The Self-Taught Programmer Movement & How You Can Help

I majored in political science in college. When I was 24, I learned to program. One year later, I was working as a software engineer. Eventually, I left my job to write a book called The Self-Taught Programmer: The Definitive Guide to Programming Professionally. I wanted to write a book that would help people program professionally: whether as a software engineer or a better writer, marketer, data analyst, accountant, or entrepreneur.

I wanted my book to be different than all of the other programming books out there. Before I wrote it, I made a list of the qualities programming books have: a dull cover, no personality, lots of jargon, and black and white examples and text. Then for each item in the list, I did the opposite when I published my book. I hired a creative agency to design the cover, I injected my personality into each chapter, I avoided jargon, and every copy of The Self-Taught Programmer is printed in full color — even though printing in color is so expensive that it dramatically decreases my profit on each book.

Because of this, and the support that I’ve received from so many people, my book has been better received than I ever imagined. In the first two months, it has sold thousands of copies. More importantly, I’ve received hundreds of messages from people that learned to program from reading it. Its success has also led to something else I did not expect: a vibrant community. Together, we are leading a new movement of self-taught programmers ( I go into depth about this in “The Rise of The Self-Taught Programmer.”) Between The Self-Taught Programmer newsletter, Facebook page, Facebook group and Twitter; we are over 20,000 strong.

I am working to expand this community, which is where you come in. I need your help! I am approaching PR the same way I approached creating my book—I want to do it differently. Instead of working with a publicist, I am asking for your help to get the word out. Do you have a friend with a podcast? Do you work at a company that I could speak at? Do you know any bloggers? Do you know someone else that can help? Do you have any other ideas? I am open to any and all suggestions. Please send them to me at cory@theselftaughtprogrammer.io. Together, we can make this movement stronger. I appreciate your support.

Thanks to Ryan Holiday for this idea: https://ryanholiday.net/announcing-ego-is-the-enemy-how-you-can-get-involved.

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