Lisa Crispin is popularly known as the co-author of her book on Agile Testing. In this short session, we explored what motivated Lisa to write her book and her pointers for upcoming writers!
Problem/Objective/Motive:
Lisa mentioned that when she was working as a tester, she had a lot of questions about implementing agile methodologies within her team but there was no single book that could answer all of the questions! Hence the book provides solutions to those questions.
Well, with time, not many folks had the time to flip through 550 pages of the Agile Testing manifesto, hence she focused on condensing it to a 100 page version.
How to generate ideas
Lisa gave good pointers around using a mind map to jot down about the topics anyone wants to write about. The mind map will give you a visual idea of what/where the content goes into. Mindmeister is a software tool that helps you draw mind maps in the digital world.
She also shared her experience with publishers - Pearson publishers require to be paid upfront. Leanpub is commonly used these days as it is easy to publish and get feedback. She also recommended attending Johanna Rothman’s workshops on becoming a successful non-fiction writer.
Thanks for sharing these valuable gems of information and your experience in becoming a successful author, Lisa!
