Short presentation made for BarCamp Ghent 2009 about writing a book for Manning Publications Co. I wrote my first book for them in 2005-2006. Currently I'm halfway writing my second book.

1. iText in Action
Writing a book for
Manning Publications Co.

2. What is iText?
• First PDF library: rugPdf (1998)
– One Christmas holiday of study
– Developed in six weeks time
– Not user-friendly: for PDF experts only
• 2000: I want my own project!
– Rebuild a PDF library from scratch
– For people who don’t know anything about PDF
– iText hosted at lowagie.com

3. 2004: Free tutorial

4. First contact
• November 2004: offer to write a book for
O’Reilly
• April 2005: offer to write a book for
Manning

5. Preparing a book
• First contact: Publisher’s Assistant
• After evaluation: Acquisition Manager:
helps writing the Book Proposal
– Short Summary
– Detailed Table of Contents
– Marketing Overview
• Industry review

6. Book contract
• 5 deadlines
– Chapter 1
– 1/3 of the manuscript
– 2/3 of the manuscript
– 3/3 of the manuscript
– Final manuscript
• “Author Launch”

7. Writing a book
• Development Manager assigns:
– Developmental Editor
• Helps the writer “developing” his book
• Obey the Manning Style Guide!
• Review Manager
• Coordinates the review process

8. Production
• Production Manager assigns:
– Copy Editor
– Technical Editor
– Lay-out
– Proof Reader
• Cover Designer
• Marketing Manager: go or no-go
• Back cover: written by the Publisher himself

9. Timing
First Edition:
• May – July 2005: preparing the book
• September 2005 – February 2006: writing
• March – November 2006: production
Second Edition:
• August – September 2009: preparing
• October 2009 – April 2010: writing
• May – August 2010: production

10. The result

11. Good reviews

12. Sales so far
Paper book: 7379 copies
eBook: 2565 copies
Total: 9944 copies

13. Second Edition!