Vedran Dakic is the author of Mastering KVM Virtualization, 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…
Vedran: Basically, Packt crew contacted me via LinkedIn upon checking my LinkedIn profile and asked me if I was interested in writing a book. Seeing that I write materials for my college students on a daily basis and that I’ve been itching for 20+ years to write a Linux book, it was a “cosmic timing” thing.
Q: How long did it take you to write the book?
Vedran: The writing process itself didn’t take an awful lot of time – maybe 4 months or so, along with all of the other work that I do.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Vedran: I’ve been a heavy Linux user since 1995., and having started delivering Red Hat courses in 2005, I had a chance to work with it in a much more “official” capacity for the last 15 years. So, the vast majority of words that I’ve put on paper for this book is just what I call “offload” – just “downloaded” all of the thoughts that I gathered in the past 25 years on paper. That’s what I love the most about writing, just being able to write whatever’s in my head. And getting it out there so that people can read that just adds that creme on top.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Vedran: The only real challenge was related to some small software incompatibilities and the fact that some of the software components aren’t compatible with all of the latest CentOS/RHEL versions. Other then that, it was mostly a smooth sail.
Q: What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
Vedran: I usually tell my college students two things. First, to buckle up and get ready for a work which is automated, orchestrated, by using scripting and descriptive technologies. That’s not “future”, that’s “now and future2. And the second thing, to stop looking for excuses – lack of time, interest, all of the “noise” coming from all around them and put their effort into learning. Obsesively, if needed. But not just by reading a book, because in IT, the best way to learn things is to learn by doing. That’s how I started, as well, by tinkering.
Q. How do you keep up-to-date on your tech?
Vedran: I read. A lot. Day-in, day-out, stealing time from my sleep. And then, I just do. Try everything that I can, learn as much as I can about it, and put it in my memory banks and in my document management system, usually in a form of step-by-step guide. Then, when I need to teach, do a project or fix it, I usually have documents that make everything so much easier.
Q. How would you describe you author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Vedran: It’s been great. Gotta admit that I was a challenging author at times, as my work and other responsibilities had a nasty habit of taking over book writing time. But there was never a question of finishing it. Packt crew made the whole journey enjoyable and showed me what a book writing process should look like. Hopefully, we’ll do many more together.
You can find Vedran’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here
