In part 1 of this article, I talked about my (surprisingly long, to me at least) history as a computer book author. I also talked about the importance of having an agent unless you want to go the self-publishing route. In this part, I’ll answer the question: what good does writing a computer book do?
At Minnick New Media, our primary goal is to have happy clients who come back to us year after year. That would be in our mission statement if we had one.
Writing a computer book is a grueling experience (for me, at least) that requires at least 20 hours of my time per week for a period of 4-6 months and that would seem to be at odds with the mission statement.
Furthermore, computer books don’t make big money — especially for the authors. Technically, I’ve never made a cent off of any of my computer books. I get a small advance from the publisher, but this has to be paid back from future sales of the book before I see any royalties. Perhaps this says something about the books I choose to write, or about computer books in general, but I’ve never seen any royalties. I’m optimistic that this situation will change, however, when my current book, Beginning HTML5 and CSS3 for Dummies hits the shelves!
How, then, does me writing computer books further our goal of having happy long-term clients?
The key is in the “long-term.” While it’s true that my work day may be a bit longer while I’m writing a book, I am not the whole company, and it’s only temporary. I have two extremely competent employees who run the day-to-day operations of Minnick New Media, and a bunch of highly trusted contractors who help out in their specific areas of expertise. Rest assured that if you are currently our client, or if you become our client, we will do everything that we can to make you happy with our work and to keep you that way.
It’s my role in Minnick New Media, however, to make sure that we are continually evolving our skills to keep up with a very fast rate of change in Web development tools and technologies. As an author and teacher, I have a unique responsibility and opportunity to be on the cutting edge. Our clients benefit greatly from the knowledge and experience that I gain during my writing and teaching projects. I believe that this makes them happy.