My favorite part of finishing a book is when the index shows up.

I’m not sure who the magicians are who are responsible for building this index, but it’s an unexpected glimpse into a book that you thought you knew, but actually do not.

This is a welcome perspective because at the end of a book, you’ve been in your head far too long. You’re sick and tired of how you mentally sound and how you construct thoughts. All of the delicious moments of discovery have long been forgotten among the endless writing and editing whilst lumbering towards an immovable deadline.

And then the index shows up and you realize you might’ve written something cool.

It’s Done, It’s Cool

I wrote another book and it’s called Being Geek.

The first book was for managers — this book is for everyone. If you’ve ever wondered how to negotiate an offer letter, whether your boss is brilliant or a doof, or if you’ve ever thrown a book providing career advice against the wall, this might be the book for you.

The goal of Being Geek is to provide ideas and stories for the complete lifecycle of a gig — from looking for a gig, loving it, hating it, and then looking for another. While there is more to a gig than 40 chapters, I touch on the trickier aspects of your gig, including:

• What to do with toxic personalities
• How to get your head around an interview
• Figuring out your professional worth.

One of the complaints regarding the prior book — Managing Humans — was the lack of book-specific original content. While Being Geek does republish some articles from the past few years, there is a significant amount of new content available only in the book, including chapters such as:

1. How to Win
2. Managing Managers
3. The Issue with the Doof
4. The Curse of the Silicon Valley
5. Bad News About Your Bright Future.

As with the prior book, existing essays have been lovingly updated and sometimes augmented. I’m particularly happy that The Nerd Handbook is touched up and now in printed form.

Unlike Managing Humans, Being Geek is readily available in a variety of formats. These digital formats, I hope, will get the book in front of a wider variety of eyeballs, but I remain fond of the printed version. See, you finish a book by writing it, but in my head, it’s not really done until it’s sitting in your hand.