Andreas Wittig, Co-Author of Amazon Web Services in Action and Co-Founder of marbot, joins Corey on Screaming in the Cloud to discuss ways to keep a book up to date in an ever-changing world, the advantages of working with a publisher, and how he began the journey of writing a book in the first place. Andreas also recalls how much he learned working on the third edition of Amazon Web Services in Action and how teaching can be an excellent tool for learning. Since writing the first edition, Adreas’s business has shifted from a consulting business to a B2B product business, so he and Corey also discuss how that change came about and the pros and cons of each business model. About AndreasAndreas is the Co-Author of Amazon Web Services in Action and Co-Founder of marbot - AWS Monitoring made simple! He is also known on the internet as cloudonaut through the popular blog, podcast, and youtube channel he created with his brother Michael. Links Referenced:

Amazon Web Services in Action: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Services-Action-Andreas-Wittig/dp/1617295116


Rapid Docker on AWS: https://cloudonaut.io/rapid-docker-on-aws/

bucket/av: https://bucketav.com/

marbot: https://marbot.io/

cloudonaut.io: https://cloudonaut.io

TranscriptAnnouncer: Hello, and welcome to Screaming in the Cloud with your host, Chief Cloud Economist at The Duckbill Group, Corey Quinn. This weekly show features conversations with people doing interesting work in the world of cloud, thoughtful commentary on the state of the technical world, and ridiculous titles for which Corey refuses to apologize. This is Screaming in the Cloud.Corey: Welcome to Screaming in the Cloud. I’m Corey Quinn. It’s been a few years since I caught up with Andreas Wittig, who is also known in the internet as cloudonaut, and much has happened since then. Andreas, how are you?Andreas: Hey, absolutely. Thank you very much. I’m happy to be here in the show. I’m doing fine.Corey: So, one thing that I have always held you in some high regard for is that you have done what I have never had the attention span to do: you wrote a book. And you published it a while back through Manning, it was called Amazon Web Services in Action. That is ‘in action’ two words, not Amazon Web Services Inaction of doing absolutely nothing about it, which is what a lot of companies in the space seem to do instead.Andreas: [laugh]. Yeah, absolutely. So. And it was not only me. I’ve written the book together with my brother because back in 2015, Manning, for some reason, wrote in and asked us if we would be interested in writing the book.And we had just founded our own consulting company back then and we had—we didn’t have too many clients at the very beginning, so we had a little extra time free. And then we decided, okay, let’s do the book. And let’s write a book about Amazon Web Services, basically, a deep introduction into all things AWS. So, this was 2015, and it was indeed a lot of work, much more [laugh] than we expected. So, first of all, the hard part is, what do you want to have in the book? So, what’s the TOC? What is important and must be in?And then you start writing and have examples and everything. So, it was really an interesting journey. And doing it together with a publisher like Manning was also really interesting because we learned a lot about writing. You have kind of a coach, an editor that helps you through that process. So, this was really a hard and fun experience.Corey: There’s a lot of people that have said very good things about writing the book through a traditional publisher. And they also say that one of the challenges is it’s a blessing and a curse, where you basically have someone standing over your shoulder saying, “Is it done yet? Is it done yet? Is it done yet?” The consensus that seems to have emerged from people who have written books is, “That was great, please don’t ever ask me to do it again.”And my operating theory is that no one wants to write a book. They want to have wr