Writing a Book with Packt

This summer and fall I had the opportunity to write “Refactoring with C#”, a technical book on C# development, through Packt Publishing.

When I considered doing this project in the spring there wasn’t much out there on what it’s like to be an author with Packt, so I thought I’d share my experience writing the book for those considering it in the future. Please note that this is focused just on the writing process. I’m deliberately not covering the proposal and outlining phases as I plan to write a separate article on that topic.

Also, you may be coming into this article with a negative opinion of Packt Publishing. I read a lot of technical books, including many from Packt, and can attest that they hit a slump awhile ago with quality issues in their published books. I have to say that my experience with Packt was almost entirely positive — provided that you make the assumption that you as the author own the quality level for your own book. We’ll talk more about this as we go on.

Drafting Chapters

The drafting process for the book starts a week or two after the book’s proposal and outline are approved and the contract is signed.

Packt provides a Word template that they expect you to follow. This template uses special format markers that match Packt’s styles and formatting. These styles include special coloration to help communicate the style during the editing process and result in your markup looking very colorful: