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.

I'm still wondering how people can write 6 books a year, and I think I've figured it out.

Let's say the average computer book has 280 words per page. And that same book averages about 450 pages. Now, I just happen to have my "280 times tables" memorized, and I know that results in about 126,000 words in the average computer book.

So, at an average rate of 60 words per minute, how long would it take to write such a book (assuming you could type at a constant pace uninterupted)... Surprisingly, the answer is 2100 minutes. Or exactly 35 hours. Heck, a guy could write the entire book in a day and a half if he just typed away. More reasonably, three 12-hour days.

So, if I put my mind to it, I could pump out 100 books a year. Heck, imagine the royalties from that! That's around $1 million a year, just from publisher advances!

Chapter 1 has been submitted to the publisher (again). Chapter 2 is progressing much smoother than Chapter 1. (In fact, I almost want to rewrite Chapter 1 at this point.) I want to get 4 or 5 chapters under my belt in fairly short order. Newton was right. Momentum is a powerful thing -- so is inertia.

Best regards,
Scott