Techlearning blog

Well, the book has been completed, and all that remains is the final proof-reading and layout before it's released on an unsuspecting but, we hope, suitably overwhelmed world. So, perhaps now is a good time to sit back and reflect on what I should have done differently. Heed my words, and learn the lesson well, o people! If you ever embark on such a project, you'll be pleased you read this!

Mind you, I have to say that none of what I'm about to say is rocket science. In fact, it is so common-sense that I feel embarrassed to admit that I didn't think of it all. My feeble excuse is that I am so incredibly busy with matters of moment that I lose sight of the small picture sometimes. That, and I'm getting old so my brain is becoming more and more addled. Anyhow, here's what I recommend:

1. Don't give an open-ended brief. I asked people if they would write about blogging etc, and one or two have covered very similar ground. Now, in a way that's not such a bad thing, because it's often the case that if someone can't understand what writer X means, she may well understand what writer Y says on exactly the same topic. However, it did mean that I had to write furiously to fill the gaps, such as an article about forums and one about social bookmarking. Thus did my vision of confining myself mainly to editing apart from a single awe-inspiring article slip into oblivion.

2. Insist on text-only format. I forgot that when you deal with creative people you end up with all their baggage in terms of fonts, styles, lines, borders and all the rest of it. I spent almost as much time de-formatting articles as I did formatting them.

3. Do not use Word. I use Word most of the time, but on this occasion it decided to insert some code that made turning the document into a pdf file an absolute nightmare. In fact, I would go a stage further and say don't use *any* word processor, but use a pure text editor instead. My choice is TextPad, because you can do loads of things with it, but it saves as pure text.

4. Spend time thinking of style conventions. Have you any idea how long it takes changing Internet to internet in a 60 page document? And no, you can't simply use Replace All because that will affect the beginnings of sentences and proper nouns too!

5. Make it clear what you mean by proof-reading. I asked contributors to proof-read their chapter as it appeared in the draft version of the book. Now, what I meant by that was, check spelling, grammar and links. One or two people, bless them, thought I had invited them to rethink their world view and rewrite the chapter accordingly. That wouldn't have been quite so bad had the word count been the same as the original! That leads me on to my next point.

6. Don't bother to do any formatting until after the final proof-reading for grammar etc. When people change their chapters, all the layout goes out of the window if their extra word pushes their chapter onto a new page. In any case, everyone has their own ideas about layout, so I think it's best to present people with a fait accompli...!

7. Evaluate whether it was worth all the hassle. In this case, the answer is a resounding "yes". I got the chance to collaborate with a load of people who are passionate, practical, visionary and creative, and the product is a book which I am proud to be associated with because it will, I am convinced, be a fantastic aid to teachers. Look out for it: it's called "Coming of Age: an introduction to the *new* world wide web", and I'll be announcing it on my website very soon!