Early in my career, in the age of typewriters and the emergence of word processors, I thought I was a pretty good writer. Having written a few user manuals and newsletter articles and coming out of a four-year degree curriculum, I had writing down pat.

My employer sent me to a couple of community college courses to develop my skills: accounting and business writing. In the latter, our first assignment was an essay on some topic, which I proudly wrote and turned in. I was in shock when it was returned to me, with a “C” and red marks all over it—too many words. Too much flourish. It hurt my heart and defeated what I learned was an unfounded feeling of self-confidence.

Fast-forward a decade, when I was asked by a colleague to be the official technical editor for her first book. I jumped at the opportunity, unaware of what would happen down the road apiece. The tech editing job got me introduced to executives at Prentice-Hall Publishing, one of the biggest in the world. I did more than a dozen tech edit jobs over the next few years, establishing me as a reliable resource. In 1998, I happened upon the idea of writing a book, and the publisher agreed, so I wrote and published Solaris Security through Prentice-Hall in 1999.

Writing all may seem like fun and games, and there’s an upside to writing books. But within the process itself, I learned to grow a thick skin to survive the process. I’ll explain.

In terms of getting an idea transformed into a book, I’ve written several book proposals to get my idea published. Publishers usually respond with rejection letters. Often, they don’t even want to talk about it. I wonder if this is what it feels like to be rejected at an audition or, worse yet, to be told not even to try. Ouch!

When an author writes the first draft of a book, the publisher will throw several editors at it, some of whom are subject matter experts, and others are language experts. They’re all great at what they do, but in the process, when a manuscript is returned to the author, there will be hundreds, even thousands, of corrections and comments. Some of them genuinely hurt. As we write the first draft, we pour our heart and soul into the work, and when we turn in the draft manuscript, we have a lot of time and emotion invested in it. It’s humbling when editors make corrections and add notes asking us to change how we say things. There have been more than a few moments where I disagreed with an editor’s comments or changes and replied, saying it’s fine as-is. As an author, sometimes you win those arguments, but at what cost?

So you get your book published, do your little unboxing thing, get your author copies, and take pictures of your opening the box to see your proud accomplishment. We hold up a copy of the book while someone takes our picture, and we’re beaming with that “I’m a published author (nah nah nah nah nah nah)!” face, which we quickly post on social media. It’s our moment in the sun, although sometimes it’s brief.

Then the Amazon reviews come in. Some are gracious, but some are critical, and for the proud author, some may feel cruel. Did we really think we could please every reader? Well, I think we hoped so, but soon the cruel reality sets in: we have happy readers and some unhappy readers as well.

The next time you pick up a book, take a moment to admire the finished product. But also remember that the finished product results from a lot of hard work, including those moments of self-doubt when we wonder if our effort will all be worth it.

If you are considering writing a book, pick up a copy of The Art of Writing Technical Books, which I published in 2022. There, you will find not only a lot of pointers, but a rich guide to the end-to-end process of transforming your idea into a published book.

I am nearly finished building an Author Page on Goodreads, the book readers’ social media website where readers show the books they have read, purchased, and want to read someday. Goodreads also provides a way for readers to learn about authors, what they’re about, and other books they have written.

The idea for Goodreads came when its founder, Otis Chandler, was browsing his friend’s bookshelf, and expanded the idea to include the ability for readers to write reviews of books they had read. I somehow am late to this particular party, having read numerous books over the years. Once I finish my current writing project, I’ll try and spend a bit of time each week adding books I’ve read to Goodreads, and will write reviews of some of them.

One of my recent books, The Art of Writing Technical Books: The Tools, Techniques, and Lifestyle of a Published Author, is featured in Forbes Council’s Executive Library. The listing at Forbes can be found here:

https://councils.forbes.com/executive-library/executive-library-the-art-of-writing-technical-books-by-peter-gregory

Forbes Councils are elite, closed communities of business leaders in numerous industry categories. I am a member of the Forbes Technology Council, and a group leader for the Book Authors community within the Technology Council.

I’m pleased that Forbes decided to include The Art of Writing Technical Books in their library. The Forbes Technology Council has numerous published authors, and many more who aspire to be published, but aren’t certain how to get published. The process of becoming published is complex, and there are several trades involved. I wrote the book to help professionals navigate the entire process, from idea to promoting a book once it is published, and writing updated editions.

I was working on my first book, Solaris Security, in 1998. I spent most of my writing after dinner and after kids were in bed, working around 9-11pm three or four nights each week. Most of the time, I’d write until I was head-bobbing and falling asleep mid-sentence. It was slow going.

Several people at work knew I was writing this book. One day in the break room, my colleague Mike Cattolico asked me how writing was going. I replied that I was getting a little bit done each night until I was falling asleep. Mike replied, “Dude! You need to flip that schedule: get up early, like 4am, and skim the cream off the top.”

That made sense to me. The very next day, I took his advice and tried it out. After several days of getting up at 4am and writing for a couple of hours before the kids woke up, I found that my productivity skyrocketed. He was right!

For twenty years now, I’ve been writing in the early morning hours, as well as on Saturday mornings (and sometimes all day Saturday). Last year, I made another change and stopped writing on the weekends, essentially spending fewer hours each week writing. But with the experience I’ve gained writing dozens of books over two decades, I’m getting as much writing done on weekday mornings, and I now have my weekends free for other things.