How are you? What are you working on? I mean it, hit reply :)
Here's a quick update from me:
Work has been pretty crazy. The company I joined last year is going 🚀 and my brain feels full. More on that when I hit the 1 year mark on Aug 12. Also in my September keynote at TechLeadConf.
The book I started writing in January 2024 is ... done 🤨 With one big push this Sunday I finished my last editing pass. It almost feels weird [name|]. Check this out
The process of writing a book
The weird thing about books is that they have 3, maybe 4, done dates. First you finish the manuscript. This is a big achievement, you put all your thoughts down on paper. Then the hard work begins.
Your next done date is when you finish developmental edits. You kill all the fluff, delete anything extra, rearrange chapters, find the right graphics, add research to support your points, and change your anecdotes to make them land. Finding the right way to say your words is important.
Your goal is not to write a book, it's to change how your reader thinks.
If you get this right, every chapter feels like "Yeah that's obvious, was it even worth writing?". Readers might feel like your book was pointless and with some luck it's gonna keep coming back in their mind. That means you explained the concept and made your ideas stick.
Then comes another fun part – you read the whole book out loud and make the words sing. Add color, remove noise, make it flow. Success means you can read super fast without twisting your tongue or getting lost.
POV you finish the book and “just do a quick read-through to make the words sing” pic.twitter.com/Jzt4UtK1Tb
— Swizec Teller (@Swizec) August 4, 2025
After that comes the slow part: The publishing process.
Scaling Fast is going off to get layouted, I'll send out advance reader copies to build some buzz, make a landing page, get in retail outlets, write a launch sequence, the works.
And I need to choose between these two covers.
Out in September 🤞
What are you up to [name|]? Hit reply
Cheers,
~Swizec
Continue reading about Quick update on Scaling Fast, my next book
Semantically similar articles hand-picked by GPT-4
- Looking for beta readers
- Scaling Fast, my talk on lessons from tech startups
- How my bank account went from $909 to $50,000 in 2019
- Different medium, different mindset
- 2022 year in review
Learned something new?
Read more Software Engineering Lessons from Production
I write articles with real insight into the career and skills of a modern software engineer. "Raw and honest from the heart!" as one reader described them. Fueled by lessons learned over 20 years of building production code for side-projects, small businesses, and hyper growth startups. Both successful and not.
Subscribe below 👇
Software Engineering Lessons from Production
Join Swizec's Newsletter and get insightful emails 💌 on mindsets, tactics, and technical skills for your career. Real lessons from building production software. No bullshit.
"Man, love your simple writing! Yours is the only newsletter I open and only blog that I give a fuck to read & scroll till the end. And wow always take away lessons with me. Inspiring! And very relatable. 👌"
Have a burning question that you think I can answer? Hit me up on twitter and I'll do my best.
Who am I and who do I help? I'm Swizec Teller and I turn coders into engineers with "Raw and honest from the heart!" writing. No bullshit. Real insights into the career and skills of a modern software engineer.
Want to become a true senior engineer? Take ownership, have autonomy, and be a force multiplier on your team. The Senior Engineer Mindset ebook can help 👉 swizec.com/senior-mindset. These are the shifts in mindset that unlocked my career.
Curious about Serverless and the modern backend? Check out Serverless Handbook, for frontend engineers 👉 ServerlessHandbook.dev
Want to Stop copy pasting D3 examples and create data visualizations of your own? Learn how to build scalable dataviz React components your whole team can understand with React for Data Visualization
Want to get my best emails on JavaScript, React, Serverless, Fullstack Web, or Indie Hacking? Check out swizec.com/collections
Did someone amazing share this letter with you? Wonderful! You can sign up for my weekly letters for software engineers on their path to greatness, here: swizec.com/blog
Want to brush up on your modern JavaScript syntax? Check out my interactive cheatsheet: es6cheatsheet.com
By the way, just in case no one has told you it yet today: I love and appreciate you for who you are ❤️