3 weeks back I wrote a book “Learn CKS Scenarios” on Gumroad.
About CKS Certification :
CKS Certification was launched at KubeCon NA 2020 and was targeted to show the importance of security in Kubernetes. The prerequisite to take this certification is that you need to be CKA (Certified Kubernetes Administrator).
This Certification is heavily focused on the third-party security tools that are required to make the cluster secure. Security best practices, the CIS benchmarks, and how to take care of security at each stage.
Compared to CKA and CKAD, this is the most difficult certification rated by the people who have taken the exam as this involves security concepts to be understood properly and you should know how to use external tools like Kube-bench, OPA, Trivy, Falco etc.
The Book
Soon after I cleared my certification I realized that this certification needs more practice and there are not many resources for it, so I decided to pen down my notes and created scenarios out the topics and the sections mentioned in the syllabus. I looked at the Kubernetes documentation for creating these practice questions/scenarios.
The unique thing about this book is that all questions are different and for each scenario, I have used Katakoda Playground so that the practice becomes easy and you can practice the scenarios anytime. For each question, you get a detailed solution which is broken down into Cluster setup + scenario setup + the question. These are not direct questions, I first create the questions from the cluster setup itself and then try to modify things, so you can do all questions by following the detailed solutions.
As of now, it’s a 52 pages book that might grow in the future as I add more scenarios to it based on the feedback from the community.
Buying Options:
There are two packs that you can purchase :
- The Book
- All new Updates
- Github gist for copy/pasting
- Discord channel were you can ask questions and discuss with other people preparing for CKS
- The Book
- All new Updates
- Github gist for copy/pasting
- Discord channel were you can ask questions and discuss with other people preparing for CKS
- Video Solutions to all the scenarios
I love doing things for the community so I decided to give a 50% discount on both packs for the first 100 users which is now over.
Gumroad Platform and Sales :
Writing a book can be difficult and then publishing it might be a whole new thing. What I wanted was that, I write something and then I can directly give that to the people/community so that they can immediately start using it. I also wanted my own style of writing, my freedom of the way, wanted to write some handwritten stuff so I chose to compile the doc, export as pdf then import in notability and then do my writing stuff on it.
Now the book was ready and I needed a way to publish it and Gumroad was super-easy, in less than 30 minutes I was able to publish my book, create different packs, get a sharable link, create a super simple coupon for a discount and share it with my community. Gumroad pays you via PayPal which is a fine for me since I am having a PayPal account. Also, I didn't have to go through any of the editorial review and publication complexities. So I just compiled my book in a pdf and I used Gumroad to publish that on the 26th of January.
The response I got from the community was awesome as I wasn’t even expecting 50 sales but in less than a month the book did 120+ sales which is just amazing and since then I have updated my book couple of times, created and provided Video Solutions and also created GitHub gist based on feedback.
The overall feedback for the book has been good as people are able to understand the scenario and practice them.
Below are the sales that I got via different mediums
I think that if you are living in a world where you have a strong community that is hungry to learn more, you will always find a way to create an impact.
It might not be too many sales for some but as my FIRST Book, it's a Huge Success for me. I got so much confidence and love from the community that I am really satisfied with my work. So thank you all who bought the book and all the best to those preparing for CKS.
Feedback :
Thinking of Writing a book? Anyone can do it, Connect with me on Twitter to ask any questions regarding this book or to ask anything about my journey in general. Also, Follow my youtube channel where I do live streams with other community leaders and we all learn together.
Saiyam Pathak
CNCF Ambassador
Youtube: https://youtube.com/c/saiyam911
Twitter: https://twitter.com/saiyampathak
Twitch: https://twitch.tv.saiyampathak
