Peter Ries is the author of NetSuite for Consultants we got the chance to sit down with him and find out more about his experience of writing with Packt.
Q: What is/are your specialist tech area(s)?
Peter: NetSuite, consulting, customizations and integrations
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?
Peter: Packt reached out to me initially, but then I loved the idea so I signed on quickly. I’d been thinking of ways to get more involved with the NetSuite community and to share what I know with the user base, outside of my employment with NetSuite, so writing a book was a great way to share my knowledge.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Peter: I mostly went off of my 9 years experience working with clients and implementation projects but occasionally, I did reference the NetSuite Help pages and SuiteAnswers to make sure the information I shared is 100% accurate.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Peter: My largest challenge was in the writing itself. This being my first book, I needed a lot of help from the editors reviewing my writing to make sure it was easy to read, syntactically correct and so on. Beyond that, I had a little trouble finding the time to write while also working all day but that just took some planning and dedication.
Q. What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
Peter: I love the NetSuite company, product and platform and expect all to grow significantly in the years to come. NetSuite was founded in the US to help small and medium companies run their businesses from the cloud and we’re reaching ever more companies every year. With recent expansion into the world-wide marketplace and lots of exciting new features coming soon, now’s a great time to learn NetSuite and to provide consulting services.
Q: Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
Peter: There really aren’t many books about NetSuite at all still, and none that I know of which are specifically meant to help Consultants improve their acumen and process around NetSuite. The idea for this book was Packt’s and I think they really nailed a need which exists out in the marketplace.
Q. What are the key takeaways you want readers to come away from the book with?
Peter: That anyone can learn to help businesses implement NetSuite and that every NetSuite client is unique and special. There are so many things to learn, when you’re first starting out as a consultant, but it’s manageable and worth the time and effort. And, applying what you learn in this book to each new client you work with will lead to more successful implementations.
Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
Peter: Most of my ‘top tips’ are in my book! But I could add that it pays to stay up to date with the ever changing features within the product and to always look for new ways to use the many, powerful tools NetSuite offers its users to improve your business. New users and consultants can attend user group meetings in person, join the community online in Slack and Reddit and in the official NetSuite groups and contribute to the learning we’re all doing with the product & platform every day.
Q. Do you have a blog that readers can follow?
Peter: I do! It’s at implementingnetsuite.com.
Q. Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Peter:
There are a lot of really informative blogs and other sites where you can learn more about NetSuite. Here are a few of my favorites:
NetSuite Beginner Training
https://www.anchorgroup.tech/free-netsuite-course
Tim Dietrich’s Blog
https://timdietrich.me/blog/
SuiteRep’s Blog
https://suiterep.com/blog/
The NetSuite Professionals
https://netsuiteprofessionals.com/
Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Peter: So far, I have loved my journey. It was a lot of work writing and editing the book, getting everything done in time for the publisher but I think it will be worth it in the long run, if I can help some people learn the product and improve the quality of implementation work for client businesses.
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
Peter: I am a part of the Reddit and NetSuite Professionals communities, as well as the Linked In NetSuite user group.
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
Peter: On tech in general, I like read Slashdot and Schneier on Security. I mentioned a few NetSuite resources I follow as well but here’s one more I like:
Prolecto’s blog
https://blog.prolecto.com/
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
Peter: With a lot of help from my editors, is the short answer. We created an outline for all of the chapters first, fine-tuned that and then I started to write. I worked from Chapter 1 through 20, in order, but with a lot of back and forth improving chapters as I wrote them, based on my awesome editor Tiksha’s feedback. I did most of my writing on my weekends, but occasionally I would have time and energy to write some after I finished up my day at my main job.
Q. What is that one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
Peter: Keep the tone of your writing conversational at all times, and never forget who your primary audience is. In my case, that was consultants who need to learn how to implement a business on NetSuite and I never forgot that.
You can find Peter ‘s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here
