When in Doubt
When in Doubt is very different from my other projects: it's a book!
In When in Doubt, the reader is encouraged to turn self-doubt into a tool that can be used to their advantage in order to produce better results at most of their endeavours.
Extracted from my programming experience, the principle behind this book serves as the foundation for a mindset that the reader can use to “debug” the aspects of their life that they are not satisfied with.
When in Doubt's origin
At the office, I kept hearing other programmers and developers complaining about things not working, only to find out a few minutes into helping them that they had made a very simple mistake. Oftentimes, they had already spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was wrong, but they were looking everywhere except in their own code (or they did look at it, but for a very short amount of time).
After a while, I started picking up the same type of thing outside the office as well, during regular conversations. People were facing issues, and looking at everyone but themselves; playing the "blame game", as I like to call it.
And that's when it clicked in my mind.
From this point on, I started writing down my thoughts about the mindset I use when debugging code, and I tried to word it in such a way that it could be applied to the problems that people face in their everyday life. And that's how When in Doubt came to life!
Self-publishing
I self-published the When in Doubt book in May 2020 via Amazon KDP.
I went the self-publishing with KDP route for a few reasons:
- I could get the book out there without having to talk to anyone (which is great when you are socially anxious).
- The book would be available nearly worldwide on day 1, which meant I could reach more people.
- I wanted to release the book right away, so the alternative option of looking for publishers and then going through multiple rounds of revisions wasn't very appealing to me.
In retrospect, there are some downsides to this approach, especially in the way I went about it.
First, it turns out that doesn't matter much how widely available your book is when you dislike marketing (and therefore don't do much of it). Before they buy a book, people have to know it exists, and they must feel like it's worth their time. And surprise surprise... this doesn't just happen magically.
Then, there's the fact that there's a lot of good to come from "going through multiple rounds of revisions". These revisions make your book better: they make you cut down on the bloat, improve the good bits, and make sure you stay on track with your core vision.
It is now 2025 as I write these words, 5 years after the release of the book, and I have to admit that many parts of the book make me cringe nowadays. So perhaps those revisions would've come in handy (if any publisher would have been interested to begin with, which, to be honest, seems unlikely to me now).
With all of that said, I still think self-publishing is neat. You just have to be aware that there's more to releasing a book than just writing it and making it available. Get help from friends, family and industry professionals, and prepare yourself to put in a lot of time and effort.
More about the book
To learn more about the book or to buy it, please visit the When in Doubt book's website.
If you are interested in reading the book, you can purchase the paperback on Amazon or buy the ePUB version on the book's website.
