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.

Can a person make 'a living' as a book author? I guess they can, thousands of people make a living that way. Some of them make a great living like that. So I guess the question is, can *I* make a living as an author?

To answer the question, I first have to define "a living". To me, a living is an adequate amount of money to live on. Without getting into the specifics of my life, let's just say an adequate amount of money is $5,000 per month. That will cover the mortgage, car payments, groceries, and have enough extra to enjoy life.

So, can I make $5,000 a month as an author? That's a tougher question to answer. Right now, I'm averaging $2,500 a month, so I'm only half there. I can't quit my day job for $2,500 a month. When the "royalties" start coming in, maybe then things might improve.

The How to Do Everything in JavaScript book is scheduled to go on sale on Friday, according to Amazon.com. I still haven't seen them.

I had posted on this site yesterday that I was worried about not hearing anything. I am no longer worried, and in fact I regret being worried. So that post has been deleted. Osborne is really the best publisher I have ever worked with (so far in my short writing career).

Chapter 5 is at 6,600 words so far. There are a lot more illustrations and figures in this chapter. It saves me some writing effort, that's for sure.

Chapter 2 was submitted at 12,600 words over 43 pages. That seems like an awful lot of writing, and it is.

Chapters 3 and 4 are being written by my co-author. I don't have to give the contents of them much thought, other than to make sure I am not repeating something in Chapter 5 that has already been said.

I've started writing Chapter 5, and it is coming along much easier. I really, really (no, seriously--really) want to have it done before the end of the week. That will get me a inch closer to being on schedule. As it is now, I am 10 days behind! Yes, that's as bad as it sounds.

Currently, Chapter 5 is 18 pages and 3500 words. That was about the average length of a chapter in my last book. In this one, it's called "barely begun". ;)

Onward and upward,
Scott

My agent has sent me a proposal for another book. Geez. I keep promising my wife I will definitely take a few months off writing so that we can do things together, like a vacation or something. But if I take this book, that won't happen for a while (again).

The nice thing about this new book is that (a) it's short (~300 pages) and (b) i'll have a co-author. That makes it twice as short. In fact, my portion of this book will run in length about two chapters of my current book.

Anyways, I have to think carefully about accepting the gig. I wonder if I can take it on while writing the current book? And I wonder if I can take it on without telling my wife?

Scott

I made a lot of progress on my writing tonight, I don't know why. It's like I suddenly got tired of staring at the same bloody chapter night after night and decided to just finish it. So here it is, pretty much done. I just have some cleanup to do tomorrow.

So, one week after I proclaimed it was starting to come together, it actually came together. Sad but true.

I am so late with this chapter, it's not even funny. Osborne is going to kill me.

Chapter 1 was a general overview of Microsoft .NET. The people at Osborne told me it was 'excellent' and 'a pleasure to read'. I'll take that kind of praise any day. Keep it coming!

Chapter 2 is a discussion of the envisioning phase of a project. Setting a project scope and vision, creating a solution concept, and all that stuff. Chapter 2 is starting to come together. I'll admit that at times I wasn't sure how it should be structured. But the chapter is starting to look like a chapter again.

Osborne has just posted a sample chapter from my book, How to Do Everything with JavaScript. Publication is getting really close.

Writing is continuing on the next book. I'm on to chapter 2 already. Chapter 1 weighed in at a hefty 12,600 words. Did I mention this was a bigger book? Yes, 700 or so pages, as compared with the last book at only 450 pages. This next book also has a lot less pictures.

Chapter 2 is coming along. As is typically the case with me, writing comes and goes in spurts. Sometimes, I find that I can say what I need to say in only 10 pages. Of course, that won't do, so I have to spend some time adding more detail, some exercises and some figures. So in the end the chapter will be ~70 pages. Yes, I know some people will wonder why the author spent 70 pages talking about the topic when he feels he did a decent job in only 10. Let's just say that bigger books look more impressive to the average reader.

I heard from Osborne that How to Do Everything with JavaScript will go to the printers today. It gets bound in a couple of weeks, and will be on store shelves in three weeks. Yippee!!

How to Do Everything with JavaScript

And Osborne already has a link up for my next book up on their web site.

MCSD Analyzing Requirements and Defining .NET Solution Architectures

I think I'll keep this site going instead of starting a new one for the new book. No point confusing people.