Book Writing

With the release of my latest book, Investigating Windows Systems, I thought that now would be a good time to revisit the topic of writing books.  It occurred to me watching some of the activity and comments on social media that there were likely folks who hadn't seen my previous posts on this topic, let alone the early stuff I'd posted about the book, particularly the stuff I'd written about the book two years ago.

As I said, I've blogged on the topic of writing (DFIR) books before:
17 Dec 2010
26 Dec 2010
28 Mar 2014
29 Mar 2014
16 Feb 2018

There are some things about writing books that many folks out there simply may not be aware of, particular if they haven't written a book themselves.  One such item, for example, is that the author doesn't own the books.  I had a sales guy set up an event that he wanted me to attend, and he suggested that I "bring some books to sell".  I don't own the books to sell, and as far as I'm aware, I'm not PCI compliant; I don't process credit cards.

Further, authors have little, if any, control over...well, anything beyond the content, unless they're self-published.  For example, I'm fully aware that as of 17 Sept 2018, the image on the Amazon page for IWS is still the place holder that was likely used when the page was originally set up.  I did reach to the publisher about this, and they let me know that this is an issue that they've had with the vendor, not just with my book but with many others, as well.  While I can, and do, market the books to the extent that I can, I have no control over, nor any input into, what marketing the publisher does, if any.  Nor do authors have any input or control over what the publisher's vendors do, or don't do, as the case may be.

Addendum, 19 Sept: I checked again today, and the Amazon page for the book has been updated with the proper book cover image.

Taking a quick look through a copy of the Investigating Windows Systems book, I noted a few things that jumped out at me.  I did see a misspelled word or two, read a sentence here and there that seemed awkward and required a re-read (and maybe a re-write), and noticed an image or two that could have been bigger and more visible.  Would the book have looked a bit better if it had a bit bigger form factor?  Perhaps.  Then it would have been thinner.  However, my point is that I didn't have any input into that aspect of the book.

I'm also aware that several pages (pp. 1, 45, 73, 97) have something unusual at the bottom of the page.  Specifically, "Investigating Windows Systems. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/{random}", and then immediately below that, a copyright notice.  Yes, this does stand out like a sore thumb, and no, I have no idea why it's there.

If you purchased or received a copy of the book, I hope you find value in it.  As I've said before, I wanted to take a different approach with this book, and produce something new and I hope, useful.