The First 10,000 Words

So I've been half secretly building a little book for the past week or so that I believe would be a great advantage to the Fediverse. The book is meant to explain to newcomers of the Fediverse what it is and what to expect from it, getting into details about what sort of software they could see on the Fediverse as well as how the systems are different the centralised ones they've seen.

The hope is that once I finish writing this little book is that I'd have a pretty good started guide for those who wish to read about the Fediverse, well giving experienced users some helpful tips I've learnt over the years on the Fediverse. Obviously the book will need to be checked over a few times but I really am hoping to publish it not only to Apple Books like I have with previous writings of mine but also publish it as a physical book along with other E-book stores.

Why release it as a Physical and E-Book?

I believe the advantage of publishing the Fediverse in a physical and digital format will be that more people will learn about it, obviously it's most likely not going to be in every bookstore in the world, or even across the UK (where I live) but it would be good to have the option of it being in someones hands instead of just there digital library.

For those who are doing a bit of a social media detox it would be a good little read to explain the benefits of the decentralised system instead of the centralised ones that may have caused them the issues they are facing.

How am I making sure it's a quality book?

I'm writing about 1k words per day at minimum at the moment and put out a poll asking what sort of size book would look for when it comes to a book about the Fediverse. The poll was to try and a better understanding on what a general voter audience would like to see in a book centered about the Fediverse.

The current results of writing this has indicated that people want a more length book of at least 50 - 100+ pages and for there to be around 50k - 100k words what is possibly going to be a hell of a time. The 100 pages would be easy to do before 50k words but once you get above 50k words you are most likely going to be writing a 200+ page book what is about a normal novel length.

Some of the other ways I'm hoping to keep making the book as best of the quality that it can get to is by opening asking questions on the Fediverse along with doing my own research about how each software, instance and other parts of the Fediverse may function along with keeping in mind that the readers might not understand what the Fediverse is.

Explaining the Fediverse in multiple different ways to help people understand it throughout the book is one of the main ways this book could also help people learn what the Fediverse is and understand it that little bit more.

Do I think will become a 'Go-To Guide'?

The development of this book has never been the idea of creating a must 'go-to guide' for all. There is always going to be things that I miss, and if I didn't miss a single thing the book would be that long it would be way to expensive for one person to purchase without a monthly payment and to heavy for someone to move around without a fork-lift.

I'm more hoping that it would be a good starting point for the few people that might not have heard of the Fediverse yet, or even be a book you suggest your friend that is having trouble with the centralised social media and wants to find something different. So easily it's a book that I wish that those who use the Fediverse (if they feel it's a good enough book) to maybe share with those who haven't listened or just don't currently get why it's a good thing to use.

Will it become out-dated?

Simple answer is yes, things always become outdated overtime but I'd hope that with the ways I explain things as well as some of the softwares I mention about it will hopefully not become outdated till a few years down the line. This means that I rather would need to create a whole new book for the series of guides on the Fediverse or maybe the first book done enough in helping those who needed it that little push of why they should join the Fediverse.

So I simply would like to not have to update the book for a little while, but who knows it might be able do its job the first time around and many people learn about the Fediverse and move away from centralised social media.

How much will the book cost?

As of the moment I haven't set a price for the book as it's still in development but I do know both the Physical and Digital versions will have a price tag on them. "But it doesn't cost you anything to have a digital version for free", Yes well it doesn't cost me anything to distribute the digital version for free, allowing for more possible eyes to look at it but when you release something for free I've found a lot of people see it as worse quality. As for when you put a price tag on that, no matter how cheap it might be, people have got to try and get value from it "get there money's worth".

That's the reason that the digital version will have a price tag, even a little one. But Obviously I'm not sure how much I will charge for either version of the book as of the moment, as it's still being written and still taking up time and effort to write but I do want to try and keep costs low to make sure that people can read the book especially if they financially are struggling and in the future I may even try and help people with digital discounts on the E-Book versions but that will only come with time.