Hi there. My name is Scott Duffy, and welcome to my book writing log. I have documented the process of writing my last two books on this site, and have started my third. This book will be called Visual Studio Team System In Action, and should be available in 2005.

Before you embark on writing your first computer book, it would be helpful to understand the book writing process.

It all starts with the outline. Let's assume you already have an idea for a computer book, or you have been given one by an acquisition editior (AE). You must construct a full outline: chapter titles, section titles (two or three levels deep). This type of outline takes about five pages. Examine the table of contents of several books that will be similar in style to the one you are aiming to write for.

Next you submit the outline to an AE at one of the book publishers. There are dozens, some big and some small. I would start with the big ones. Why not? They can afford to pay more, and they have stronger distribution and sales forces. Now if the AE likes the proposal, he or she takes it to an editorial board for review. Sometimes these boards come back with suggestions for changes -- "a little bit more technical" or "a little bit less". Usually they will give you the titles of two or three existing books and say they would like to see an outline "more like that book".

Assuming you eventually pass the editorial board, now the work begins. Contracts get signed at this point. Your book gets a title, and the book publisher applies for an ISBN. Usually, you are asked to draw up a work schedule -- the dates when you plan to submit each chapter. The schedule is important, but be honest with yourself -- are you giving yourself enough time to write this book?

You now submit each chapter according to the schedule. The submission process varies at each publisher, but you usually submit your chapters to a project editor (PE), who then sends it off to a technical reviewer (TR) for comments. It's the TR's job to make sure all you are saying is technically correct. The chapter then goes back to you to make approriate changes. The chapter then goes on to the copy editor (CE) who analyzes the grammar, structure, flow, etc. of your writing. You usually are given a set style to follow, and so your chapter is checked to see if it follows the appropriate formatting style at this stage.

Of course, you also get to review the CE's comments/changes. You submit the chapter back to the PE. After you have a significant chunk of the book done, it moves into "page proofs". This is when your book is laid out in the professional desktop publishing applications. You get to see the pages as they will look in the printed book. This is your last chance to make changes. You can't make too many changes at this point though.

Finally... you're done. The book goes to press, and you receive a box in the mail with a few copies (as specified in the contract).

And then, you'd better start thinking about your next book.

Scott

It turns out I had an inkling of how difficult coming up with content for this current chapter was going to be when I first sat down to create the outline. I had only planned to write 16 pages on the topic -- the shortest chapter in the book. Yay for me.

I submitted Chapter 6 at 4,750 words a couple of days ago. Despite how easy the topic was (HTML Basics), it took me a couple of weeks to write. I spent several nights and at least one weekend staring at the computer monitor, not knowing what to say. The funny thing is, I have been writing about some other topics recently (XML), and I have no trouble pumping out a couple thousand words for that in one sitting.

Maybe it's the topic that's the problem.

Or maybe it's just me.

Chapter 7 will begin tonight. Cross-Browser scripting. It's going to be hard coming up with content for that one -- in hindsight, perhaps it doesn't deserve to be an entire chapter. But it will give me lots of opportunity for screen shots and stuff.

Scott