Author Interview with Grant Spink

How to Publish Your App is a concise guide for new app developers wishing to publish their app in the App Store. While researching this topic, Spink discovered that a how-to guide for publishing apps did not exist, requiring extensive research to figure out how to publish his iApp.

Author Grant Spink shares his lessons, tips and tricks on the process of publishing an iOS app in his first book.

Grant Spink on Writing How to Publish Your App

The Musical Muse: What inspired you to write How to Publish Your App?

Grant Spink: When I was making my app, I just turned 14  but I could code pretty well,  so I was surprised that once I was finished here was nothing really out there that described in simple  detail the publishing process. So after I finished developing the app, and publishing it  myself, I wrote a definitive guide that would help any individual glide through what I had such trouble with.

The Musical Muse: What was the hardest part about publishing your book?

Grant Spink: The formatting and preparing it to be delivered as an actual book on Amazon. There were strict guidelines that had to be followed, and it took the greatest deal of time in the publishing process.

The Musical Muse: What did you learn from writing your book?

Grant Spink: I learned how much I like writing. I feel that I really have an interest in doing more books to help people, or even some creative fiction writing.

Grant Spink on Poli-tic-tac-toe

The Musical Muse: Tell us a little bit about the app you created.

Grant Spink: I created a series of apps spoofing the political elections in a satirical way. The first one was called poli-tic-tac-toe, it pitted Obama and Romney against each other in a game of X's and O's.

Grant Spink on Favourite Books and Authors

The Musical Muse: What genre of books do you like to read?

Grant Spink: I love to read; Right now I'm reading Freakonomics by Steven Levitt, but I enjoy being transported to a distant land, and hearing an interesting story. I like Hemingway, Cormac McCarthy, but lately I've been reading a lot science fiction.

Grant Spink on Becoming a Published Author

The Musical Muse: Did you ever think you'd ever become an author?

Grant Spink: I never really thought I would become an author. Although, my interests focus primarily on creating things, whether it be apps, drawings, models, music or even books now, I guess. I'm currently developing a new way to teach computer science to children and beginners all over the world, which I'm planning to turn into a series of books and online videos.

Grant Spink Encourages Other Young Authors

The Musical Muse: You're what we call a "young author". Do you any advice for youths about writing or developing apps?

Grant Spink: First, you have to believe in yourself, and have confidence in your ability to overcome any roadblock and complete any task you set your mind to.  The most important thing is to finish it, and just chipping away at it will get you there eventually.

One thing that I found impressive is that Grant's father, director Philip Spink, said that Grant was halfway through writing How to Publish Your App before he and his wife were aware of what Grant was up to. Now that's showing initiative!

How to Publish Your App Publication Details

Author: Grant Spink

Title: How to Publish Your App

Paperback: 122 pages

Publisher: Grant Spink

Publication Date: May 28, 2013

ISBN-10: 0991918304

ISBN-13: 978-0991918300

How to Publish Your App by Grant Spink is currently available on Amazon.Check out my book review of How to Publish Your App and Grant Spink’s site, Publish Your App.

How to Publish Your App A Must for New App Creators

If you have a mobile device, chances are, you have said, "I wish there was an app for that." Perhaps you're thinking, "How hard can it be?" and have started to create said app. Making an app is one thing, but how to you get it on the App Store? Author Grant Spink walks you through the whole process of publishing your iOS app in his first book, entitled How to Publish Your App. The subtitle says it all: "No code! Just a step-by-step guide, helping you through the tricky parts of publishing an app."

A quick search on Amazon reveals that this is the only book of its kind currently in the marketplace. So young author, Grant Spink (he's 14) saw an opportunity to share the lessons he learned in publishing his own app.

The first thing to take note of is that Spink says outright that this guide is to help you publish your app, not create it. You will have to look elsewhere for help in that area.

When Grant gave me a copy of How to Publish Your App, I was attracted to the layout. Flipping through the book, I could see that the design is very clean, with just the right amount of text and plenty of screen shots. Both copy and images are spaced out to give an uncluttered feel.

The guide is laid out into 13 chapters which outlines the publishing process in clear and concise steps. The first five chapters show you how to get set up as an Apple Developer: the obligatory introduction, Becoming a Developer, iOS Provisional Portal Outline, Requesting Your Certificates and Uploading Your Certificates.

Spink explains what is happening at each step and why it is important that you complete it. He provides links to the URLs to all the forms you need to complete. No hunting, no digging required.

The next two chapters prepare you to test and subsequently distribute your app: App IDs and Provisioning Profiles. He explains why these steps are important and walks the reader through the steps of creating profile.

Chapters 9 and 10 are critical for any new App Developer to go through. These chapters alone make the book worth its weight in gold: Getting Access to Contracts and Filling out Your Information. They walk you through all the legal, payment and tax forms that Apple makes all developers and sellers complete.

The final three chapters take you through the last stages of publishing your app: Adding a New App, Preparing an App for Archiving and Submit to the App Store. True to form, these final steps are described step by step with the requisite screen caps.

In an interview, Spink told me that he wanted to make the step-by-step guide simple enough that people without coding experience and complete newbies to developing apps can understand. I say that he succeeded in doing so. I have absolutely no experience in this area and after reading his book, I feel that I can publish my own app.

This young author has my brain going, trying to think of a couple of apps that I could create. However, I should probably just get to know my new iPod Touch first.

How to Publish Your App is available on Amazon in softcover ($21.08 CAD) and eBook format in the iBooks Store. At 122 pages, it's a very easy read.

Grant Spink is an actor, writer and student in Calgary, Alberta. He is the owner of Grantworks Media. I look forward to seeing what he does next.