If your are like me, you have dreams of becoming well known, or distinguished, or even a "guru" in your chosen area of computer expertise. Mention the names Joe Celko, Ken Henderson, Kalen Delaney, Raj Gill, Itzik Ben-Gan, and even upcomers such as DeBetta or Dyess to any SQL Server DBA, and you know that you are talking about top SQL Server practitioners. How did these people get to where there are? I'm guessing that they were either "insiders", intimately familiar with the product right on down to just plain ol' good DBA types, and everything in between. And you can bet that each began submitting publications, works, tricks from the field etc. and continued publishing, posting to the various forums, studying fervently, and, as Don Bishop once suggested I do, reading a minimum of 1000 pages per week.
After eight years of doing this stuff, I decided to gather together some nice things that I've done, and start submitting some of my own works for publication. Very exciting! Well, sort of. You see, my first experience ended up in more of a lessons learned rather than a night out in hearty celebration. I made some mistakes - therefore, I present to you "Ten things you must do before submitting a technical publication".
Ten things you must do before submitting a technical publication
- Pick a subject, which you are an expert, and forget that there are 10 similar ones out there on the web or in magazines.
- Take your time writing your article, weeks or months ok.
- Obtain a critical read from someone that you don't know who is also an expert on the topic. Be open to suggestions.
- Take your time on visuals - great graphics/average read always win out over a great read/poor graphics.
- Let your publication sit a minimum of two weeks before you look at it again upon completion.
- Submit to the editor at least one month before the due date
- Don't think that the editor will correct mistakes – he/she won't!
- Don't change things because a 'technical editor' questions your article - he's not the author. No need to explain your thoughts, either.
- Let your final copy sit, again, preferably two weeks
- Obtain a copy of the final product from the editor before it goes to the printing press. Very important. The editor wants to move articles and could give a rip about the correctness of yours.
Thank you for reading,
Lee