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[Tanner Lovelace <lovelace AT wayfarer.org>]

Maria Winslow wrote:

> Writing a book, especially when you have small children, is a stupid idea. It 
> is a long, tedious, and painful project. 

There are many "long, tedious, and painful project[s]" when you have small
children.  If you paid attention to that fact, though, there'd a lot less 
things
to do.  That said, I didn't say I wanted to write a book, I was just curious
about the process.

> But if you insist on pursuing this crazy idea, then start with articles. You 
> will have a much easier time getting accepted if you have published something 
> before, and it will give you an idea of whether or not you like writing. 
>
> Most trade magazines want articles about 2000 words in length. I know you are 
> a Linux guy, so I would recommend specific technical how-to topics, like a 
> tutorial on how to move your Windows fileserver to Linux, or something like 
> that. You should research the types of articles that have appeared in your 
> target magazines over the past year, and look over their editorial calendar 
> for themes that you could contribute to. You can generally find the editorial 
> calendar in the advertising section under "media kit" (so advertisers know 
> what is coming). 

Good advice! Thanks very much.  I've actually thought more about
writing articles than I have writing books, but book writing was
what was mentioned and what prompted my question.

As far as your suggested topic, aren't you working on a book of that
exact subject?  :-) Or rather, general migration from windows to linux?
That actually sounds like it would make a great chapter (or two) in a
book like that.

Cheers,
Tanner
--
Tanner Lovelace | lovelace AT wayfarer.org | http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
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 This would be a very good time to hang out with the Open Source
 people, before they get formally reclassified as a national security
 threat. -- Bruce Sterling