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Home -> Community -> Mailing Lists -> Oracle-L -> Re: Re[2]: Serious Question (believe it or not)...
Jonathan,
You had nice editors... letting you slip 6 months on the deadline.
When I talked about giving up your life, I was talking about a much shorter writing schedule. We took from March (when we signed the contract) until the middle of September (when we sent in the "first draft" of the last chapter due). We still had page proofs and editing to review past that, and the book was officially published in November.
I know of one book that was cancelled due to slipped deadlines, but they had slipped further than yours did. Yes, editors will try to work with you on it.
Rachel
>From: Jonathan Gennick <jonathan_at_gennick.com>
>Reply-To: ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com
>To: Multiple recipients of list ORACLE-L <ORACLE-L_at_fatcity.com>
>Subject: Re[2]: Serious Question (believe it or not)...
>Date: Thu, 07 Jun 2001 09:26:01 -0800
>
>I blundered into writing. A few years back, an editor saw
>some of my newsgroup posts, and shot off an email asking me
>to write a book. At first I thought it was one of these
>spam-type, "work at home", "get rich quick", etc. emails,
>and I actually deleted it. Two days later, I dug it out of
>my trash, and decided to at least give the supposed editor a
>call. She turned out to be real, and to this day I'm really,
>really glad that I didn't empty my trash during those
>intervening two days<grin>.
>
>Most of what Rachel says is correct. Writing a book takes a
>lot of work, and that work consumes a lot of time. After my
>first book, I swore I'd never do another. However, I had been
>"bitten" by the bug, and I've worked on several since then.
>
>If you have a book idea, you can work up a proposal and send
>it to a publisher. If you're interested in writing for
>O'Reilly, you can read our proposal guidelines at
>http://oreilly.com/oreilly/author/intro.html. If you just
>want to query us to see if we're interested in an idea, you
>can do that too. The general email address is
>proposals_at_oreilly.com, but you can also email the oracle
>editors directly: Debby Russell = debby_at_oreilly.com, me =
>jgennick_at_oreilly.com.
>
>You do need to be able to write reasonably well. In my own
>experience (as an editor), I've found good organization
>skills to be somewhat more important than good writing
>skills. It's much easier for me to deal fixing bad sentences
>than it is for me to deal with an author who can't seem to
>organize material in any rational fashion. I'm currently
>working with an author from Slovenia whose English is not
>too good (understandable), but whose organization is supurb.
>
>One area in which I somewhat disagree with Rachel is in the
>idea that writing must consume you for a period of time.
>It's actually, very important to prevent that from
>happening, otherwise you'll get burned out, and you'll
>resent ever having written a book in the first place. You
>can work full-time and write part time. When you do that,
>you have to treat the book as a part-time job. You have to
>come up with some schedule that works, and do your best to
>keep to it. That generally means a lot of evenings spent
>writing as opposed to playing with your kids--it takes
>discipline to stay inside and write on a nice summer's
>evening. At the same time, you need to block out some time
>to spend with your family. What works for me is that I never
>take more than one day on a weekend to write. The other day
>I spend w/my family. I also take off at least one evening in
>the middle of the week.
>
>It is true that a publisher can cancel your book if you fall
>badly behind, but my experience is that you will need to
>fall very badly behind for that to happen. My first real
>success was my SQL*Plus book. I promised that book in five
>months, and it took me eleven to write it. At no time did
>O'Reilly ever threaten to cancel.
>
>Best regards,
>
>Jonathan Gennick
>mailto:jonathan_at_gennick.com * 906.387.1698
>http://Gennick.com * http://MichiganWaterfalls.com * http://MetalDrums.org
>
>
>--
>Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com
>--
>Author: Jonathan Gennick
> INET: jonathan_at_gennick.com
>
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-- Please see the official ORACLE-L FAQ: http://www.orafaq.com -- Author: Rachel Carmichael INET: carmichr_at_hotmail.com Fat City Network Services -- (858) 538-5051 FAX: (858) 538-5051 San Diego, California -- Public Internet access / Mailing Lists -------------------------------------------------------------------- To REMOVE yourself from this mailing list, send an E-Mail message to: ListGuru_at_fatcity.com (note EXACT spelling of 'ListGuru') and in the message BODY, include a line containing: UNSUB ORACLE-L (or the name of mailing list you want to be removed from). You may also send the HELP command for other information (like subscribing).Received on Thu Jun 07 2001 - 13:20:34 CDT
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