Loyal Moses

First book, the contract and Wow! This is a lot of work.

Posted on 06 September 2010

Recently, I dropped my name on a contract with Packt Publishing to author an iPhone development book with a narrow focus on application performance.

I’m very much excited about the opportunity and look forward to the next several months of ‘book author boot camp’. Some close colleagues of mine were kind enough to expose me to a few of their authoring experiences… they weren’t convincing enough, I still signed a contract.

Performance, efficiency, tuning and literally squeezing the most out of an application (on any platform) is something I enjoy quite a bit. Not only am I looking forward to putting this on paper, the research and learning will be one of the most enjoyable aspects of the entire authoring process.

Of course, the excitement wears a bit thin when I think of the potential work load involved with writing a good sized technical book in as little as a few months. This, along with operating Remote Assessment, running Tactical FLEX and driving Aanval will make for some interesting scheduling. Add development projects for a 1/2 dozen languages, speaking engagements, travel, continuing education and of course family and personal life. “This is a lot of work.” — very much sums it up.

The positive is, I’ve always had an interest in becoming an author and educating myself on the publishing process. This is great opportunity to find out just how deep my interests go.

It isn’t too often that you are approached to author a book, well… In my case, it was nil until now. Regardless, it wasn’t an automatic yes. A lot of pondering, prayer and planning went into the decision. Of course, I am not the only one affected by signing such a time consuming contract.

Our little family already exists within a sphere that is unlike any we know. Dynamic may be the best word to describe how we operate and it appears, there won’t be a change for quite some time. It’s tough to balance a schedule like ours and remain productive as well as healthy, but I think we do alright and we’re only getting better.

Without a doubt, I’ll be posting more about the book and the authoring process over the next several months.

And until I know different, some serious thanks and appreciation to Packt and their staff for the opportunity. Here we go.

Enjoy.

~moses