On some occasions I have talked on my website about the difference between creating products and developing projects at the software implementation level. In the same way, I find many similarities between creating software products and writing a book, even if it may sound strange at first, especially now that I have just launched a third nonfiction work (The Lean MP Method).
For some reason, people believe that writing a book is a task whose nature escapes the normal dynamics of developing any other type of creative activity (and product). Whether fiction or not, some people assign that activity of writing a special character derived from the inspiration and skill of the author in managing language, stylistic and literary resources, or the ability to explain complex concepts in a simple and straightforward way. And yes, some of this must be true, but it is completely insufficient, even though we can always find examples of books with very interesting content but extraordinarily badly written, and we can also find the opposite. There is much more around the development of a book before it reaches final publication.
When we say, “I have written a book,” one thinks that you sat down for a certain number of hours and just wrote, with your favorite pen and a notebook (I like to keep writing by hand) or with a laptop. Thus, writing seems to be the main activity when you say you are working on a new book. Similarly, when we say we are programming a new product, we think we spend most of the time… writing code.
And nothing could be further from the truth.
Writing, just like developing any type of product, also has a process in which the ideas and creativity that end up being expressed on paper are only one part. In other words, a book is not written; rather, it is a project that is developed, and one part of that project—only one part—consists of writing the pages necessary to convey the idea, message, knowledge, or story you want to place in the reader’s mind.
How much time does that writing part take? I have not measured it precisely when I have worked on any of the five books I have published so far, but I can say without mistake that less than half of the time I spent on them was dedicated to writing the content.
If we look closely, far from that somewhat bohemian idea of a writer locked in an attic on a rainy autumn afternoon waiting for inspiration to arrive, creating a book resembles building a product more than anything else, with the difference that the person who publishes it is given certain cultural respect.
There may be more creativity (and art) in any product than in many books, and the reverse is also true; however, that patina of respect is already earned in advance by the writer and their work, and what I mean is that producing a television ad can be a much more creative job than launching many of the consumer books that crowd the shelves of bookstores (and Amazon, as an example). But yes, we know that not creativity is paid for, but the value consumers perceive in what they buy.
Like any product, the book’s only purpose is to provide some type of value to its reader (new knowledge, consolidating what they already know, providing new perspectives, or pure entertainment).
In the same way, a good product validates and confirms the professionalism of its creator (or of the team that developed it); a book also helps position you better professionally. In fact, if you want to stand out as a professional, writing a good book about your sector can be a great lever in your career.
When you begin work on a book project, you have certain objectives in mind: economic, reputational, improving the profitability of previous ones by complementing them, or any other idea that comes to mind (including increasing the author’s vanity, which exists too). You launch a product to the market to sell it; there is no more, and how? By solving a consumer problem and adding value. In the case of a book, the value provided is new knowledge, entertainment, or cultural depth.
A product is not made in two days, and not even all the phases of work that end up producing it require working “on” it. In other words, a product is developed following some type of methodology. The same happens when you work on creating a book: part of the time you spend writing, but most of the time you spend on other types of activities organized according to some methodology (even if some people do it without a clear plan or order), such as planning the book’s structure, researching scenarios, documenting historical facts, characterizing the characters and their contents, developing them, commissioning a cover, laying out the book, publishing it, etc.
But there are even more parallels: you never launch the first version of a product exactly as it is; you keep adjusting it until it reaches the maturity needed to be ready for market launch.
Similarly, when you finish a first draft of the book, that is when the hardest work begins: correcting and revising. This phase creates a real psychological struggle because, as an author, you want to see the work finished as soon as possible, and you probably enjoy writing more than revising. An experienced author knows that this phase must last as long as it needs to, but it is a fundamental phase for producing something of better quality.
In all the books I have worked on, this phase has taken more time than writing the first draft. To give a concrete example, in The Lean MP Method, I corrected and revised the text up to five times, adding new details, improving a paragraph, correcting a typo, etc.
A product is tested exhaustively before being launched on the market (that is the ideal and most professional approach); likewise, a book is read by several beta readers or an editor who supervises it, meaning they are “testing” whether the text you wrote has enough quality to attract readers, whether the structure of the book is consistent, whether there are no argumentative errors, etc.
Finally, once the product is launched on the market (whether it is a book or not), another equally important phase begins: promotion and marketing (although this can start even before the product is finished). If you don’t know it yet, without promoting and without running campaigns of some kind, it is hard for your product to work.
I enjoy writing about topics I like, especially when I give them structure in the form of a book and think they may be valuable to many other people around the world. But I do not like the somewhat elitist and arrogant image some authors project when they think that because they are “writers,” they have something interesting to say. I find that attitude a bit childish.
For me, writing is about giving back to society part of what it gives me, but it is also developing an asset that, if all goes well, will work for me even while I sleep. That is why I avoid the naive image of the writer with a serious face, head full of ideas, and furrowed brow due to intellectual weight. When people mention this to me, I always say that I do not write books; I develop products in the form of books, something that also allows me to learn, deepen, and reflect on the topics I write about.