HomeAuthor InterviewsInterview with Mert Turkay Hocanin

Interview with Mert Turkay Hocanin

Mert is the author of Serverless Analytics with Amazon Athena, 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. What was your motivation for writing this book?

Mert: Packt reached out to one of my colleagues, Anthony Virtuoso, who asked me if I wanted to join him.

Q: How long did it take you to write the book?

Mert: Too long. 9 Months to write 5 chapters

Q: What kind of research did you do, and how long did you spend researching before beginning the book?

Mert: I was very familiar with the topic at hand as I was an original member of the service team that build the AWS service. I was also engaged as a Solutions architect for many years after that.

Q: Did you face any challenges during the writing process? How did you overcome them?

Mert: The largest challenge that I had was time. I had a child in early the process, thinking I can take some of my sabbaticals to write my chapters. The opposite happened.

Q. What advice would you give to readers learning tech? Do you have any top tips?

Mert: Doing/Trying is a better way of learning than reading.

Q. How do you keep up-to-date on your tech?

Mert: I am involved deeply with the AWS services in the tech area, and I talk to a lot of customers as a Solutions Architect. I also read/write blog posts for the AWS Big Data Blog.

Q. Do you have a blog that readers can follow?

Mert: AWS Big Data Blog which I have contributed to, and will contribute to while I am employed by AWS.

Q. Can you share any blogs, websites and forums to help readers gain a holistic view of the tech they are learning?

Mert: AWS Big Data Blog. https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/big-data/

Q. How would you describe your author journey with Packt? Would you recommend Packt to aspiring authors?

Mert: I would recommend it. It has been an interesting journey and a good learning experience.

You can find Mert‘s book on Amazon by following this link

Serverless Analytics with Amazon Athena on Amazon.com