Shamelessly I steal the subject from Chris Lema. Again.
I write because I read. A lot. Someone told me they wanted to read 30 books in a year, which is about 2 a month, and I looked sheepish. I read about a book a week, depending on the book. It took me 2 weeks to get through The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and I read more when I’m traveling since I enjoy reading on planes. I’m a reader because my elementary school teacher, Nancy Sager, told me the best way to become a good writer was to read. So I read voraciously. Sometimes it’s books, sometimes it’s a graphic novel (and yes, I consider them a book, though I don’t count them on my ‘book a week’ list). I read and re-read and critique in my head.
But this isn’t why I read books, it’s why I write them. Like Chris, I write because I’m lazy. The whole reason I wrote WordPress Multisite 101 was because I had a Word Doc with all that information in it, scattered, and when I started to make a table of contents, I thought that I could do it better. So I did. Similarly, I wrote the next two books for the same reason. I had all this information, and I could have made a ton of blog posts, but it’s actually easier for me to pick up that one book, search for the phrase, and find what I needed.
I also write because I have a story to tell. I don’t publish these as often if at all (good luck finding it), but I write fiction. Mystery novels, crime stories, that sort of thing. I write because I get these ideas and I want to tell the story. That translates well to my technical writing because people remember a story better than dull facts. I know the facts that Anne Bolyen, Jane Seymore, and Catherine Parr were all beheaded because of a song! Hilariously, the song is wrong, and it’s Anne and Catherine Howard who were headless, but how the Sweet Saint Marian can anyone tell with their heads tucked underneath their arms!
Now that you have the song in your head, you may think about how much easier it is to memorize scripts and poems and songs than it ever is to remember the list of British kings. That’s because a story makes it easier for most of us. And I like telling stories.
So I write because I want to have any easy way to find things, and because I want a fun way to remember them.
Interested in reading them? They’re about WordPress:
What’s that last one? It’s Eric Mann’s fault. He said if I wrote a book about making an ebookstore, he’d buy it. And then Chris Lema said he’d do an intro. So fine. Here’s a 33 page ebook on making an ebookstore with Easy Digital Downloads. Enjoy the release of ebookception: WordPress eBookstore
I had a couple logical reasons for pricing at zero when I started out with this two years ago. First of all, I was entering unknown territory without any information. Secondly, I wanted to get my name out there. Third, I didn’t want a hassle. I still agree with Cory Doctorow about how DRM is evil, and the problem with only selling books is that people don’t really know if they like your writing, or if the book is worth it. Mind you, everyone could read my blog and sort that out for themselves, but I understand there’s a weird leap about paying even $0.99 for something you don’t know about.
I don’t actually like Amazon. However the Kindle people spoke and I listened. After checking that, yes, I can release my ebook for sale on the Kindle legally (that was a weird conversation), I sat about doing it. I really wanted to self-publish on lulu, but … well, Amazon was easier. There. I said it. They actually know what they’re doing, and made it surprisingly painless! Of course, that they want you to write it in .docx, export to html, then upload a zip, was a little nuts. They also let you upload ePubs, which I have, so that was a lot easier.
So there’s this thing. I blog a lot, but sometimes the ‘lessons’ I want to teach would take up a few thousand words. I’ve sorted out that any blog post over 1200 words is ‘too long’ and I try to split it up. But then how do I organize it? Let’s face it, books are useful for a reason.