way around a subject, is MUCH easier!

 

... If you ever get a tech book deal, don't do a beginners book!!

 

:)

 

Writing the book forced me to 'up' my game, with regards to the organization of content. You see, with a book, you have a limited number of pages and words. The topics have to fit into a spread system, where a spread is two pages of 250 words a page. So when I introduced the CSS cascade, it had to be covered in either 1 or 2 or 3 spreads. That means 2,4 or 6 pages. That means 500, 1000 or 1500 words. I couldn't write my section on the CSS cascade on say 5 pages ... it either has to be 4 or 6 pages. The spread structure must be respected!!!

 

... You get the idea.

 

Anyway, you do this for 224 pages and you learn to optimize your writing style!

 

Not sure when the book will be out, but I imagine it will be within a month or two.

 

Stefan

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Accessibility included? Teach them before they are spoiled.   ;)

 

Yea, the title sucks. But that is publishers for you, I learned that through author Brian Keane. The first zombie book I ever read was from him, the cover caught my eye before I even knew it was a zombie book. It was called "Dead Sea" and had a bloody hand in a ships portal... yelled horror, nautical and zombies. Later I joined his community and commented on the new release from different publishers with a weird, colorful, (for me) comic book look to it that I would not spare a second look to in a store. Yea the image was under water zombie I believe, but it did not say zombie or even horror in my opinion if your skimming for books. It simply would never have caught my eye and I would have missed out on a now favorite book and likely a now one of my favorite authors, as in buy any book of theirs blindly because I trust them to make it good. He is now one of only three authors that fit that criteria, Stephen King & Anne Rice are the only other two. I, no doubt, would have missed him if not for the dark cover.

 

Long story short, each publisher has their own favorite artists hence the different cover. I can accept the layout being dictated by them, but the title should be yours or worked out between you and the publisher in a case like yours. If you are authoring an O'Reiley book, then yea, it should have the same cover style like the rest because it is trust in the publisher rather than the individual authors. Publishers are a sure fire way to turn me off writing books.

 

So mate, congrats on the deal  :clap:. Hope the money is good, maybe you can then retire to Alaska eh?   Let me know if it ever gets offered over Safari Online. Cheers!

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Hi,

 

I was Ok with the title ... to be honest, I had too many other things on my plate to think of anything. You never know what will work so I figured ... why not?

 

"Accessibility included?"

 

It is a beginners book and so I had limits in terms what I could include ... so a chapter on accessibility, no. But I do get into semantic meaning of tags and the new HTML5 tags that are very semantic  - footer, header etc. I also talk about how the code should give meaning to the page etc ... so accessibility yes.  Modern web design is by default much more accessible than it was in the past.

 

... Come to think of it, I do mention it and talk about some aspects. It is spread out throughout the text. 

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