Patrick Kua

Who are you?

I am a Tech Lead balancing the delicate line between technical and non-technical worlds. I am passionate about working with people, helping them develop and introduce change which is why I’m passionate about retrospectives.

Can you describe your Leanpub books? Are they in-progress or complete? What types of books are they?

At this time, I have two books on Leanpub. “The Retrospective Handbook” was my first and now complete book. I wrote this book based on practical experience targeting facilitators keen to make the most impact with retrospectives.

The other book, “Talking with Tech Leads” collects stories from various people playing Tech Lead roles to help people better understand what the role entails. This is an in-progress book.

What do you think about Leanpub?

Leanpub helped me focus on writing the contents of the book, rather than worrying about the editing. I love the quick responsiveness of the team and I believe was the first to ask them for features that helped me make my ebook available in printed form. I’ve been very happy with this powerful combination all within my control.

Why do you use Leanpub?

I was drawn to Leanpub as an experiment and keep to it because it helps me focus on what’s most important to readers - the content. They take care of the formatting and make it easy for me to focus on completing the book (not an easy task with writing).

How did you discover Leanpub?

I can’t exactly remember but I would probably say it was through hearing about other authors talking about the service at a conference I spoke at.

What’s your favorite Leanpub feature?

I get excited every time I get an email when someone purchases the book. I didn’t expect to sell as many copies as I did, and each email reminds me that someone’s retrospectives could be better because of it.

That definitely makes the effort worth it.

How have you reached out to potential and existing readers of your books?

I use my blog, twitter and talk about the book at (relevant) conferences. I probably could spend more time marketing my book but I have not focused too much on that yet.

What are your thoughts on the Lean Publishing approach? What types of books, and what types of authors, do you think it is good for?

I think Lean Publishing is extremely useful for writing about tools and technologies that have a short lifecycle and time to market is important. It is probably useful for books that add more body and act as a reference book.

How long was your first Leanpub book when you first clicked the publish button? Would you publish earlier or later next time?

I’m a bit more of a traditionalist. For the topic I wrote about, I felt that people would not read the book in increments and would prefer to read a book like mine in its entirety.

I see feedback through targeted reviewers who would be representative of the audience I’m looking for. My first book wasn’t “published” until it was pretty much complete.

I was happy with this process and not looking to change it for the current book.

How can we improve Leanpub?

As the types of books continue to evolve, I’d like to see a little bit more fine-grained control (or more options) around formatting. I’d also like to see features that help me test out or target an audience for an idea to gather better feedback (more structured) than just leaving it very open.