How I Under-Engineered My Book

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Summary

Chris Kiehl describes his simple, under-engineered process for writing a technical book using basic tools like Obsidian and Word, contrasting it with more complex approaches.

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# How I Under-Engineered my Book Source: [https://chriskiehl.com/article/how-i-under-engineered-my-book](https://chriskiehl.com/article/how-i-under-engineered-my-book) ![](https://d39wtn5cxihhz5.cloudfront.net/content/800Pasted-image-20260817122017.jpeg) Published: 2026\-08\-17 > In contrast to this maniac on the front page of Hacker News:[How I Over\-Engineered My Book](https://ben.balter.com/2026/08/17/how-i-over-engineered-my-book/) I typed the first draft of each chapter into Obsidian\. Then I copy/pasted it into Word\. When it was done, I dragged and dropped it into Box, which is where Manning stores its author's manuscripts\. Then I kept doing that until it was done\. It looked something like this: It's done\![Buy it here\!](https://www.manning.com/books/data-oriented-programming-in-java)Give me your money\!

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