I want to Write a book !!

[BSaidus]

Hello!
I think I have all needed knowledge to write a book about FreePascal/Lazarus ( advanced technics ),
but the problem is : I have no knowledge about how to write the book.
 
so ...... help needed !

[JD]

How about starting from what you want to put in the book: like a table of contents (TOC). Start with a summary TOC by chapter and then a detailed TOC with subchapters. It will help you to begin to organise your thoughts and to know what to include or exclude in the book.

JD

[Thaddy]

If you want to write about *really advanced* stuff, OTOH, you can write it as a novel... meandering about a bit how you discovered that knowledge... For advanced readers that would surely be more interesting.... You will still need a plot, though... Note that any technical detail still needs to be spot on! And.. when writing books you absolutely definitely need an editor.

[BSaidus]

Thanks !!!
And how about a software to use to write ?? is there any specialized software rather then open/libre office ?

[Thaddy]

Usually: limit formatting to a bare minimum (chapters, sub-chapters) and use soft line-breaks throughout.
You may want to investigate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TeX which is a standard and also used for the FPC manuals. (And most if not all scientific books)
If you do my first line first, you can do the second line afterwards.

[guest58172]

Someone i know and who wrote a programming book had use: https://leanpub.com

[BSaidus]

Someone i know and who wrote a programming book had use: https://leanpub.com

Is this an online one ..??

[Thaddy]

Someone i know and who wrote a programming book had use: https://leanpub.com

Is this an online one ..??

Does it matter?

Well I would use the pseudonym "at al." That's how I usually end up.... http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/et-al (et alia, which is basically wrong because it also means at alumnae: with others that are qualified. Latin is a lost art. I would name my son Anonymous (two daughters)  Wrote a lot.. too...

[guest58172]

Some other people are also directly contacted by publishers. It won't happen because FPC + Lazarus is probably out of their scope (many people consider Object Pascal like Latin or ancient Greek or even Aramaic [lol] ). But in this case publishers ask for a particular format.

The best you can do is to take the initiative on your own and use something like leanpub, as mentioned before.

[Blestan]

hi! as a graphic industry professional ( 25+ years in the field) i can advice you to use libreoffice / msword to type the text and when it's finished to look for a proffessional / company to make the prepress work  using indesign / xpress / scribus ( in this order). if there  is no graphics / tables / schema in the book this is a pretty trivial task ... making styles for the different body parts ( chapters, titles, body, quotes, dialogs underlines texts) ... if the first etap ( writing body ) do not bother about formating the text .. just lay down the text in bulk...  and just look around for somebosy to do the initial formatink when the text is ready ... in the second period ask them to send you a pdf draft of the formated book( pdf is the defaco standard in the industry ) and you will send corrections as notes in the pdf ( a this point void .doc format )  ... you can submit some changes in doc but only as parts just to replace some texts ...
after a several rounds of corrections/ drat your book will be ready for printing / online publishing ( even amazon kindle tools can convert well generated pdf to   .mobi or pub)..
good luck  
P.S: if you master Html/css and you are aware of @print media selector you can produce a print ready pdf out of well writen html/css all with page sizes/ margins etc

[guest58172]

By the way if you use leanpub then later you'll be able ti publish with https://www.lulu.com/

[Thaddy]

Latin

doesn't know zero (later invention...in a dead language)

or ancient Greek

limits alphabet to Omega...(Zeta is an actress)

or even Aramaic [lol] ).

Half of Dutch humor is based on that...

[BSaidus]

Likely; I will use LibreOffice writer and until I finish, maybe I publish it or give it Free for the communauty.

[guest58172]

think to the code sample etc. Does libre office have tools to format code ?

[Blestan]

as i said do not use .doc for formating ... please believe me
also consider the html/css @print option
word/libre/open is good for as a typing machine ... nothing else if you plan to submit it later to some serious workflow