After reviewing two books about Python, people from Packt asked me if I was willing to write a Python book. I'm glad to see that my first book, Mastering Python Design Patterns is published!
As I expected, writing a book is much tougher than reviewing one. Especially if you have a full-time job, like in my case. I had to deliver a chapter about every week. This is very challenging, since it means that I had to spend many evenings and weekends focusing on delivering a chapter on time.
I hope that my book will be appreciated by the Python (3.x) community. I tried to focus on doing things the Python way instead of reproducing Java-ish or C++-style solutions. To be honest I preferred a different title: I recommended the title "Idiomatic Python Design Patterns" but my proposal was rejected, mainly for marketing reasons.
If you are also considering writing a book, I think that it is a very good idea, but take into account the following:
As I expected, writing a book is much tougher than reviewing one. Especially if you have a full-time job, like in my case. I had to deliver a chapter about every week. This is very challenging, since it means that I had to spend many evenings and weekends focusing on delivering a chapter on time.
I hope that my book will be appreciated by the Python (3.x) community. I tried to focus on doing things the Python way instead of reproducing Java-ish or C++-style solutions. To be honest I preferred a different title: I recommended the title "Idiomatic Python Design Patterns" but my proposal was rejected, mainly for marketing reasons.
If you are also considering writing a book, I think that it is a very good idea, but take into account the following:
- Do you have the time to do it? Unless your book is self-published, you'll need to sign a contract with a publisher and that means that there will be deadlines. Make sure that you discuss it first with your partner/family, since it is a demanding task.
- Does it fill a missing gap? I don't recommend you to write a book just for the money (yes, you are paid for writing the book and depending on the contract you can also get a share from the sales). I have seen many examples of poorly-written books that were created only because the author wanted to make some money. Don't do it. It might be good for you pocket, but it can harm your reputation, your career, and your psychology (think of bad reviews).
To expand a little bit more on point two: I feel that my book is indeed filling a gap. Although there are other books about Design Patterns in Python, none of them focuses on Python 3. In fact, I reviewed one of them, and apart from targeting only Python 2.x, IMHO it is not using idiomatic Python solutions in many cases.
My book is not perfect in any way. The lack of time meant that some examples had to be smaller and more trivial than expected. But this is part of the game. If you are working full-time and you are writing a book, time is your enemy! Be prepared to make compromises...