Show HN: Cloud Native Web Development – I self-published my first book

Hi,

I spent the last three months writing a 200+ page book, with 19 corresponding pull requests.

https://www.mikenikles.com/cloud-native-web-development

It's a hands-on guidebook on how to develop a cloud-native web application based on technologies I am familiar with. Svelte, Tailwind CSS, Cypress.io, Gitpod.io, Firebase & Google Cloud at a high-level.

The goal was to walk through the entire end-to-end process, from zero to production! It walks through building a foundation needed to develop on top of. CI / CD, testing, feature toggles, production monitoring, etc.

To write it, I used Google Docs and had two git repositories: one to experiment and one that contains the final source code - where the git commit history looks like I never struggled :-).

AMA on self-publishing or the book's topic itself!

2 comments

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quickthrower2 6y ago ↗

Well done! It’s not easy writing a book and it really tests your knowledge more than just doing the thing. I say that having written a crappy 20 pager!

Anyway was that 3months full time or part time?

What are your marketing plans? I hope it pays off financially too. I think you are on trend so there would be demand.

mikenikles 6y ago ↗

Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I actually learned quite a bit of details for the tools & technologies I write about. Teaching / writing is the best way to learn!

It was 3 months part-time. Evenings and weekends almost exclusively though.

As for marketing, I am planning to write a blog post and/or video series where I explain my journey, what I learned, the tools I used, share scripts I wrote to make my life easier.

It's been a fantastic learning experience and I hope my story will encourage others.