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Leo Babuata of ZenHabits, one of my favorite sites on creativity and living, is finally launching his new book. Watching this launch has been incredible–it’s funny how sometimes we can learn so much more from people who are outside of the publishing industry.

He traditionally published a few books several years ago, and he’s self-published a few ebooks since then, but this is his first self-published print book to be sold direct to his fans (he has over a million readers on his blog). And he decided to approach writing a book the way a coder would approach writing new software. As he explains:

The traditional way of writing a book is like the old Microsoft model of developing software: you write it in isolation for a year or two, and then put it out as a fully-formed product.

The problem with that method is that it’s never been tested in the real world. You don’t know if readers (or users) will want it, you don’t know where you’ve made huge mistakes, you don’t know how it will work in the wild.

That “Microsoft” model of making programs has been replaced in the last decade or so by iterative programming, where you make a Minimum Viable Product as soon as possible, and let a small group of people (alpha or beta testers) use it and give you feedback and report bugs. Then a new version is made, more testing and feedback, and so on, making the product better and better each iteration. I love this model, because it leads to a better product over the long run.

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