The book cometh

Last Friday I was in London, Ontario speaking about the Jazz Process at a PMI Symposium. After my talk I offhandedly tweeted that the book would be out soon. A number of people asked me for more details and I thought it would be good to share them on this blog.

The camera-ready manuscript was sent to the printers on May 6th. Books are due to arrive in the publisher’s warehouses on June 3rd and should be available from booksellers shortly thereafter. If all goes according to schedule a special shipment will be sent to the IBM Innovate conference in Orlando, Florida. The book is being published by Pearson Education under the Addison-Wesley imprint. Pearson Education is a division of Pearson, the largest publisher of books in the UK, India, Australia and New Zealand and the second largest in the USA and Canada. Although the Addison-Wesley imprint is typically employed for information technology titles, this book will carry suggested categories of Innovation/Collaboration/Management on the back. On a related note, the Library of Congress cataloging information lists the following as the book’s subjects: 1. Teams in the workplace, 2. Diversity in the workplace, 3. Organizational effectiveness, 4. Communication.

It took me about 18 months to write the book. Based on initial velocity I had estimated that I might have it done early last year but I ended up getting sidetracked by many other projects. From the outset I was adamant that I would not write anymore than was necessary. I really dislike reading books with fluff and filler. Consequently I was a bit concerned that I might not have enough words to present a volume of substance. I ended up with about 110,000 words. The initial book design was a larger format with minimal white space. This was the complete opposite of what I wanted. I pushed for a smaller, more portable format with enough white space to ensure a high degree of readability. Based on these design changes they had projected the book would come in at 390 pages but it’s just under 300 with all the front matter, bibliography and index. That’s a perfect size in my mind so I’m very happy with the result. The book will be published in a 6 x 9″ paperback format with 264 pages of content (not including the front matter), 20 figures and over 10 pages of cited works.

The process of writing the book was not unlike a jazz performance. In the chapter entitled Maintain Momentum, I make the point that you must have form in any performance or project. From the outset I knew all the points I wanted to make and I had detailed the purpose of each chapter in my initial proposal to Pearson back in 2008. Despite all of this structure, the process of populating the form with content was very organic and very improvised. In the course of making my points and expressing my perspective on various matters I found myself writing about all kinds of topics that I had not expected. It was very much a journey and one that I enjoyed immensely. One benefit of all the writing and researching was that I was able to further develop many of the important points. This has made it a easier for me to present a compelling argument and that’s useful for my presentations and other writing.

I feel very fortunate that I was able to secure a contract with a good publisher. I know people who have self-published and it didn’t take me long to rule out that option. In my mind, whatever additional in-hand revenue I might have given up was more than worth it to get a polished product and widespread distribution. Pearson supported me through the entire process, ensuring that things were just the way I wanted them. They had a great team working on all aspects of the book including editing, illustrations, copy, layout, cover design, proofreading, promotion and so forth. That said, even with a good publisher, an author must take responsibility for finding and fixing errata just as a software developer should take responsibility for finding and fixing bugs in his or her code. Even after Pearson were done with proofreading, further passes on my end (with help from friends and family) found over 70 mistakes. It’s possible some minor bugs still exist in the text but we deemed it good enough to ship. The editing process really was very much like delivering a software project. After delivering a “feature complete” prototype we went through many iterations of testing (proofreading) and fixing. There were seven iterations in fact and with each pass we found and fixed less bugs. There were occasionally regressions, especially in the first iteration of editing. As a result of fixing one thing, other bugs were inadvertently introduced.

An important part of publishing a book is obtaining endorsements. They are considered to be an essential element in the marketing of any book. To be honest, this was not something that I was looking forward to as I didn’t want to get drawn down the wrong path. Many books have a large number of endorsements but I wanted quality over quantity. Most of all I wanted genuine testimonials. I read so many book endorsements that are over the top. In many cases more importance is given to the public identity of endorsers than what they write. None of the endorsers I chose are household names but they are people whose work I greatly respect and their affirmation means a great deal to me. I look forward to writing about these thought leaders in the near future.