# [[How I'm writing a book in public - DIP February 2024]] <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/MwNPY9DmQTY" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> Related:: "" ## Pre-production ### Thumbnail ![[How I'm writing a book in public.png]] ### Title 1. how to write a book in obsidian (61) 2. writing a book in public (100) ### Hook In the book Indistractable, Nir Eyal talks about something called a precommitment: making a commitment *now* so that it's easier for you to do something in the future. Almost a year ago now, I made a pretty big precommitment to keep myself accountable. I released a video announcing that I was going to be writing a book. I had an idea for it (a no-methodology guide to Obsidian), I had a name for it (Obsidian Playbook), I had an outline... I even wrote 20,000 words for it. And then it didn't happen. Here's an update on what happened with that, and why I'm writing a new book instead. ### Structure - Why I'm not writing the Playbook anymore - It felt more like documentation than writing something new. - There are already a lot of resources and I didn't feel the need to duplicate them. Jorge Arango's [[Duly Noted]] is what I'd recommend to most people starting out with note-taking now, replacing [[sources/Book/How to Take Smart Notes|How to Take Smart Notes]]. - I don't want to be too tied to a tool, because I've been a note-taker before Obsidian and I'll be a note-taker after it - I just had a lot going on last year, and just couldn't add another thing to my plate. - I'm still going to be maintaining and restructuring and adding to my Obsidian notes, and they're already published. - Why I'm writing a *new* book instead - When I looked at the videos I've made, the presentations I've given, and the notes I've written, there's a theme: [[Learning in public]]. Coincidentally, this was the thing I was most excited about in the previous book. - This is something I've always been interested in, and it's something that would exist regardless of the exact stack of tools I'm using. - I feel strongly that I owe my career and my happiness to, among many things, learning in public. - I just learn in public a whole damn lot. (social media, YouTube, livestreams, presentations) - The new book: [[sources/Book/Mine/Doing It in Public/Readme|Doing It in Public]] - Why you should learn in public - What learning in public means - How to swallow your nerves and do it anyway - When you *shouldn't* learn in public - Structuring - I decided to create a new vault for it - [[Andy Polaine]] gave me good advice: don't try to do structure work at the same time as generative work. - Outline done - Right now, the outline just links to existing notes. It's super cool to see that I've written a lot about it. Later, it'll link to written chapters. - Need to add videos I've made on the topic. - Writing - [[Longform plugin]] plugin - [[iA Writer]] for focused writing. - Introduction done - How am I doing it in public? - Publishing as I go - On GitHub - On Quartz - Getting feedback - On GitHub - On Discord ### Outro I still love the idea of precommitments, but obviously, they don't *always* work. But you know what? That just means it wasn't the right idea or it wasn't the right time. And in the end, I *did* learn something-- that for me, it was both. And that's still learning in public. I'm looking forward to steering into the new book, and to sharing even more of how I'm learning with you all. If you'd like to learn with me and peer over my shoulder, check out the links in the description below. Also! Next month, on March 22-23, I'm going to be at PKM Summit. It is a PKM conference and it's going to be in Utrecht, in the Netherlands! You may recognise some of the speakers-- including me (`Eve: Please add B-roll from pkmsummit.com including some of the speakers lined up`)! I don't actually know what I'm going to speak about yet, but I am toying with the idea of letting everyone watch as I record a video for this channel - really showing my process, mistakes and all. I'm so excited to meet other PKM nerds, I can't tell you. Check out the link to sign up-- and let me know if there's anything in particular you'd like me to make a video *about*, live. ### Related videos and resources 🖊️ Doing It in Public: https://doingitinpublic.com 💬 Join my Discord server: https://nicole.to/discord 💬 PKM Summit: https://pkmsummit.com/ 📕 Duly Noted: Extend Your Mind through Connected Notes: https://amzn.to/3UEfUDj 🖊️ Obsidian Playbook notes: https://notes.nicolevanderhoeven.com/obsidian-playbook/Obsidian+Playbook+Readme 💻 iA Writer: https://ia.net/writer ### Cards ### Pinned comment ``` Read the introduction to Doing It in Public: https://doingitinpublic.com/Doing-It-in-Public/Introduction Give me feedback on my Discord server: https://nicole.to/discord Meet me at the PKM Summit: https://pkmsummit.com/ PLUGINS: Longform, Dataview, BRAT, Templater, Vault Changelog THEME: Typomagical (Light) ``` ### Timestamps 00:00 Intro 00:37 Reasons I didn't write the book 02:48 Why I'm writing a new book instead 04:58 Book outline 10:56 Obsidian plugins for writing a book 12:09 Using iA Writer for writing 13:48 Publishing an in-progress book 14:56 Giving me feedback 16:15 Meet me in person at PKM Summit ## Post-production - [x] Create captions using Rev, then edit them. - [x] Take a thumbnail photo and create one for YouTube (1280 x 720). - [x] Add description. - [x] Include the title and any keywords in the first few sentences, but in a natural way. - [x] Add related videos and resources as links. - [x] Add end screen. - [x] Add cards if necessary. - [x] Add chapters/timestamps for YouTube if longer than 5 minutes. - [x] Add mid-roll ads/check monetization settings. - [x] Add pinned comment. - [x] Post video preview on Patreon. - [x] Schedule on YouTube. - [x] Add video to relevant playlist(s), or create a playlist if necessary. - [x] Schedule on Mastodon. - [ ] Create a blog post on [site](https://nicolevanderhoeven.com). - [x] Change `published` to `true`. - [x] Change `publish` to `true`. - [x] Change `status` to `Done`.