Translating Geek Into English

A little while back, I had a series of emails with a reader named Scott, who was considering an opportunity to write his first book. Scott did want to try writing a book, but didn’t want to jump into the project blindly, and so asked me what it meant, in day-to-day terms, to write a book. We had a few long emails back and forth, that I thought I’d edit/expand upon (my parts) and share here for others to benefit. In my responses, I did try to stress the negative aspects of being a writer, so as to present some of the worst case scenarios. What originally started as a couple of long emails became a long post, and now a series of posts. If you’d rather not read it all, the short advice is this:

If you want to write a book because it’s something you always wanted to do, give it a go, but if you want to write a book to get rich, become famous, or the like, you’re barking up the wrong tree!

Note that my perspective and advice specifically focuses on writing technical books and articles, which is what I do and know best, although much of the advice applies to other types of writing, too. Continue Reading…