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Long before I wrote books for myself and others, I built databases for clients. In today’s post, I’ll discuss some similarities between the two.
Development Approaches Vary
Go under the hood of a CRM system or look at its entity relationship diagram, and odds are there’s a customer master table at its core. I guarantee that if you compare Zoho, Salesforce, and my Simple Notion CRM, you’ll likely find some major differences. Across categories, you won’t find many similarities. RacketHub looks nothing like a CRM or ERP system.
Differences abound between books—even those that fall within the same series. For example, all For Dummies titles follow the same basic template, but there are differences among them. Sometimes, they are stark.
Some Ways Are Better Than Others
I’ve seen smartly designed databases optimized at every level. I’ve also seen sloppily designed ones that made me wonder if the developer had been intoxicated. On the book front, I’ve read compelling marketing texts with case studies that made me think. I’ve also picked up anodyne efforts that made me snooze or confused me.
A Little Planning Goes a Long Way
In my consulting days, sometimes I’d look at database schematics and furrow my brow. What were the developers thinking? Plenty of books have made me react the same way. Much like databases, the best books clearly benefit from solid planning and research.
A Small Change Can Cause Major Problems
On a consulting gig in New Jersey 15 years ago, I showed up early one morning to find my master database behaving differently. A problem had suddenly emerged, and I spent the next four hours diagnosing. I was frustrated because it didn’t exist when I left the night before.
Small changes matter more than non-experts think.
I finally asked the people on the team if anyone had modified the database. As it turned out, someone had. One of my clients had indeed changed a setting and, appallingly, didn’t feel the need to tell anyone about it—including me. When I asked her why she kept me in the dark, she innocently replied, “It was just a small change.”
Those small changes matter more than non-experts think.
Rookie authors writing timely books often want to add a newsworthy event or graph right before going to print. It’s an understandable request, but also a dangerous one. Inserting even one new figure can introduce a slew of layout and pagination issues.
Today AI Can Do Both
Enter a few prompts, and AI can generate your book or your database. Don’t expect that to change.
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