Introducing The Best-in-Class iOS App: The Book Series

// Written by Jordan Morgan // May 23rd, 2021 // Read it in about 3 minutes // RE: The Indie Dev Diaries

This post is brought to you by Clerk. Add secure, native iOS authentication in minutes with Clerk’s pre-built SwiftUI components.

Update: It’s here! You can buy the beta now!

The next passion project of mine is ready to see the light of day. The Best-in-Class iOS App: The Book Series will be ready to buy in beta form Thursday, May 27th!

I’ve never released a book, or really anything other than an app. So, I have absolutely no idea what to expect. And I can’t wait.

Learning from the Past

After Spend Stack got acquired, I knew I wanted to take a break for a bit. What I didn’t know was that I’d end up writing a book during it. I’ve always wanted to, but the throes of indie development didn’t leave much time. That, and the whole three kids, being married, a full-time job and my life in general dance.

With limited time comes limited options, something I’m totally okay with. But when I looked back at my career aspirations, one of them was, of course, to write a book:

What better time than now? Once I start developing apps again, I’m not going to stop anytime soon. If there was a time to do this, it was now.

If you’ve been around me for a bit, a book probably isn’t much of a surprise so much as a foregone conclusion. But if we had the pleasure of meeting each other through Spend Stack, it might. Before those days, I was an avid writer. I posted on this very site, which began on Medium with 13k subscribers, weekly. It’s something I’ve missed - the thrill of sharing what you know, what you’re learning or tips to just help other devs out.

All that to say, this isn’t an off the cuff thing. I adore writing, and so now is the time to go all in.

But!

Spend Stack took years and years to ship. This go around, I didn’t feel like waiting a year or so to ship my next project. I don’t regret it by any means, but I wanted to try a leaner approach to releasing this time. As is de rigueur with learning and shipping, I put up a landing page before I really had anything else done for the book:

🚀A Best-in-Class App: The Book 🚀

It's happening, I'm making this now!

✅ In-depth book covering accessibility, core iOS tech, design, user experience and more.
✅ A companion app
✅ Bite sized screencasts

Join the mailing list to follow along: https://t.co/Dc9AcfyUSL pic.twitter.com/S8sm1zPnNg

— Jordan Morgan (@JordanMorgan10) February 16, 2021

Once it got 500 signups within a few hours, I figured that was validation enough. Even though I am writing the book partly because I simply want to - with that limited time I mentioned above, I’ve come to a place where I almost feel I need to monetize any time spent on extracurriculars to justify it. Of course, interest and money earned form a symbiotic relationship, thus I needed to kinda sorta know if folks actually wanted something like this from me.

And with that, I set out. I researched for a solid month, with my own best-in-class post as the inspiration. What if I could turn that into a book? What would it look like? Once I got rolling and writing, I realized I was doing what I always do - creating something much bigger than I had planned 😅.

If I stay the steady course I’m on now, it’s going to take me a year to write this thing. It’s that big, it’s huge. It’s four books (plus a bonus section) packaged together. And so I’ve decided to start with a beta version, knowing that people wouldn’t want to wait and I couldn’t stand to keep talking about it that long without sharing it.

So that leads me to today!

What’s It Got?

The beta edition will be formally announced and ready for sale on its brand new landing page on Thursday, May 27th! It’ll launch with:

• Nine full chapters ready to go spanning over 14,000 words
• An Xcode project to browse code samples, see source and run them. Oh, with SwiftUI and UIKit.
• Launching in .pdf, .ePub and .mobi formats. Read it wherever you want.
• A private Discord community to help shape the book, future content and to just meet fellow developers.
• The best part - ongoing updates. This will always be updated with the latest and greatest of iOS, keeping in line with my vision of making the perfect iOS developer’s companion that everyone can benefit from.

It’s already quite a large package, but I also realize it’s a beta. The people who come in now truly believe in it, and I want to honor that. As part of upholding my promise to them, it’ll launch with:

• A 20% discount off the final price tag of $100
• A book shout out
• A bonus section exclusive to them (toolbelt expansion)
• Most importantly, promised content updates biweekly until version one is done

As I said above, I have no idea what to expect - but I can say this. I read through the first nine chapters again last night and I thought, “Hey, this might be pretty good!” And I’m my own worst enemy and harshest critic, so I think I might have something useful here. An evergreen companion for your iOS endeavors. A book that never is outdated. A versioned tome that changes with the ecosystem.

I can’t freaking wait 😎

Final Thoughts

It’s launch time, baby. And there’s nothing like it. If you’ve enjoyed my writing, iOS tips or apps - I think you’ll really dig this. I’d be honored if you joined me for the ride.

Oh, and if you want the most up-to-date info on the launch, join the mailing list here or just keep an eye on my Twitter this week.

Let’s make best-in-class apps together 💪.

Until next time ✌️