Customers are Always Right (Even When Shooting Themselves in the Foot)

I have been writing technical books since 1992. (The first one and only one was self-published.) I have been fortunate that most signed books have been published. Occasionally I get my share of misfortune and a book project is cancelled. Boo hoo!

When a book project is cancelled it means that 500 to 1000 pages which takes me seven months to write will never see a book shelf at Borders or show up on Amazon.com. The reality is that compensation for technical books is poor at best. Having about a dozen books published in the same number of years and knowing many authors, I can tell you that writing technical books is not lucrative and only first time authors have visions of new Porsches or Hummers purchased with royalties. Well, apparently book sales continue to decline and publishers are scrambling to figure out what readers want. In fact, I talked to publisher/author Dan Appleman and he doesn't seem to be really sure either.

You ask: why write then? Good, question. I keep repeating in my head the philosophical phrase: the thread does not know its importance to the tapestry. This means that I write for the same reason some people climb mountains, because I can write but I can't climb mountains. I write because I am part masochist and partly because its what I do. Although, I spend a modest amount of time wondering if what I write really matters.

Like anyone that sets out to accomplish anything, whether profitable or not, I weep a bit when the endeavor fails. I blame others when the blame mostly resides with me, and I descry the short sightedness of editors and publishers who only seem to care about deadlines, as the cause of sluggish sales. When profit is king doesn't creativity suffer, naturally? I dunno.

I do wonder if a project cancelled 120 pages into a 1,000 page book simply means that there aren't that many wobbly tables left to balance or if readers and publishers have all finally realized that no one really reads War and Peace-sized books. Not really.

Vegas Hookers

(Coming Soon!)

Speech Technology Still Blows

I keep waiting for significant improvements but text-to-speech and speech commands still blow. Recently I broke my collar bone and two ribs (s'what happens when you take up motocross at 40) and thought I'd give Speech another go. Its awful. I went through every training lesson and tried to be patient but obvious tools like IE didn't work with speech and basic text--I don't think I had a Vicodin slur--interpretation was crap. "This is a test" became "The pope starts to rest". After jostling my loose ribs with laughter I realized that IO technology is still rudimentary. Keyboards and monitors, come on. Where is the promised holography and real-time text input? What are truly handicapped folks (instead of testosterone-challenged mid-life crisisers) doing to make computers useful?

After a week of suffering and boredom I am sipping scotch just enough to type through the annoying discomforture that is a severely trashed collar bone.