It’s time to click “publish”

“Tomorrow is another day,” so they say. We might not have that procrastinator’s phrase if someone hadn’t pushed to publish.

In 1926, Margaret Mitchell started writing Gone with the Wind. Nine years later, she was still writing it.

The book went on to be wildly successful, as viral as could be in a pre-television, pre-internet world. The movie cemented it as a classic. But it might not have happened if not for a New Yorker’s tour of the American South.

Macmillan Publishing was looking for new fiction, which led them to Mitchell. She had two suitcases full of papers—and she still wasn’t finished writing. It took most of the next year, but the 1,000+ page tome was published in 1936, after 10 years of effort.

Here’s the thing: your blog post is no Gone with the Wind. The more you click publish, the more opportunities you have to connect with developers.

Yes, you want the content to be strategic. Yes, you want it to be good.

But don’t let yourself or your team polish and re-polish in private.

Mayyyyybe one day you’d publish the Gone with the Wind-equivalent of developer content. But more likely you’d end up with a Samsonite full of words tucked away in your blogging closet.

Mitchell never published another book in her lifetime—perhaps because she knew it wasn’t another Gone with the Wind.

It’s time to click “publish” and see what developers think of it. Then start working on the next one.

Speaking of books not to be compared to a classic… Developer Marketing Does Not Exist is the authentic guide to reach more developers, without the marketing tactics that they’ll ignore.

Check out the table of contents… but not before you click publish on that one post that’s “almost ready.”