Internetworkers: http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/

[Tanner Lovelace <lovelace AT wayfarer.org>]

Steven Champeon wrote:

> on Mon, Oct 13, 2003 at 12:55:41PM -0400, Tanner Lovelace wrote:
>
> > While David sees opportunities for SQL discussions, I see opportunities
> > to ask about writing. :-)
>
>
> Careful, Tanner, this is viewed as sure sign of mental illness by
> everyone who has ever written for money. :)

It could be argued that just posting to this list is a sign of mental
illness anyway, so what have I got to lose by just asking about it. ;-)

> I agree with Maria - don't look into book writing unless you're a
> glutton for punishment. :)

:-)

[...snip...]

> I'd recommend that you offer your services as a tech reviewer or
> editor to someone you know is writing a book, if you really want to

I've actually done this once, but it was several years ago.  One of my
former professors at Johns Hopkins wrote a book on Java Servlets and
had people from his classes review it.  My only exposure, however, was
with the author.

[...]

> If you want to take the article route, become familiar with the various
> publications that cover areas with which you are familiar, and approach
> them about their submission guidelines and editorial schedule. That way,
> you can submit ideas that might help them serve their core audience.

Like I said before, I've actually thought more about writing articles
than writing a book.  Writing an article, especially after spending some
time in graduate school, seems a lot easier than writing a full blown
book.

> Having some writing samples, even if unrelated to the subject area at
> hand, helps, too. One way to get those is to volunteer to write for
> sites that accept free content, like INW. If nothing else, it's good
> exposure, or can be, and a good way to decide whether you want to do
> that kind of work for not much more money. And it is a good source of
> feedback, too.

I think I'd have been disappointed if no one had mentioned writing for INW. 
:-)
One thought that comes to mind is that this could be a good thing to
have on a personal web page.  Rather than the normal this is who I am,
here are my family pictures, etc... start posting short technical articles
there and if someone asks for a writing sample just give them the url.

> And keep going - don't be discouraged if you get turned down, just keep
> submitting. There's a huge need for good, technically astute writers,
> and editors tend to develop loyalties to the ones who can meet, or beat,
> a deadline and write articles that their audience likes. And if you want
> to parlay that into a book writing career, it helps. But you may find
> that spending the better part of a year (or two or three, even) writing
> something that will probably pay you less than minimum wage, be obsolete
> in five years, and carries other hardships just isn't worth the effort.

A very stark description, but hey, I did ask.  One has to wonder why anyone
writes books at all after reading that.

> Let us know how you do - I probably can't help put you in touch with
> many Linux-savvy editors, as that's not something about which I do much
> writing, but feel free to contact me offlist if you have other skillsets
> we haven't mentioned. I write primarily about Web technologies, with an
> occasional Apple/Mac slant, and know quite a few folks who are always
> looking for content in that vein, and have friends who are editors at
> New Riders, O'Reilly, Macmillan, APress and Wiley, among others.

Well, I did just get my first Apple about 6 months ago (an iBook 600 Mhz)
so I've been having fun learning about it.  A coworker of mine is one
of the team leads on the Fink project so I've been asking him a lot of
stuff (it was his iBook before I bought it, actually).  I've considered
writing some stuff up about that, but I still need to learn a lot more
before doing that.  I'm also not sure where I would submit an article
like that.  I'm familiar with various linux publications, and I've been
a subscriber to Dr. Dobbs for almost 15 years now, but my interest in
Macs is relatively recent (unless you count the NeXT cube that was my
first experience to UNIX back in 1989 :).

I'd probably have better luck, however, with something having to do with
either linux or 3D graphics, since I know those fields a lot better.  I
suppose writing what you know is a good suggestion, but how bad is it if
you write about something you want to know about (assuming of course, that
you do your homework and actually figure out what you're talking about
beforehand).

> Oh, and one other thing - if you think watching car companies buy each
> other up is dizzying, you would simply not believe the way that
> publishing houses buy each other up. When I started editing Simon's
> book, it was for M&T press, which was bought by Henry Holt, which was
> bought by IDG, which renamed itself to Hungry Minds, and who was
> purchased by Wiley, all in the past five years or so. Macmillan bought
> New Riders, then was itself bought by Pearson. Peer launched an imprint
> called Glasshaus, which put out a couple dozen great books before Peer
> went belly up rather spectacularly (they put out the CSS book I did with
> Owen, and we're largely doing another edition with a different publisher
> so we can actually get paid). 

Ow! My head is spinning! :-)

> You'll learn rather quickly to keep friends as they move from one
> publisher to another, as well - in publishing, like in so many
> relatively fixed industries, the best way to advance through the ranks
> is to jump from a job at one level at one publisher to another at a
> higher level at another, then back. It's a funny business.

So, it's not necessarily what you know, but who you know, like most
other things. :-/

> PS: this message is about the average length for a tech pubs magazine
> article; 1800 words or so. Many just want 1000, some /require/ it, for
> print space concerns that don't usually bother the online folks, and
> so forth. But if you write for print, be sensitive to their needs in
> that regard; their hardest job is often figuring out how to cut your
> great 2000 words into 1500 that don't butcher the topic. ;)

Good point.  So, would you say it's easier to expand than to contract
an article then?

I suppose a good first place to look, if I'm interested in writing
an article would be specific magazines author guides like these:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=NS-author&file=authguide
http://www.ddj.com/ddj/authors.htm

Ok, you've given me food for thought so I think I'll chew on this
for a while and see what I come up with.

Thanks very much,
Tanner
--
Tanner Lovelace | lovelace AT wayfarer.org | http://wtl.wayfarer.org/
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