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.

Being Defined By My Books

Today, at work I was ushered into a room mostly full of people I hadn't met before. It was obviously a team meeting for this large project I just started working on.

Big Boss: "OK, Scott. Before we begin, why don't you tell everyone a little bit about your background."

Me: "Hi there. My name is Scott. I have been a software developer for more than 13 years. I've been a consultant for more than 8 years." Blah, blah, blah.

I wasn't entirely sure which version of my life story they wanted: the geek version, the history of my career, highlights of my personal life, what I do for fun... I ended up with the "whatever quickly came to mind" version.

Big Boss: "You also wrote some books didn't you?"

Me: "Yes, I've written four books. Two of them are on .NET, which will be extremely helpful for what we're doing on this project. And two have been about web development, which might also be relevant here."

Big Boss (to one of the project managers): "Someone should send out an email to everyone announcing who Scott is, and what he will be doing for us on this project. Be sure and mention that he's written some books. That's important. They'll be impressed by that!"

Just Friday, I had written on this blog about how being an author serves as a good calling card for my consulting work. But is it possible that there can be a downside to it? Do people hire me ONLY because they think it would be impressive to their bosses and clients to have an author working on the project?

I guess I shouldn't even be worrying about that. As long as they pay my invoices, and I get to do interesting work with great people, what do I care that they originally hired me partly because I had written a couple of books? I really think the skills and experience I will get working on this amazing project will help me land the next one in no time flat.