Rongpeng Lee is the author of Essential Statistics for Non-STEM Data Analysts, 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.
Rongpeng: At the beginning I just wanted to publish a book, when I started searching I found out many books are published by Packt. I then sent my proposal.
Q: How long did it take you to write the book?
Rongpeng: About half a year, I have a day job so I can only write after work and during the weekends.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Rongpeng: I searched existing books and checked their table of contents, reviews on Amazon, etc. I spent about a week doing the review and even borrowed some hard copies from libraries to read some parts in details.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Rongpeng: Yes, I found some concepts are correlated and it may be too much information if introducing them at the same time. I carefully unwind the correlations, and select the ones easiest to understand to start with.
Q: What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
Rongpeng: I think a good starting material is very important. After knowing what is what, you can get your hands dirty quickly by building stuff and solving problems. When you find that your theoretical knowledge is not enough, go back to the books or readings to recharge, then repeat the process.
Q. How do you keep up-to-date on your tech?
Rongpeng: I have a twitter list with high-quality content twitter accounts. Follow my twitter and find out!
Q. Do you have a blog that readers can follow?
Rongpeng: Not really, I like to write on GitHub.
Q. Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Rongpeng: I think PyData is probably the best one in the domain.
Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Rongpeng: Fruitful and heart-warming. I definitely recommend Packt, especially the people I worked with.
You can find Rongpeng’s book on Amazon by following this link: Click here!
