So I was thinking, how could I make my next book writing experience unique? I have always been attracted to uniqueness, and it’s no different in my writing. I like to write about topics that have either never been written about before, have not been written about recently, or have not been covered in the way I intend to cover the subject. I figure, if there is some subject I’m interested in and a book already exists on that subject, why write another book when I can just read that one. So what could I do that has never (or rarely) been done before?
I didn’t have to think about it long. I came up with what just might be my biggest harebrained idea yet. I’ll write two books at once. How hard can that be? Now before you start thinking that I’m crazy—which I just might be—there is a method to my madness. I want to teach and mentor other people to become writers. I am convinced that within each one of us is a story (or stories) waiting to be told, and it would be a damn shame if they remained unwritten when it comes time to leave this place. And I sure as heck don’t believe you have to be a “writer” to write a book. For proof of that I give you…well, me.
Let me tell you about my first book, The Essential Guide To RF & Wireless. The first edition was published in 2000 and the second edition came out in 2002. To date it has sold in excess of 25,000 copies and has been translated into Chinese. Now before you start to yawn, let me tell you a little about book sales. In 2004, 1.2 million books were published and 950,000 sold less than 100 copies. The average book in America sells about 500 copies. Writing a book and writing a blockbuster are two very different animals.
The number of copies my book sold is not nearly as interesting as how the book came to be. My background is in engineering. Prior to that book I had never written anything professionally, and my last known writing experience of any kind—not counting jotting down notes in a lab book—was twenty weeks of English composition my freshman year in college back in 1980. But I made an observation.
