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19 useful books by Philly tech authors

Developer-focused books rule this list but there's also a few on business, content and analytics.

Fill up your bookshelf with these Philly tech authors. (Photo by Flickr user chotda, used under a Creative Commons license)

One of Brandon Hilkert’s big goals for 2014 was to write a book. (The other was to complete an Ironman triathlon.)
He did both. Actually, it was completing the Ironman that made him feel like he could write the book. Before embarking on the book project, Hilkert, a developer at PipelineDeals and a member of West Chester coworking space Walnut St. Labs, wasn’t a prolific writer.
“I think I was probably the last person ever qualified to write a book,” he wrote in an email to us. “But it sounded like a challenging project that would make me a better writer and communicator in the process.”
It took him just under three months.
His book, Build a Ruby Gem, launched last March and has done more than $20,000 in sales since then. (It goes for between $39 and $129, with screencasts as an added bonus for the more expensive option.) He marketed the book through the online Ruby community and his blog and newsletter.
Before investing the time into writing the book, Hilkert gauged interest by launching an email course on the book’s content.

I put the course out there and for some reason thought that if 200 people signed up, I would continue on writing the book. I think within the first week of launching the course, 700 people had signed up. This, to me, was enough validation to continue.

Hilkert is one of many Philly entrepreneurs and developers that have written and published books. Check out our list below and let us know what we missed.

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DEV

BUSINESS

OTHER

Companies: AWeber
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