The Story behind the Book

By Christmas 1999 I had a table of contents, some example chapters, a clearly defined target market and book structure, a signed contract, $6,000, and 8 weeks to write 120,000 words and create a web site. I had also used the months during the contract negotiations and due diligence process to read further around the subject and make some notes, so my research was largely complete. Now all I had to do was write the thing.

On January 2nd 2000 I sat down in front of my computer at home, at 0830, and opened a new Word document and immediately saved the blank file naming it "A Guide to Web Project Management Draft 1.0". I had calculated the 8 weeks I thought I needed to write the book based on a) what I thought pres.co would accept as a reasonable time out of the office and b) from my University days, and in particular my final 10,000 word dissertation, how long I thought it might take to write 120,000 words – the agreed contractual length of the book. Setting aside 2 of the 8 weeks for proofing, amends and creating the web site, this meant that I had to average 4,000 words a day to stay on course. That's about 9 pages of 12pt Times New Roman a day or 8 words a minute. At this speed I would have completed my final dissertation in 2.5 days when it took me 2.5 months in reality. My publishers told me that no author had ever completed a manuscript in less than 6 months and that authors never delivered on schedule. I had to try and change this partly because I didn't have any leeway with the time I had to write the book and partly because the book was about project management so it wouldn't look good to deliver late! Also, as a first time author, I was eager to impress the publishers with my efficiency and reliability.

Over the next 4 weeks I worked around 10 hours a day giving myself chapter milestones every 2.5 days. Typically I would spend half a day planning the writing and reading through my research notes and then 2 days actually writing. Tools / Word Count became a well-trodden menu path. On my most productive writing day I managed 8,432 words. By the end of week 2 I had a stiff neck and back, a slight but permanent headache, and sore eyes that appeared to see increasingly less well into the distance. At the end of each day I also found it strangely hard to speak. Although I had only been writing, the conversational style that I was using meant that I felt like I had been talking all day, leaving me lost for words come the evening.

I backed up files like you would not believe, paranoid as I was of losing my work. I had hard copies, off site disks, on site disks hidden around the house and I regularly FTP-ed file versions of the content to various servers around the world. I also emailed the file version to myself at work, knowing that pres.co's mail servers were also then backed up every night. I became very adept at the Control + 'S' file save shortcut. Even so, on several occasions my computer crashed meaning I lost work that had not been saved. A horrible feeling.

The scariest moments came when sending over completed work for editorial approval and then getting feedback from the review panel of industry practitioners who represented the book's target market. These are the moments of truth. You can argue with an editor but you cannot argue with the opinions of members of your buying public. I was confident that the book was factually correct but I needed the review panel to judge whether it was actually of any use and whether the tone and style worked. With the little time I had, I didn't have a Plan B. If the reviewers didn't like it then I was in trouble. Fortunately, barring some minor changes, the draft met with overall approval. In some instances the reviewers made comments or recommendations that completely opposed those of another reviewer, which shows you cannot please everyone all the time.

If you ever write a book be aware that the following take up a lot more time than you might have imagined: content labelling and numbering, getting quotes and permission off people, creating graphics and supplying them in the correct format, proofing.

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