Why I've written a book on web accessibility

I've just completed writing and publishing my first book, The Same Work, Done Properly. It's a guide to web accessibility. I won't talk too much about the content of the book here but thought I'd share my reasons for writing it and my reasons for writing it now.

I've always liked the idea of writing a book one day, probably since I started blogging, which was way back in 2008. In the past it always seemed like a nice idea but too daunting. It's a lot of work and publishing it felt difficult if not impossible. I also don't know how to write a book. I'm fine with blog posts but something bigger needs structure and clarity - it can't just be me rambling.

So, why now?

The advent of AI tools has removed a lot of those barriers for me. I've never wanted AI to do any of my writing but realised I could ask it for advice and get it to move things around, basically acting as my editor.

I feel like I'm at a stage in my career where I have enough experience of the subject matter and feel comfortable talking about it. I'm a senior web developer, I'm not an accessibility expert, but I feel I've done enough by now to be able to help guide others into this area.

Another motivator comes back to AI again. I've seen how AI is impacting on some areas like technology education. It's getting harder to sell online courses. If this is in slow decline being replaced by AI then I can't afford to hang around. If I wait a few more years then maybe nobody's buying ebooks or even trying to upskill any more.

My final reason is the book's subject matter, web accessibility. There's a huge amount of information available out there but it's either disparate blog post or else books or courses with a high bar to entry. They're expensive. Ironically, they're not very accessible to everyone. I wanted to get something into that space with a lower price point.

Web accessibility knowledge is not much of an investment, at least financially, for a web developer. If you pay a lot for a course you're not likely to see that new knowledge reflected in a boost to your salary, though there are exceptions.

How?

I have another blog post about how I've actually gone about doing the writing, editing and publishing.

How I've written and self-published a book on web accessibility