Writing with Mongo: Mongo gets asked to write a book

When I was asked to write a book, my initial thought was summed by a great quote from Lou Holz’s autobiography, which I talked about as my book of the month in September 2008: Wins, Losses and Lessons :

… Most people who knew me growing up didn't think I would ever read a book, let alone write one.

—Lou Holtz

More importantly when I got the email about writing a book, at first I thought it was spam, but I replied anyway.  I suppose I was really lucky to find out it was legit, and I was asked to write a book.  So began the process, I pinged a couple of my friends Kerrie Meyler and Lynn Langit (Lynn writes on SQL)who have written a few books.  I wanted to get their perspectives on the process, editors, and general amount of work required.  Both gave me a great perspective, and both were not shy about telling me how much work would be involved.  To be honest, I think they both wanted me to write the book, but were trying to talk me out of it. hehe. 

I have been able to get a ton of great advice from Kerrie.  She lives in Dallas and we meet on a somewhat regular basis, as a sanity check and renewal of a great friendship.  I have known Kerrie since I moved to Dallas, I actually replaced her at a training company (as she took a new job) and she even got me into Microsoft (a story for another day).  She has provided me tons of tips and tricks on writing, working with screenshots, and working with publisher templates.  Kerrie has written several great books on System Center and Ops manager, you can see her books listed here: https://books.barnesandnoble.com/search/results.aspx?ATH=Kerrie+Meyler.  She is also finished/finishing and unleashed book on System Center, due out next month:

System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) 2007 Unleashed 

Kerrie thank you so much for your support and friendship, I am going to miss you when I go back to Ohio.

Next,  I had to inform my manager to get approval, since I was not writing for MSPress.  This was easier than I thought and the leadership team has been extremely supportive. 

Then I was off and running.  It has been an exciting process, and I will talk more about the process in future posts.