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>I tried to explain how review workflows work in a PR-based setup, and gave concrete suggestions for how we could improve the process. But they didn’t want to t

>I tried to explain how review workflows work in a PR-based setup, and gave concrete suggestions for how we could improve the process. But they didn’t want to try it. That might sound like a small thing, but at that stage, all I wanted was a smooth and efficient collaboration process. The easier it was for me to track changes, the better. I'm surprised the copy editor was more comfortable using git than using a web-based review tool to leave comments, especially given that she was reviewing a Go book and didn't seem to know what Go was. How does that even happen? It seems bizarre that Manning had this copy editor at all. I recently had a negative experience with Manning. I sent them an email saying that I'm in the process of writing a book, and I'm self-publishing it, but I was curious about the possibility of applying to Manning for a second edition. I asked whether they accept second editions after a self-published first edition and what document formats they accept. I got back a form letter telling me that they'd rejected my proposal. When I followed up and said I didn't send a proposal but was asking preliminary questions, they told me that they understood I hadn't sent a proposal, but they were going off of the table of contents on my book's website. I guess they decided to pre-emptively reject me? They also only said Google Docs as a document format, but based on this blog post, clearly they accept AsciiDoc.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago
That kinda blew my mind too, I'd expect the complaint to be about needing to use some online review tool. Editing the asciidoc source directly sounds archaic, and I was expecting the authoring / editing world to have had 'code review' style software years before the software development world did. I mean all mainstream word processing applications have a 'commentary' / 'review' mode where someone can leave comments and suggest edits.
thi2 2y ago
I must compliment your ability to keep the reader hooked, I had to see what chapters they saw, stalked your website and ended up reading the whole post about your pre sale. This is pretty off topic but did you test how your book works on an E-Reader? I check a sample chapter and there where a lot of pictures and colors to distinguish information, this will probably not work very well on my Kindle.
- mtlynch 2y ago
  Oh, thanks! The first few chapters, I've been primarily targeting web and not testing on e-readers. I figured that until I knew whether people actually wanted to read it, I should just focus on making the web excerpts look decent and try to avoid over-optimizing for web. Now that the book is officially a go, the PDF version is a first-class citizen, and I'll be testing e-reader experience on my rm2.

Cthulhu_ 2y ago

That kinda blew my mind too, I'd expect the complaint to be about needing to use some online review tool. Editing the asciidoc source directly sounds archaic, and I was expecting the authoring / editing world to have had 'code review' style software years before the software development world did. I mean all mainstream word processing applications have a 'commentary' / 'review' mode where someone can leave comments and suggest edits.

thi2 2y ago

I must compliment your ability to keep the reader hooked, I had to see what chapters they saw, stalked your website and ended up reading the whole post about your pre sale. This is pretty off topic but did you test how your book works on an E-Reader? I check a sample chapter and there where a lot of pictures and colors to distinguish information, this will probably not work very well on my Kindle.

mtlynch 2y ago
Oh, thanks! The first few chapters, I've been primarily targeting web and not testing on e-readers. I figured that until I knew whether people actually wanted to read it, I should just focus on making the web excerpts look decent and try to avoid over-optimizing for web. Now that the book is officially a go, the PDF version is a first-class citizen, and I'll be testing e-reader experience on my rm2.