Learning How to Write a Book

Hi,
If anyone is reading this, they may want to learn how to write a book too. As you can see, I am learning how to write a book by putting my book writing into a blog. In fact, I got started with this whole process by attending a workshop. Robyn Henderson teaches people How to Write a Book. Actually, what I learnt from the day was more along the lines of How to Publish a Book. I know a bit about writing from my work experience, and so needed to know how to publish.

The idea of blogging my way to a book was my own when I started to stall in writing the book. I had made good progress with choosing the content for the back page, and good progress in creating what my school English teachers called an "Essay Plan". However, I was stalled at that point and needed a burst of energy. But I digress...

Robyn Henderson is a publisher and a public speaker. She writes herself and speaks frequently on the topic of networking. She has 'fallen into' teaching people how to write and publish books, and she is very good at it. So this is going the long way around at providing an unprompted promotion of the workshops Robyn runs. For details of the workshops, please go to her website at www.seachangepublishing.com.au and go to the Seminars and Workshops link. If you can get enough people together, you should contact her about doing a special workshop for you and your friends/colleagues.

Good luck with your writing!

...Geoff

Introduction

There are a small number of critical principles in managing projects, and a large number of accepted practices. This book presents all of the principles I am aware of, and as many of the accepted practices as I can cram in – applying the 80:20 principle along the way. The book is intentionally light on theory and heavy on basic things which need to be done to be effective.

Project management is not rocket science. In fact, it is often pretty boring and repetitious punctuated by occasional victories to keep us interested – which from my limited exposure to rocket science is actually what rocket science is really about. So I guess that although project management is not rocket science, it is still quite similar.

You can be a very good project manager if you do the things in this book consistently and creatively. Consistently follow the principles and apply the practices and you will do very well. Apply your creativity to improve on the practices and supplement the principles with new understandings and you can be an excellent project manager.

But remember, the better the job you do as a project manager, the less attention you will get. As a project manager any exposure is certainly not good exposure. Be good at what you do, and the people who need to know how good you are will, and the others don’t matter anyway. This is not a book on how to get to be the CEO, it is simply about succeeding in the role of project manager. (If you want to be the CEO, I would advise that you read something else.)