It's been, again, a while since my last post here on DEV. In between posts, I've been rather busy with all kinds of projects. By far the largest of...
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Congratulations, and thanks for sharing the journey!
260+ pages sounds a lot (I saw that number on one of your tweets). Was there a target length when you started, or was it more a case of writing as much as possible for each of the topics?
Thank you so much!
That's a great question! Yes, there was. The publisher originally expected around 250 pages, which turned out to be more in the end. I think more than that would've been very hard, since there's only ever so much you can write about without watering down the content and actually losing focus. I could've added more about the history of grids, polyfills, design aspects, etc., but then it would've been less of a tutorial book for the technology itself. Less than 250 would mean that I woujld have had to condense the content, losing the opportunity to explain details.
With the index, foreword, glossary and additional content about related books, the final product has 330 pages total, however, the 260+ pages of actual content felt like a very sensible choice.
When creating the outline, I had to give estimations about how many pages each chapter would roughly fill and we double-checked that the sum was roughly 250. Especially after the tech review, I had to expand the explanations on some aspects, which resulted in some extra pages, totalling at around 263 in the end.
Does that answer your question?
Yes thanks. Just two more questions please 😊
You mentioned not using words like above and below. How did you get around that?
Was the page target for wall-to-wall text, or did it account for layout, paragraph spacing, and diagrams too?
Sorry for bombarding you with questions; I'd just like to learn more about the process.
Don't be sorry, wanting to learn is never a bad thing and I love answering all your questions! 😀
"Following" and "previous" are good substitutes. So, instead of talking about the "above figure", I would write "the previous figure", or mention the figure number directly, i.e. "As shown in figure 3.14". My own mind is usually very focussed on locality when it comes to ordering information, so it took me a bit to adjust to that, but once I got used to this technique, it worked fine. I recently read a papeback book that did not follow that approach and I immediately noticed why using "above" and "below" doesn't work. If the formatting is just slightly different in the final product than it is in the draft, you might end up having "the above figure" as the first line of a page on the left (assuming LTR writing), meaning there is no "above" or "left" at all. "Previous", on the other hand, circumvents that.
While writing, I used MS Word only, so I added section titles, paragraph spacings, figures, code examples etc. in there directly. The page target included these, so what counted was the actual page count of the Word documents. Figures also transport information, although in a different format, so counting them is sensible. Code examples, especially with comments, allow the reader to understand what is going on by being able to look at actual examples of things being used, which is yet another way of conveying information. I think the publisher used page targets to get a sense of how large the end product will be. A word count of, say 10k words (roughly 20 pages, according to A Popular Search Engine™) may produce a wildly different page count if there are a lot of figures vs when there are no figures at all. A page count keeps things manageable.
I hope this answered your questions, is there anything else you want to know? ☺️
Thanks for the detailed info. Just one more thing please: it sounds like it was quite hectic - especially towards the end. How did you find time for everything, especially with a full-time job? Did you have to set aside strict time blocks for writing?
You're very welcome!
You're right, it was quite hectic at times and sometimes I struggled to meet the deadlines. We didn't rush it, though, and usually the project manager and editor were very understanding if I had good reasons for not meeting a deadline, such as falling ill (I caught a nasty flu halfway through), family business or holidays.
I tried to stick to a rhythm, spending one to two hours per day writing. I would use train rides and other idle time to work on the project, too. I tried getting up really early for a few weeks, work on the book before breakfast and then work on my job. That worked surprisingly well, especially since I did not have to write for two hours after already working for eight.
Sometimes I had to spend the weekend, though, working for some four to eight hours per day, but I think that was a necessary sacrifice that I was more than willing to make. Handing in a large chapter I was happy with, gave me a feeling of achievement, and that was usually enough to compensate for not being able to play video games that day lol. Luckily my partner was very supportive and had my back in crunch times. Don't underestimate the support you get from loved ones during such a project. Helping each other thrive can strengthen the bond so much.
Is there anything else you want to know? I'm happy to answer all your questions! 😊
I think that's about it (for now 😁).
Thanks again for the detailed answers, and best of luck!
Congrats. Just added to my wish list. By the preview it appears to be a good read. Thanks for putting out a paperback. I hate to say it, the older I get, I find myself going back to books over videos and PDFs when trying to learn or broaden my understanding of topics.
Thank you so much! I personally also prefer paperback. There's nothing like the smell of a freshly printed book 🤣 The only thing I really miss about paperbacks is Ctrl+F, but that's what ebooks are for, right?
I hope you enjoy the book and that it helps you learn some new things! 😊
Book just arrived. I'm a couple chapters in and great so far. Technical but not hard to follow. So far, exactly what I need. Working on any other books? I could definitely use a good JavaScript book from you.
Lovely article @thormeier , it gave me the same sense of passion about our job that I felt while I was reviewing the book.
Passion always brings excellence. And yours is an excellent book on a topic that is fundamental in modern CSS development.
Thanks again for sharing the huge effort of writing a book, that’s very insightful and shows us, as always, that knowledgeable people are the most humble, and, most importantly, that ”no man is an island”.
It was fun, instructive, and an honor to review it, keep up with the great job.
Thank you so much, Giuseppe! I did work on this book with a lot of passion and reading your reviews, I noticed the passion in your work too!
I personally think this is the most important lesson for me: Such projects are not single-person jobs. Although there are people that write ebooks alone, do the editing, publish them themselves, take over all of the promotion, and whatnot, but it takes a ton of effort and a ton of knowledge to do so. I'm deeply impressed by the people that manage it, though! For me, having an amazing team of experts helps to ensure quality with every single step of the process and it allows people to focus on what they do best.
I'll do my best to keep up the quality, but I think I'll take a few weeks off from large projects like these. 😅
Hey, congratulations 🎉🎉🎉
I've always enjoyed reading your blogs, so I know the book is going to be great as well!!!
Thank you so much! I hope so, too 😅
Thanks you for sharing!
It may be the next book, one never knows enough 😁
You're very welcome! I hope you enjoy it and can learn something new from it if you decide to get yourself a copy. 🙂
Congratulations on completing your CSS Grid book! 🎉 I'm excited to explore the insightful content you've created. Thank you for sharing your journey and inspiring others. 👏
Thank you so much! I hope you like it and that it helps you learn new things. :)