First draft of “Sudo Mastery” complete

I just typed the last words of the first draft of Sudo Mastery.

The completed first draft is available for early purchasers. As it’s no longer an incomplete draft, I’ve raised the early purchase price to $8.99. That’s more than the really early buyers paid, but less than the final price. (Selling the early drafts from my own bookstore lets me experiment, so I’m ratcheting up the price to see what happens.)

What happens now?

First, I take a couple days and do something else. Anything else. This is vital, as I need some distance from the manuscript. I know it’s a big steaming pile of bodily waste, sure. But I need to be able to see the details of how, exactly, that pile is arranged.

Then: go over the manuscript from beginning to end, looking for obvious technical and writing problems.

Then spellcheck the book. (The purpose of an as-you-type spellchecker is to slow down the writing process. Note that a grammar checker never enters into this process.)

Then solicit technical reviewers. (Don’t volunteer yet: if you do, I’ll put you on my list of people who can’t follow directions.)

Then I go to EuroBSDCon. When I return, I integrate the comments into the book in another round of testing and fact-checking and rewriting.

Off to copyeditor.

Fix what the copyeditor finds.

Then the book comes out.