Brittany Joiner is the author of Supercharging Productivity with Trello, we got the chance to sit down with her and find out more about her experience of writing with Packt.
Q: What is/are your specialist tech area(s)?
Brittany: Trello, productivity, automation.
Q: How did you become an author for Packt? Tell us about your journey. What was your motivation for writing this book?
Brittany: Packt reached out to me about two years ago because they had noticed all of my online writing about Trello. At first, I said no, because while I was honored, it sounded like way too much of an undertaking. They asked me again a year later, and I realized this was a great opportunity and I should go for it. I was excited to write a book because I have a lot of knowledge about Trello that i keep dispersing in various places, and I thought a book would be a good opportunity to consolidate everything and bring it together for folks.
Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?
Brittany: I didn’t really have to spend much time doing research because I’ve spent the last decade working in Trello and learning how to build boards, automate workflows, and even creating a community of Power-Up developers so I can help folks use Trello to it’s full potential.
Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?
Brittany: I figured writing a book about Trello wouldn’t be too hard because I’d created a course before, and I knew all sorts of things about Trello, so I thought it would simply be putting it all in another format and all together. But it was a lot. There were a lot of weekends and airplane rides that were spent drafting, brainstorming, editing, and reviewing. I almost got sick of writing about Trello, which is something I never thought possible. I have been working full time while writing this book, so it really took a lot of my free time over the last 7 months. Thankfully the Packt team was great at letting me extend deadlines when needed, and helping to make the process as smooth as it could be. I also took time to celebrate milestones, like when I had finished drafting chapters or parts of the book.
Q: What’s your take on the technologies discussed in the book? Where do you see these technologies heading in the future?
Brittany: I’m obsessed with Trello and while I do think it’s changed a lot over the years and will continue to change, I know folks on the team at Trello and am confident in it’s focus on making the experience as amazing as possible for users. I also think the way Trello is built allows so much open room for it to be anything it needs to be, for anyone. That might sound silly, but as I say in my book, Trello is like LEGO, so you can build anything you need if you have the right guide.
Q. Why should readers choose this book over others already on the market? How would you differentiate your book from its competition?
Brittany: Although I’ve seen a few other Trello books floating around, I don’t really know the folks writing them and they tend to be pretty limited in scope or focus on other aspects of productivity that happen to mention Trello. Packt takes the time to vet the authors, and anyone who looks me up will find that I’ve been an activate contributor to the Trello blog, I’m well known in the Atlassian Community, I even have my own newsletter dedicated entire to Trello, and a YouTube channel where I create free content regularly helping people solve their problems in Trello. My book is my Trello brain poured out into words and step by step guides to help people use Trello effectively.
Q. What are the key takeaways you want readers to come away from the book with?
Brittany: I want them to see that Trello is a simple, but extremely powerful tool. I want readers to walk away with practical ways they can update their workflows in Trello to help them spend more time actually doing the work they need to get done, and less time organizing their tasks and to do lists.
Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?
Brittany: Start slow. I wrote a lot in my book, and it’s meant to be something you read and use over a lifetime, not just a week. So please read the whole thing, but don’t implement everything you learn on the first try!
Q. Can you share any blogs, websites, and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?
Brittany: Here it is – https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello/ct-p/trello
Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?
Brittany: Yes! It’s been so much better of a process than if were writing a book on my own. It’s been nice to be able to focus on the subject matter and have a team dedicated to handling the rest.
Q. Do you belong to any tech community groups?
Brittany: Here it is – https://community.atlassian.com/t5/Trello/ct-p/trello
Q. What are your favorite tech journals? How do you keep yourself up to date on tech?
Brittany: They would be FastCompany and TechCrunch.
Q. How did you organize, plan, and prioritize your work and write the book?
Brittany: Trello of course 🙂 I have a whole board I used with a card for each chapter, and I used Amazing Fields Power-Up to keep track of the pages and word counts I was aiming for.
Q. What is the one writing tip that you found most crucial and would like to share with aspiring authors?
Brittany: Writing something is better than nothing. When you can’t write, just start typing, even if it’s gibberish. The blank page is the worst.
Q. Would you like to share your social handles? If so, please share.
Brittany: Linkedin, Youtube, Twitter
You can find Brittany’s book on Amazon by following this link: Please click here
