
Show HN: I just released my first self-published book - allanmacgregor
http://magetdd.com/
======
mooreds
Nice work. I passed it along to a couple of magento developers I know. A bit
of feedback. I get that you want to be clear what the book isn't, but when you
say

"This book only focuses on a handful of tools and few specific approaches that
in my opinion work the best. Be Pragmatic and use what works best for you."

That makes me (with my 'Magento developer who doesn't test' hat on) think,
wait, I don't know what works for me, that's why I'm buying the book.

Instead, I'd write something like:

"This book discusses one toolset I've used with success. There are other ways
to test Magento extensions, but this book will walk you through setting up a
method that I've tested and used for years."

If this is a book aimed at beginners (magento testing beginners, not
necessarily magento beginners), which your copy implies, give them definitive
statements, especially in the marketing copy. That's what beginners like. (You
can, of course, offer more shades of gray in the book, but not too much.)

~~~
j_s
_give them definitive statements_

Concise, confident: "This book focuses on the best testing tools and
frameworks."

~~~
mooreds
Much better. Use this!

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mokshjawa
Hi,

I really love it and I'm very impressed. I'm actually just a high schooler and
I was working a book for Java that I was planning on self-publishing as well.
I was wondering if you could lend some insight into how you formatted your
book (especially with the code)? Did you use any software or get it done by
someone else? Or did you use any template that you recommend?

~~~
allanmacgregor
Hi,

Sure I'm using leanpub.com for generating the ebooks; they have great tools
and manuals for the markdown style they use.

The book itself is saved into a private GitHub repo; so I can keep tabs on all
the changes. Formatting the code becomes a walk in the park thanks to
leanpub.com

If you need more help, advice or any help at all feel free to email me at
amacgregor [at] allanmacgregor.com

~~~
luck87
Good luck for the book (I will buy your book your book very soon) and thanks
for the leanpub.com link :-)

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xivzgrev
Congrats on publishing your book! I did one back a few years ago, and I know
it's a ton of work but really fun / gratifying :)

May I make a suggestion? In the early bird access, I would also include part
of the get hands dirty. Knowing why I should do something isn't that valuable
on its own - it's the stuff showing me how that's more valuable. So give me a
taste, get me started and then wanting the rest so I know how to finish it!

The only downside is that it'll create demand but that will also create
pressure on you to make the rest available soon, otherwise people may try to
find how to finish elsewhere so when you release the rest some of the demand
will have dissipated.

~~~
mooreds
Yes, congrats! I wrote one too and it's a ton of work but fun to see what
doors open up.

My book ended up having a short shelf life--hope this one has a longer one.

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unknownknowns
Looks awesome. I just wanted to mention a couple stylistic things I noticed in
the sample copy: subsubsection under Part 1 named "It;s all about
communication" (the it;s), and the capitalization style for section titles is
pretty inconsistent.

I don't know if you'll have an editor go through everything later on, but just
wanted to mention a couple of the things from the early access sample :)

~~~
allanmacgregor
Hey, Thanks for the feedback.

I have a couple of people helping me out with the proofreading. I will make
sure to double check that kind of formatting issues.

------
munificent
Congrats on finishing your book! I know exactly how much work that can be.

I hate to be picky but I know I'd want someone to point these out in my work,
so I'll hope you feel the same way. You have a few grammatical errors on your
page:

"Building proper tests for a Magento extension can be difficult for seasoned
veterans let's not say the junior developer just getting started with
Magento."

You at least need a comma before "let's not say", but even then it still feels
like a strange construction to me. Maybe "...veterans, not to say..."

"After all, you have written code like this a thousand times before; You know
what you are doing right?"

Turn that semicolon into a period. I have a simple rule on when to use a
semicolon:

    
    
        Should I use a semicolon?
        1. Nope.
        2. There is no second answer.
    

"And yet, how much time of your day to day do you spend tracking and fixing
bugs?"

If you really want to use "day to day", hyphenate it. But I would simplify it
to "how much of your day do you spend...".

"What if you could do something that gave you confidence, not only on the
quality of the code that is being promoted, confidence that if and when,
someone has to make changes to the code there are tests that can confirm that
nothing has been broken and the application still performs as expected."

There's some dead weight here and the clauses sort of run on. How about:

"What if you could do something that gave you confidence — not only on the
quality of the code, but confidence that when someone changes the code, there
are tests that confirm nothing has broken."

When I write, I do (at least) three drafts:

1\. Get all the words down. Put all the clay on the table.

2\. Rearrange and control structure and pacing. Push the clay into the right
shape.

3\. Edit every single sentence to tweak or remove words that don't add value.
Trim the sculpture down to its final shape and texture.

My goal on the third draft isn't to strip it down to Hemingway. There's still
room for character and charm to shine through. But it's to make sure that
every ounce of prose adds _some_ value, be it information, clarity, cadence,
or humor.

~~~
allanmacgregor
Thank you! I love this kind of feedback. I'll sit tonight and play around with
the landing page.

A lot of the fun with this book has been finding a writing style that feels
natural but is still clear enough; a bit difficult since I try to ramble.

Cheers!

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asyncwords
Good for you! Magento isn't in my wheelhouse, but I'd be interested in hearing
how you've gone about marketing your book before release — building a mailing
list, sharing articles to social media, guest blog posts, etc. Do you have
anything you'd do differently if you were to write another book in the future?

~~~
allanmacgregor
Hey,

This book is actually my second one the first one was: 'The Magento PHP
Developer's Guide' which was in collaboration with PacktPub. During the
process of writing and publishing the first book, I learned a lot of hard
lessons.

The Magento TDD book is actually my attempt at doing things differently:

\- Building an email list \- A lot of twitter marketing

As well I'm currently working on getting some reviewer copies distributed to a
few well-known blogs in the Magento community.

I plan to do a couple follow up posts with all the things I'm learning about
marketing the book and the experience overall.

Reference: [https://www.packtpub.com/web-development/magento-php-
develop...](https://www.packtpub.com/web-development/magento-php-
developer%E2%80%99s-guide)

------
lifeisstillgood
Congrats

Couple of points - I had to dig back to your blog to find anything about you
personally. It was odd to read about the book but not the author - especially
for something like this where personal expertise counts. I suggest a small
about me section on the landing page.

Good luck

~~~
allanmacgregor
Thank you! Will add one over the weekend.

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Rickasaurus
Have you written at all about the tools you used to work on the book? I'd be
interested for sure.

~~~
allanmacgregor
I would be more than happy to a post about my writing process if that's what
you are referring to.

~~~
Rickasaurus
That would be excellent!

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ripaujla
Congrats and Good luck.

