READER'S ROCK LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE VOL 2 ISSUE 4 NOVEMBER 2014 Vol. 1 Issue 5 November 2013 | Page 11

specific types of products, such
as operating systems and
enterprise software, is cyclical,
with the need for new books
following product cycles.
Even with hit books early on in
my career, I was at the mercy
of product cycles. Throughout
the late 90’s and early 00’s, I
went back to work out of
necessity and then wrote on
nights and weekends. In fact,
all of my books published from
about 1998 to 2002 were done
in my spare time, much like the
books I wrote from 1995 to
1996 when I also was serving
in the military and going to
school.
These days, I write technology
books when the work is
available and write other types
of books in between product
cycles and any other time I
have spare time. If I’m not
writing a tech book, I’m writing
fiction, children’s fiction, etc.
When you’re not writing what
do you enjoy doing?
Robert: When writing is your

fulltime occupation and your
spare-time hobby, you really
don’t have time for much else.
Being an indie author as well
as a professionally published
author means, I have to be Me,
Inc. Squared.
If I’m not writing, I’m probably
designing a book cover, doing
illustration work, setting type on
an illustrated page, sketching
out a story line, reviewing
printed pages, or any of the
dozens of other things that
must be done to prepare a
book for publication. Why?
Because there’s no one else to
do that work if I don’t.
I don’t think many people
understand how technical
writing works and how involving
it is. With technology books,
writing is only one part of a
much larger process that also
involves author review and
page review. As I write
chapters, those chapters go to
editorial and also are sent on to
technical reviewers. When I get
chapters back from editorial,
the chapters contain edits and
comments from the copy

editors, development editors,
and others on editorial staff.
The chapters also contain
comments from technical
reviewers. This part of the
process is called author review.
During author review, I’m
working with the manuscript in
Microsoft Word. I must respond
to every question and query
and a typical chapter may have
several hundred of those which
may or may not require me to
make actual changes in the
text. Author review is followed
by page review. Page review is
the final part of the manuscript
review process.
During page review, I’m
working with the manuscript in
its final form in Adobe Acrobat.
The manuscript is marked up
with comments that I must
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