The beta reading phase for my first book has begun
The beta phase for my first book has begun: Visioneering. In this post, I talk about how I came up with it and how the whole thing works.
After three years of work, after reading several hundred sources, conducting interviews and visiting numerous companies, it is finally almost "done": my first book. That is also why things have been a bit quieter here lately – the last few months were really tough.
Visioneering is what it will be called – a combination of the words "vision" and "engineering". The future is unpredictable! Technological developments follow one another ever faster. Change no longer happens linearly, but exponentially. Not only companies have to respond to these influences – every single one of us has to. But what does that mean? What can companies and each of us do to shape the future instead of merely managing it? Visioneering is a very hands-on look at how to respond to the digital transformation and use it to your advantage. To that end, I talked to many companies and people and conducted interviews. Whether large corporations like #Google, #Apple, #VW, #Airbnb or smaller ones – I've got them all.
The result, unlike the typical management guides, is a practical, first-hand account of the digital transformation in companies and how to turn big visions into reality. Garnished with lots of tips and ideas you can put into practice right away.
The whole thing comes to about 70,000 words – I expect the printed book to end up between 200 and 300 pages. Still a pleasant length, if you ask me. Yesterday I also submitted the manuscript to the first two publishers...I'm really excited.
A beta phase for a book project
Just like with digital projects, I wanted to run a first user test. While searching online, I came across the online tool from Betabooks.co. It lets me avoid sending out a PDF file (#Copyright) and collect feedback from readers. I then get everything neatly listed. I signed up for a monthly membership for this – the €40 is definitely worth it to me.
I plan to let the beta phase run for one month. The first responses from the publishers all say that it can take up to three months before I hear back from them. So there's enough time for some fine-tuning.
Thanks to a simple call on LinkedIn, I was able to recruit lots of beta readers. I hope this will give me as broad a range of opinions as possible – especially from people I don't know. By the way, I created the visual for my book fairly easily using a free Photoshop template from freepik.
Now I'm really curious what feedback comes in, and I'll keep you posted.