• Just When I Thought My Book Was Finished . . .

    Everyone who knows me or follows me on Twitter knows I’ve been writing up a storm this year. I did a revision of my self-published ebook The Legal Side of Blogging: How Not to get Sued, Fired, Arrested, or Killed and published Flash Mob Law: The Legal Side of Planning and Participating in Pillow Fights, No Pants Rides, and Other Shenanigans through the American Bar Association (ABA). (I’ve got to get shorter subtitles.) I finished the first draft of the manuscript for The Legal Side of Blogging for Lawyers in August and I thought the majority of my book writing obligations were done for the year. I was wrong.

    Editing a Paper by Nic McPhee from Flickr (Creative Commons License)
    Editing a Paper by Nic McPhee from Flickr (Creative Commons License)

    My book is being published by the Law Practice (LP) section of the ABA. (For you non-lawyers, this is the section that’s all about how to run a law firm more effectively.) When you write for them, you get a team of people who work on your book. Here’s a glimpse of who I’m working with:

    • Shawn my project manager
    • Evan and Dennis my peer reviewers (who make sure everything I wrote is legally sound)
    • Tom the head of the LP publishing department (who makes himself read everything before it gets published)
    • The copywriter (who will fix all my bad grammar)
    • The marketing team who is charge of my cover and promotions

    I got to see a lot of my team at the recent LP fall meeting in Phoenix. When I turned my manuscript over to them, I thought I was basically done except of approving my cover art and proofreading edits. The team loves my book and said it’s a great first draft, but they’ve asked for a re-write which might include a re-arrangement of chapters, a new forward, and changing the forward into an afterword. I appreciated the feedback and I’m all for putting out the best book possible, but it’s going to be a challenge timewise.

    The LP section wants my book done and published by the ABA TechShow in March 2014. I responded that I’m meeting Gary Vaynerchuk in person when he does his book signing for his new book Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook in Arizona in December and I promised him a paper copy. (Yes, I’m fully aware and embrace the fact that I have a massive professional hard-on for Gary Vaynerchuk.)

    My mug from the Space Age Cafe in Gila Bend
    My mug from the Space Age Cafe in Gila Bend

    My calendar is pretty full for the rest of October and November that I’m at the point where I have to think hard before agreeing to go to any events or activities that aren’t already on my schedule. And now I need to figure out how I’m going to do a re-write by Halloween on top of all that so it can get through peer-review, copy editing, and get a galley printed and shipped to me by December 5th.

    This is going to be fun . . . and by fun, I mean high-caffeinated. 😉

    I had a chance to speak with Tom at the LP fall meeting. He said he really liked that my first draft was easy to read and then he asked if I had more books in me. That was a very flattering statement coming from him, but at the same time my first thought was to punch him in the face. After working on three books this year, I’m going to need a break from book writing once this book is done before I start thinking about the next one.