Interview with Andy Watt

Andy Watt is the author of Building Modern SaaS Applications with C# and .Net, we got the chance to sit down with him and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.

Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?

Andy: I was initially contacted by a Packt representative. I’ve always enjoyed writing content, such as blog posts, and so I thought that writing a full-length book would be a fun and interesting challenge!

Q: What is the name of your book?

Andy: Building Modern SaaS Applications with C# and .NET: Build, deploy, and maintain professional SaaS applications.

Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?

Andy: I’ve been building SaaS, or SaaS-like applications for nearly 20 years, so I knew most of what I wanted to include in the book. I did some general research making sure that my knowledge wasn’t out of date, and then I dived right in!

Q: What key takeaways do you want readers to come away with from the book?

Andy: I want them to have enjoyed the learning experience and be excited and motivated to go build SaaS apps!

Q: Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?

Andy: Andy Watt – Medium

Q. Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?

Andy: Yes – writing a book is a lot harder than I thought it would be! The main challenge that I encountered was building a good demo application to showcase the concepts I was describing. I overcame this challenge with a good few late nights!

Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?

Andy: Packt really simplifies the process of completing a technical book. Everyone on the team is really good to work with, and really supportive and understanding. I would definitely recommend Packt to aspiting authors.

Q. Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?

Andy: I have tried to offer very practical advice. I hope that the reader could immediately start to build a SaaS application after reading this book. I think this is the key differentiator.

Q. What is/are your specialist tech area(s)?

Andy: .NET, C#, Angular, Blockchain

Q. What advice would you give to readers jumping into this technology? Do you have any top tips?

Andy: SaaS is complex – don’t be put off by this! If it was easy, everyone would be doing it. Persevere in the face of complexity!

Q. Do you belong to any tech community groups?

Andy: I am not very involved in my local community – something I need to address!

Q. What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?

Andy: SaaS as a delivery mechanism is huge already and growing. I can only see more and more types of applications taking on the SaaS model. Already we see on-demand games-as-a-service. Maybe whole operating systems next? I think the future is bright (and interesting) for SaaS applications.

Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?

Andy: I found this really hard, especially during busy times with my day job. The structure set up by Packt was really helpful, I just tried to stick to the schedule as much as possible and held my hands up when I was struggling to meet the deadlines.

Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?

Andy: I like podcasts a lot. Scott Hanselman, .NET Rocks, and Coding Blocks are my favourites.

Q. Would you like to share your social handles? If so, mention them below.

Andy: LinkedIn, Twitter, GitHub, Medium

Q: What is that one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?

Andy: If you are adding technical content, such as demo apps, try to build them up to a nearly complete stage before you start writing. I build mine up chapter by chapter and found that I often had to rework content from earlier chapters.

You can find Andy’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here