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.

So you want to be an author, huh? I wish I could tell you how difficult the process is, and how it took me years and years of trying before I got a publisher interested in me. But it didn't.

This, roughly, is how I got my first paid writing gig. It worked for me, and maybe it can work for you too.
1) My very first paid gig was with Wrox. They have a link on their web site for "potential authors", and I sent them a brief email to let them know that I would like to do some writing.

2) I was contacted by an Acquisitions Editor (or, AE for short) and over a few emails, we exchanged ideas about what upcoming projects would be suitable for me.

3) In my case, they already had a book "in progress", with a previously defined outline. I volunteered to write a chapter of it. (In fact, my one chapter was later divided into two pieces, so I ended up writing two chapters). Wrox is famous for team authoring approach - many of their books are written by 10 or more people.

4) For my two chapters, I was promised a US$1000 advance, and a 1% royalty of the book sales.

5) After my chapters were written and submitted, during Christmas 2001, Wrox decided not to publish the book for business/economy reasons. They paid me the advance ($1000) for work performed, and that was the end of that.

I enjoyed working for Wrox - took me about two weeks of writing, and the people were quite pleasant. My only regret is that the book never got published. Wrox puts the pictures of the authors on their book covers, and I would have liked to seen my face on a book in the bookstore. Oh well.

As far as my current project goes, today I am taking the outline I submitted as part of the proposal and expanding it a level deeper. Writing has begun, and so far I am pretty excitied. Energy level is high.

More details of the process of getting published, with commentary on how its going, in future editions.

Best wishes,
Scott