A couple months ago my first computer book geared at the non-technical crowd came out: Create Your Own Website Using What You Already Know. The book provides a CD that contains five Web site templates and the Mozilla Composer software, and takes the reader through how to customize the existing templates to create their own websites without needing to know/use a lick of HTML or any other scary acronym. The five templates are designed to provide everyday sites that Joe Average might be interested in creating. There's a template for a Personal/Family site, one for an Organization, and even an eCommerce one, that shows how to use PayPal to accept payments online. (Again, all of this done without the user needing to write a lick of markup. No < or > found between this book's covers!)
Over a year ago I wrote about how, in my opinion, it was best for an author to find his niche and stick with it. That is, if you write computer books for beginner to intermediate Web developers, stick with it. If you write advanced books for brainy system architects, keep writing for that market. When I authored this blog entry, I had just started this Create Your Own Website book, and was hashing out my thoughts on the matter. In retrospect, writing this book took longer and caused for frustration on my part than any other book I've written. Even though this book has 145 pages - several hundred less than most technical computer trade books - it took me roughly nine months of writing to get those 145 pages, compared to the three or so months most ASP-related books require from me.
This longer than usual schedule was due to a couple of factors:
- With Creating Your Own Website I had to write to an audience I hadn't written to before. When talking about and explaining Web development, the words flow from my fingers, but writing a paragraph about centering text in a Web page, or explaining and demonstrating how different parts of the page could be stylized with different fonts, text sizes, colors, and so forth? Let's just say it took a bit of trial and error before I got into a groove when writing about these topics.
- The book's goals were not clearly defined at the start of the project. As the writing schedule progressed, the book's intent shifted from more of a “create a website from scratch without HTML,“ to, “use these pre-designed templates to build your own website.“ This change, which was the publisher's decision (and the right one, IMO), caused a bit of frustration since I had already written about 80% of the book detailing creating pages from scratch.
- The review/publisher markup period took longer than with standard computer trade books. Usually when an author completes a book, there's typically two to three months of editing, author reviews, and layout before the book gets shipped to the printer. This book took several weeks longer (even though it was shorter) because it's a lot fancier than most computer trade books. It's a multi-colored book, for example (not black and white); on virtually all pages there's a margin with sidebars pointing out other websites, “dos and don'ts,“ and other such miscellany. As you can imagine, this stuff takes time to compile, organize, and layout. The end result, though, is a very stylin' book. The book would have no trouble fitting in in one of those pictures of a modern, ultra-hip urban apartment. Can't say the same about, oh, ASP.NET: Tips, Tutorials, and Code.
At this point, I'm glad I did this book if, for nothing else, the experience. I sincerely doubt I will ever write a book for computer newbies again, although I've yet to receive the first report on book sales... if the book is selling wildly I may change my tune, naturally. It was a neat experience, just a bit too slow going and frustrating to want to tackle a similar project. Writing about ASP.NET is easily, more enjoyable, and in a topic area where I can leverage my name/past experience. (That is, there are existing ASP.NETers who know of my books and might be more inclined to pick up another book by yours truly; I doubt any computer newbies, outside of friends or family, has any idea who I am or my past writing.)
And for those interested in learning more about the book, I think this Amazon.com reviewer's comments sum up the book very well:
Mitchell gives us a breezy, confident approach to making a website. He emphasises that, within reason, you can do it all by yourself. With the aid of this book, naturally. He walks us through the templates on the CD that comes with the book. The general thrust is to show how if you can read and write, well, then you can make a website. There is certainly more involved than in merely using a browser to peruse the web. But the book gives a total absence of HTML tags, until the last chapter.
You can regard this book as an independent validation of the claims made for the above tools. Indeed, no programming appears to be necessary for a simple website. Along these lines, the chapter on making an online storefront is well done. The example storefront is actually quite limited. But even so, to have it running without programming is impressive.
Of course you are strongly encouraged to purchase multiple copies for your non-computer savvy friends and family members. :-)