I'm planning on writing a book; the usual woodworking techie stuff. Ihave a plan for it already, but obviously I don't want to wave thataround too openly just yet.I know a few of the locals have done this in the past. Does anyonehave advice they might wish to offer ?My day job is largely technical writing and I've even worked as ajourno in the past, so the actual writing part doesn't faze me -however I've never approached something the size of a whole textbookbefore. I'm not expecting to make real money from it, but covering thecost of the ink would be nice.For those who've done it, would you do it again? With hindsight, wouldyou bother the first time? Is a first or second better? I can see that"your first book" has a lot of attraction to it, but presumably thesecond benefits from experience.Thanks,

Andy Dingley asks:I've done it 40 or 41 times. Beats working for a living, or so I'm told. Withhindsight, I'd have kept pumping gas in someone else's service station and madebetter money.Don't know the Brit book publishing system, but if you want some words ofexperience, if not wisdom, give me a yell on the back channel as ol' UA100calls it. Just drop the nonsense stuff out of my email address.Charlie Self"When you appeal to force, there's one thing you must never do - lose." DwightD. Eisenhower

Advice on writing a book ?

Jul 16, 2004 23 Replies

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Andy Dingley 22 years ago

I'm not so sure about this.

For modern printing methods, the cost of printing either is barely distinguishable. Neither is expensive. If you use either in a book, the increment of going to using them on every page isn't big. The old days of plates being bound together have gone. Colour plates maybe, but not B&W.

Secondly, the cost of producing drawings can be a lot more than photographs. I can do photographs myself - decent lighting and anyone can. Drawings however will need a graphic artist involved. It's not a huge cost, but in this particular case it's in favour of the photograph. Of course, I also need to produce the piece before I can photograph it.

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Edwin Pawlowski 22 years ago

Ah, this can be a big detriment to some books. I know an author that had invested about $20,000 into ingredients to do a food book. His publisher was not going to give him a big advance so he had to finance it himself. He eventually recouped his cost but it took some time. He also has a bunch of books stored at his house. Ed snipped-for-privacy@snet.net

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patriarch 22 years ago

snipped-for-privacy@aol.comnotforme (Charlie Self) wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m21.aol.com:

So what will happen now is that 10 of them will all come in with due dates required within a three week period. ;-)

Patriarch

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Charlie Self 22 years ago

Patriarch responds:

Book contracts don't work quite that way. If you find a book you can write & illustrate in 3 weeks, please let me know. More like a 3 month minimum if most of the research is already done, to well over a year for others.

Charlie Self "When you appeal to force, there's one thing you must never do - lose." Dwight D. Eisenhower

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