Category Archives: The Writing Life

Posts about writing for fun and profit.

On Being a Professional Writer

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Some thoughts on writing for a living.

I make my living as a writer. And I make a very good living.

When people ask me what I do, I tell them I’m a writer. The next question is usually, “Oh, have you had anything published?”

Hello? How can you make a living as a writer if you haven’t had anything published? After all, the money comes from the publishers. It doesn’t come out of thin air just because you spent time putting words on paper or in a word processor. Or in a blog, for that matter.

I’ve written 58 books since 1990. True, most of those books were revisions. Like my Mac OS books, which have been bestsellers since the very first edition. That was about Mac OS 8 back in 1998. I revised it for 8.5, 8.6, 9.0, 9.1, X, 10.1, 10.2, and 10.3. I’m going to start work on the 10.4 edition soon.

I learned very early on in this field that if I wanted to make a living as a writer, I had to write a lot and get it all published. So I learned to write my computer books extremely quickly, giving my publishers just what they wanted pretty darn close to the day they wanted it by. Publishers like that. They don’t want to work with prima donas who won’t do things their way. They don’t want to work with writers who can’t deliver on time. Because I met the needs of my publishers, they gave me a lot of assignments. I always had work to do. And since these books only last 12 to 18 months (on average), I needed to keep working. Even a bestseller doesn’t pay a dime when it’s out of date.

I had two bestsellers: the aforementioned Mac OS books and my Quicken books. The Mac OS books continue to do well. I’m extremely proud of the latest edition, which is over 600 pages long and full of great information. The next edition will be even better. The Quicken books aren’t doing as well these days. I think the market is saturated. I have other thoughts on this, but I’ve been advised to keep them to myself and I agree it’s probably a good idea.

Bestsellers are nice. They generate big checks. I wish I could have 10 bestsellers, all at the same time. Then maybe I’d have a little house on top of Howard Mesa instead of a camper with a pair of bad batteries.

If you’ve been reading these blogs, you know that I have a summer job as a pilot. It isn’t quite over yet, but it will be soon enough. Some people think I got the job because I needed the extra money. In all honesty, the job is a money sucker. The pay is terrible and I probably spend as much money commuting to work by helicopter as I earn each day. (But heck, it sure beats the 40-minute drive in the Jeep.) And every day I’m away from my office is a day I can’t work on a book. So I’m losing money when I’m flying. Good thing I enjoy doing it.

This summer, I worked a 7 days on/7 days off schedule. But I fiddled with that a bit and got it set up as 5 days on/9 days off for much of the summer. As a result, I was able to go home and work on books. I revised my Quicken book in June. I worked on my new Word Visual QuickProject Guide in July and August. And this month, I started my new Excel Visual QuickProject Guide. I have another Word book (a revision) and my Mac OS X book (a revision) lined up after these. So there’s plenty of work to do.

I also got some work writing articles for a Web site. I can write those when I’m away at my summer job. I use my laptop. They don’t pay as well as a book, but I can knock one off in a few hours. And it’s kind of nice to write about a bunch of different things rather than just one main thing.

There are lots of people out there who want to be writers. I’ve met many of them. I was even pretty good friends with one or two. But they just didn’t get it. They didn’t understand that if you want to write for a living, you must write what the publishers want so they’ll buy it. If the publishers don’t buy it, you won’t make any money on it.

And don’t talk to me about self publishing. I have a friend who went that route and still has a garage full of books. Five different titles! Self publishing is risky. There’s a huge cash outlay involved and if you don’t know how to market (or sell) your book, you’ll never make any of that money back.

Yes, the key word here is sell. Sell your writing, sell yourself.

If you do it well enough, you can have a very nice lifestyle. After all, it’s nice to be able to make your own hours, work in your pajamas, take vacation anytime you want. Those are the perks of being self-employed. But you have to work to earn those perks. Pay dues, so to speak.

What a disjointed blog entry this is! But sometimes it’s nice to write something that you don’t have to sell. I guess that’s what these blogs are all about.

Work in Progress

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About the work I’ve started that I’ll probably never finish.

I started writing a novel when I was thirteen. It was an adventure/love story, based roughly on an image I’d had in a dream. I wrote it in a series of five college-ruled notebooks, single-spaced, in the crude printed handwriting of a teenager. I actually finished it, although I can’t remember how long it took. When it was finished, it was about five hundred pages long.

It sat in a locked drawer for years. When my family moved, I took it with me. By that time, I’d started another novel, this one about a successful business woman who was targeted for murder by a rival businessman. I was in my late teens when I started it and it was far more mature than the first book. It covered pages in two thick college-ruled notebooks. I never finished it.

In 1984, I bought my first computer, an Apple IIc. One of the first things I did with it was to type the work I’d done on the second novel into the word processor that came with the computer: AppleWorks. The pages filled several 5-1/4″ disks. You know — the old “floppy” kind. I added pages to the work as time went on. I also dug out that first novel and began rewriting it, now with the knowledge of a 23-year-old.

Time went on. In 1989, I bought my first Macintosh. I wasted no time coming up with a method that would transfer all those bytes of fiction from the old computer’s floppy disks to the hard disk on my new computer. It required a special serial cable and a telecommunications program. I basically downloaded the information from one computer to the other. The limited formatting I’d been able to apply in AppleWorks was lost, but at least I didn’t have to retype hundreds of pages of text.

The first novel nagged at me. I worked on it regularly, changing the story but never finishing it. Instead, I started a second book with some of the same characters two years later. Then went back and started a book with some of the same characters a year before the first book. They became named Book 2, Book 3, and Book 1. One of the characters that was supposed to die at the end of Book 3 managed to survive. (He was too good a guy to lose.) He came back in Book 4. And I even have some ideas about Book 5, although I haven’t actually started it yet.

I’ve also written short stories about some of the characters. The stories were written as a means of clearing my head about prior events in a character’s life. You see, all of my major characters had lives before I started writing about them. It’s important to know about those lives to accurately write about each character’s actions and motivations.

What does all this mean? At this point, I have the modern version of an unfinished book I started writing nearly 30 years ago, as well as hundreds of pages of fiction about the same characters. I carry the files around with me on my laptop and keep a backup copy on my desktop computer’s hard disk, as well as in a Backup folder on my .Mac account.

When I’m on the road and want something to read, I open up one of the book files. I enjoy the story very much. Sometimes I read what I’ve written and am proud of my work. Other times, I read passages that I know need to be fixed up. Some of the passages are especially awful; I’m not too vain to admit it. Sometimes I add new scenes. Other times I make minor corrections to existing text. I’ve put hundreds — if not thousands — of hours into this work. But it isn’t done.

At this point, I don’t think it’ll ever be done. It’s a personal work, something I think I write just for myself. It would be great to see it in print, but at the same time, I wonder what people would think of me after they’ve read it. Some parts are very violent, not unlike some of the action/adventure movies that Hollywood keeps churning out. I find it entertaining, an escape from reality. My escape.

I’ve got other novels in progress as well. A bunch of years ago, I started writing a mystery that I got about 5 chapters into before I stalled. Last year, I started another mystery with some of the same characters. These pieces, if I ever finish them, will be marketable and I’ll do everything I can to see them in print.

So when I complain about writers block, as I did in a previous blog entry, it’s my inability to work on these pieces of fiction that’s the problem. Sure, I can write computer how-to books when an editor is waiting for them. The big motivation there is the milestone advance payments that are dangled like a carrot in front of my face. No computer books, no money. No money, no life. Pretty simple. I can also write blog entries because they’re easy and they help clear my mind of the things that clutter it. But fiction? Adding to a work in progress is like squeezing water from a stone.

Anyone else out there in the same situation? I’d be interested in hearing what you do to overcome this problem.

Writer’s Block Sucks

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For the first time in my life, I suffer from a serious case of writer’s block.

Prolific. That’s the word that has often been applied to me. And so it should. After all, I’ve produced more than 55 books in 12 years. In one very busy year alone, I did 10 revisions.

But things just aren’t the same these days. Writing the books that pay the bills — computer how-to books about software like Quicken, Microsoft Word, and Mac OS X — has become real work for me. The kind of work I try to avoid doing because I simply don’t want to.

Writing Blog entries has become tough, too. I think of topics while I’m driving or showering — my two best times for thinking — and when I get in front of a computer, the words just won’t come. So I waste time surfing the ‘Net (a form of procrastination) or, worse yet, watching television.

But what’s really bothering me is my complete inability to write fiction. I’m working on a number of projects. Some of them have been in progress for years and I don’t expect to ever finish them. But one of them is something I want to finish, something I want to try to have published. I’m about four chapters into it and I’m at a complete standstill.

I’m not happy about that.

I try to force myself to write, to make personal deadlines for pages or words or chapters. But when the word processing screen is before me and the insertion point is blinking away at the start of a fresh line, I just can’t make the words come.

So I write blog entries (as I’m doing now) as a kind of consolation prize. I’m writing, aren’t I? That’s better than surfing or watching television.

I feel lost and frustrated. I have a number of other book ideas that I want to work on. They’re not fiction and I’m pretty sure I can sell them. They’ll have longer shelf lives than the computer books I usually write. But I can’t seem to get started on them.

And then there’s the 10 Quick Step Guides that I promised David Lawrence. He’s all ready to publish them. He has a willing audience. But I can’t seem to write them.

Writer’s block. That’s what it is. Like insomnia: you want to sleep but you can’t. You need to sleep but you can’t. I want to write. I need to write. But I can’t.

Let’s hope I get over this soon. I don’t know how long I can handle this lack of productivity.

Writing Under Pressure

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How I hit the keyboard and produce at an alarming rate.

When I got my summer job at Papillon Grand Canyon Helicopters, my editors were quite upset. Especially Megg at Osborne/McGraw-Hill. You see, every summer for the past six years, I’ve devoted about two months to writing or revising Quicken: The Official Guide for Quicken Press, which is an Osborne imprint. The book sold like crazy in its first edition (for Quicken 99) — in fact, it was the second best selling book of all time at Osborne. Although sales have fallen off a bit, it continues to sell well and remains the top-selling book about Quicken every year.

Osborne makes money producing and selling this book. I make some money, too, although not as much as I’d like. It’s a Windows book and I really don’t like writing about Windows software. After 55+ titles (I’ve lost count again), I’ve gotten cranky and picky and would rather spend time flying than sitting in front of a computer writing about accounting software.

Can you blame me?

Anyway, my schedule at Papillon requires that I live up at the Grand Canyon every other week. Up there, I live in a trailer (which is discussed extensively in another blog ). I have my laptop, an Apple PowerBook. But I don’t have any of the other equipment I need to write computer books. And frankly, I like it that way.

On my off weeks, I assured Megg, I would work on the book. I’d reviewed information about the software’s new features and told her the book would be about a 20% revision. I’d knock it off during my off weeks in the month of June.

Well, the month didn’t start very well. My uncle passed away June 4 and I felt compelled to fly back to New Jersey to visit him one last time. That killed four days that I could have been working. That equates to at least four chapters of the 18-chapter book. To make matters worse, when I returned to Wickenburg after my trip, I got about 4-1/2 hours of sleep before I had to fly up to the Grand Canyon for my week at Papillon. Although I’d managed to finish the first chapter, I later discovered that my e-mail software had failed to deliver it to Megg & Co. When I returned to my office on June 14 — halfway through the month! — Megg still didn’t have any chapters.

After handling e-mail, voicemail, and chart orders (I run a discount mail order business for aviation charts and pilot supplies — PilotCharts.com ), I finally put my nose to the grindstone (or my fingers to the keyboard) and got to work. I revised Chapters 2 and 3 on Monday and Chapters 4 and 5 on Tuesday. It’s Wednesday and, unfortunately, I have a doctor’s appointment and a haircut appointment, so I think I’ll only get one chapter done today. But if I keep up my rate of production, I should be able to get through Chapter 10 by Friday afternoon. And I’ll probably do two more on Saturday.

The revision work isn’t difficult, especially when revising material that hasn’t changed. I read over every word and make minor changes to clarify information. I’m also adding sidebars, although I’m not convinced that they’ll really add anything of value to the book. Then I make brand new screenshots. That’s where things slow down, because I have to make the software’s screens look a certain way before I take the picture. That often requires manipulating data by creating transactions — sometimes dozens of them — to show what I need to show.

I complained a bit to Mike about the work yesterday. It’s terribly tedious and very boring. He reminded me about the “paychecks” that accompany projects like this one. That shut me up.

I’ll have the book done by the end of the month as promised. I have to. There are three more titles for Peachpit Press lined up behind it.

Finished “Mac OS X 10.3 Panther: Visual QuickStart Guide”

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Thoughts and insights on a tough revision and the computer book publishing industry.

Mac OS X 10.3 Panther: Visual QuickStart GuideMy last entry was pretty depressing. I was under a lot of stress to get the book done. Now that it’s done and the stress is gone, I’m feeling much better. The book is nothing short of a masterpiece, if I do say so myself, and I’m extremely pleased with it. We (Peachpit Press and I) got a lot of feedback from readers about previous editions. It seemed that my VQS wasn’t considered “good value for the money” because it didn’t have as many pages as other competing books. What most people didn’t consider was that VQSes are traditionally short (around 300 pages). Mine was actually long at about 400 pages. And it was considerably cheaper than the other books. But I guess if you calculated price per page, I probably fell a bit short of the competition. And I can’t deny that buying two books (a VQS and a VQP) does cost readers more money. In defense of Peachpit, the idea behind that strategy is that not all readers need all that information and we could provide affordable books tailored to two markets. But that’s not how reviewers saw the situation.

That said, we decided to combine the two books into one title. The resulting “Mac OS X 10.3 Panther: Visual QuickStart Guide” is about 670 pages long and features 20 chapters and over 2,000 screen shots. Topic range from the most basic basics (like how to point and click) to Unix commands. The price tag is an extremely competitive $29.95 US, making it a very good value. If this book doesn’t please readers, I don’t think any book will.

Writing the book was a bit of a challenge. First, there was the merging of the content from two books. What do we include? What do we exclude? Not much. The biggest casualty was the AppleScript chapter written by Ethan Wilde, which was replaced by an AppleScript basics section in the Applications chapter. (Those interested in AppleScript really ought to buy Ethan’s book!) Almost everything else that was in my Mac OS X 10.2 VQS and VQP remained in this edition.

Of course, everything has been updated for Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. That was the second challenge. Not just the update, but merging information about new features into existing chapters. Where do we discuss each new feature? Chapter 4, which is available as an excerpt from my Web site , got quite a few new pages. So did the i-Applications chapter, which was expanded to cover iCal and iSync (neither of which was available when I wrote the Mac OS X 10.2 VQS last year). The only chapter that got trimmed down a bit was the installation chapter. I cut out the info about installing Mac OS 9.2, since that information appears in the Classic Environment chapter.

There was a lot of pressure to finish the book on a timely basis. Timing is everything in the computer book publishing world and when a hot new product hits the market, publishers want their books out first. Trouble is, authors have to work with beta software, which often changes on a weekly (if not daily) basis to get the book done timely. Mac OS X 10.3’s beta software was available for about two months before the software was finally released. But the beta software changed. Any author who wrote about early versions of the beta wrote some stuff that isn’t right.

Want some examples? The first beta or two included a Print command under the Finder’s File menu. That command disappeared before I could try it out. Those first betas excluded a Favorites folder in the Sidebar. Sometime in the middle of the beta process, the Favorites folder reappeared. Then, near the end, it disappeared again. It was almost as if Apple wanted to kill favorites, thought they would get a lot of negative feedback, and then decided “to hell with the bad feedback” and killed it. (But favorites aren’t really gone, as you’ll discover when you read my book.) Icons changed, too. Internet Connect’s new icon didn’t appear until halfway through the beta process. Any screenshot of that icon taken before the beginning of October will be wrong.

So here’s the situation: publishers want the book written quickly. Once the book is written, it has to be laid out, proofed, edited, and printed. For most publishers, this is where time is lost. From the moment the author hands over the last manuscript chapter and TIFF files to the time the book appears in print, two or more months may have gone by. So do the calendar math: if the author waits until Gold Master of the software — on or around October 15 in this case — to finalize the draft manuscript, the book can’t possibly appear in stores until December 15. So what do authors do? Under pressure from publishers, they finalize before Gold Master. As a result, their books contain inaccuracies.

Peachpit and I don’t work this way. We have a remarkable arrangement. I do layout as I write, so I submit fully laid out pages as I work. My editors mark up this draft manuscript and I update pages as the software is changed and I get edits. As a result, when the software went Gold Master, we already had fully laid out pages for about 3/4 of the book. I wrote and laid out the rest the following week. This made it possible to send our completely accurate 650+ page book to the printer only three days after the software’s release date. I expect to hold a copy of the finished book in my hands by November 14 — just three weeks after the software’s release.

Any book that makes it to stores before mine can’t possibly be based on final Mac OS X 10.3 software. It’s just impossible. And that’s not an author’s fault. It’s the fault of publishers who don’t trust their authors to do layout. Peachpit trusts me and I don’t let them down.

Next on the agenda, Excel 2003 for Windows: Visual QuickStart Guide. Another revision — but this one should be a piece of cake.