I am hoping to be done with Swimming in Tech Debt in a few months. Most of the work between now and then will be getting the book through three editing passes, which gives me a lot of down time. I’m using that time to market the book via content creation. This blog post is part of that.

I don’t mind just saying that overtly because I am following the advice of Zig Ziglar in Selling 101 [affiliate link]. If you don’t know him, Ziglar was one of the selling gurus and motivational speakers of a half-century ago. I would say that it’s the exact kind of person I wouldn’t read, but he’s often mentioned by Seth Godin, so I bought the book and read it years ago. He’s not at all what I imagined—a core part of his philosophy is integrity.

This line has always stuck with me:

If what you are selling is not good enough for your friends and family, then why are you selling it? If it is good, then why would you want to keep it from those you care about most? […] The key is your conviction that you really are offering something that will strengthen the friendship.

Here’s another:

Here is the most important step [to] take when it comes to helping others. If you truly have a desire to help other people; if you truly believe in your product or service; if you truly want the prospect to benefit […] always ask for the order.

It is with this conviction that I am writing these posts to tell you about my book. I think that most of the people that read this site got here because they are software developers, and if you have come back after reading, then my way of thinking at least resonates with your way of thinking. But, I don’t just want to post an advertisement (or even an addvertisement). I want each thing I write to be useful on its own, not a pitch for the book.

So, that’s my strategy—I am telling people something I think will benefit them. To do this, I am posting on Mastodon, LinkedIn, Reddit, here on this blog and in my podcast, to my email list, and other places. I have different criteria for what I post where, which I’ll go into soon.