30+ years ago, Doubleday published my book. It would not have happened if it weren't handled by a literary agent (John Brockman). The original title of my book was "Fundamentals of Computer Security in a Networked Environment."
ch 1) Hardware (registers, memory, disks, etc)
2) Software/OS (Unix, etc)
3) Application S/W
4) Networks - TCP, IP, Arpanet
5) Security - encryption, trapdoor functions, etc
and so on. 20 or 30 chapters.
When I sent the book proposal to Brockman, he told me bluntly: "I can't sell this. You can't write". Three months later, the story found its way to the front page of the NY Times. First person who called (at 3AM Pacific time): John Brockman. "Lemme sell your book!"
So he went ahead and sold the book proposal. Didn't just sell it. He auctioned it amongst publishers. End of the day, there was a $40,000 advance (wow - more than I was making on my job!)
I started writing: got through the first 5 chapters. Then my friend, Guy Consolmagno visited (he was joining the Jesuits). I showed him the manuscript, and as he read it, his face dropped. After 30 or 40 pages, he looked up and said, "Cliff, this is terrible. It's all about computers."
"Of course, I replied,"I'm writing a book about computer security,"
Guy answered: "Every computer jock in the world will want a copy. Doubleday will probably sell 600 copies."
"Yep, that's the book proposal that they bought!"
"You idiot! They don't want to sell 600 copies," Guy said. "They want to sell 6 thousand. Maybe 60,000. You gotta do better than this..."
"Look, Cliff. Don't write about computers," Guy continued. "Write about people!"
"It's not about people," I replied. "The book's about the Arpanet, about crypto systems, about os holes, about how to manage a Unix system."
"No it ain't," he said. "It's about those hackers in Germany. The bureaucrats in the FBI who have never touched a computer. The NSA people who listen but won't lift a finger. The CIA agents who pester you in Berkeley. It's about the long-hair computer jocks you work with. It's about the nutty living situation you're in. Most of all, it's about you."
Well, I listened to my friend. Tossed those chapters and rewrote 'em. Told my story in first person.
Today, many of you now know me because of that book.
Editing? Mainly my sister Jeannie (who's a professional editor) and David Gernert of Doubleday.
Brockman? He's still running a literary agency in New York. Brother Guy? He's now the director of the Vatican Observatory. Me? I'm still in the Bay Area, wondering how I ever wrote a book.
Interesting timing for me. I just happened to finish reading this book for the first time. I often wondered while reading what Cliff might be up to these days. Guess he's posting on HN!
The literary world has changed enormously since 1989. I worry that many people simply don't read. Why write a book on Rust or Hadoop when the user-base is keyed into learning from the web or video education? Then, too, a story must be compelling to draw eyes away from video games and social media.
Having said the obvious, yes I would publish in print (hey - my feet are firmly in the 20th century). Moreover, I didn't write to make money, nor to make a name for myself, and certainly not to become well known. At first, I simply wanted to teach. Computer security. After talking with Guy, I realized that I had a story to tell.
Today, if I had the liberty to choose, I probably wouldn't self-publish. Partly because there's so very much to do: I don't want to become an expert in fonts, page-layout, paper, cover-art, distribution, promotion, and press-runs, etc. These are the important things that a publisher does. More important, I need the feedback that only an editor can give me.
I see my editor as the one person who represents my audience. An editor wears many hats - most important is a quality meter: I expect my editor to say, "This chapter isn't any good. Rewrite it." or "These paragraphs confuse me" or "You've said this twice!" In short, I expect red ink all over my manuscript, just like in high school and college English classes. Yep, I may scribble STET in the margin, but I take every red mark seriously -- it's my editor speaking on behalf of my readers.
Of course, for someone writing to make money, my comments probably are of little or no use.
Warm wishes to all! -Cliff (under a starry sky in Oakland, California)
Thank you for the book Guy persuaded you to write. I’ve met him a couple of times and he has always been a superb speaker and story teller who could spot the thread of narrative that leads from the things we know to the things we think we know. The world is more interesting for the both of you.
You betcha! Guy and I were in grad school together (Planetary Science) and have leaned on each other across the decades. Every now and then, we get to do a talk together....
Hah, this tale about Guy Consolmagno makes it feel even more appropriate that in my second or third reread I'm mostly sure that I accidentally left my copy of your book behind on a school trip to the Abbey of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery. Seemed an interesting place to lose that book at the time, and more so now.
Thank you sir for this wonderful book (and then thanks Brother Guy for making you write it that way), it is a very memorable read.
The description of your original plan for the book sounds great too (just as interesting to me), and I would buy it. There are not that many great computer books out there.
Your book was incredibly influential in my early years, and I have to say the number one thing that set it apart from everything else and made it accessible to a 13 year old me is that it was about people. Even the cookie recipe was just that extra humanizing touch.
I have read several self-published non-technical books and the lack of professional editing smacks you right in the face from the first page.
Two that stood out in that aspect were "Unix: A History and a Memoir" by Brian Kernighan and "Not All Fairytales Have Happy Endings" by Ken Williams (of Sierra, Space Quest, etc.)
Had really high hopes for both and they were an absolute chore to read. The "Unix" was excruciatingly boring, despite the underlying material. The "Sierra" was just over-board quirky and poorly structured, more like a collection of random notes stapled together and padded to target thickness. Both could've been much better given a bit of professional editing attention.
Self-publishing doesn't have to imply self-editing. It just implies that a professional editor's services should be paid for out of the author's pocket, rather than by some third-party publisher on the author's behalf.
Of course, in practice, this doesn't seem to happen very often. I'm not sure why. It's not like your average self-published author is poor (they're generally the type of people who are well-off enough to dedicate a good fraction of their time to writing!)
I assume many people just don't realize that "hiring an editor to help you fix up your own book" is something you can do. Or maybe they've never cultivated a "spend money to make money" mindset.
My wife is a good editor who has done assignments for some self-published or indie published novels. It’s tough to make the end product good if the writing isn’t good to start and the writer isn’t generously open to feedback. The power is skewed too much toward the writer as the editor doesn’t have the standing to prevent publishing from proceeding due to quality. The writer is also not usually willing to spend enough on editing to allow for substantial revisions if the initial feedback doesn’t produce immediately better work (editing usually requires assigning rewrites or revisions.)
Your wife was an editor for hire. I don't think people self publishing are looking for someone to have power over whether they can publish or not - they're looking for someone to edit the book and give them an opinion, but not be bound by those opinions. Otherwise they could just go through a publishing house.
Yes, that’s a fair restatement of what I said. I’d only add that some self-published writers can’t traditionally publish. So it’s not exactly their choice that they can only contract with an editor in a way that doesn’t best serve the book.
Not that it contradicts your point, but publishers don't have slush piles anymore. Agents have slush piles, and if you somehow get through that to be represented by an agent, then you go through the submission process at publishing houses.
As someone who's in the middle of it right now, I keep being surprised by how much more work there is to do, even on a "polished" manuscript. It's a long process and I'm not surprised most people don't have the stamina to get through it.
Many people could, if the publisher had any interest in their genre, or it was fashionable, or it was about the right genre story, or whatever. But publishers have limited time to shepherd a book through the publishing process so choose their horses.
Personally I think the democratization of publishing away from formal publishers is one the best things to happen to publishers. The gatekeepers kind of suck.
And many people don't realize as well that only top-tier publishers actually staff or hire 'professional' editors.
A lot of the books you'll find from 'real' publishing companies are just peer-edited by a group of people who were told they'd get their name stamped in the imprint if they read through an advance copy. Not much better than self-editing, but still...
Also, 'professional' editors are, at most, just people who've attended a one-year degree program. (And probably not one that's anywhere as thorough as you'd imagine.) A friend of mine attended, and passed, such a degree program, from a respected university; they learned basically nothing from it.
And the piece of paper did nothing to help them become an editor, either; people seem to do just as well getting editing gigs with no degree at all. Which means, more than likely, no particular education in editing at all!
This is obviously not true, but also why would it matter? Is it not possible to be a "professional" without a degree? If I were looking for a professional editor I don't think it would even cross my mind to ask what degree they have, I'd be wondering how long have they been doing it, what have they published, how do authors describe working with them, etc. There's no magic to editing, it's obviously a skillset that can be learned outside of school.
I know someone whose an editor-in-chief at an imprint of one of the major publishing houses. He majored in English as an undergraduate at a major university and has worked in the field as an editor for twenty years.
>Also, 'professional' editors are, at most, just people who've attended a one-year degree program
I don't think this is true of people who work for the big publishing houses. I've watched podcasts talking about it - there's a lot of fancy school names and knowing the right people involved, but 1 year programs aren't really whats going on there.
That could be the entire profit of most self published books.
Someone like Brandon Sanderson has not only an editor but continuity staff to make sure his plot lines aren’t full of holes and timelines make sense. But he sells millions.
> Someone like Brandon Sanderson has not only an editor but continuity staff to make sure his plot lines aren’t full of holes and timelines make sense. But he sells millions.
I always thought that’s an important part of what an editor does. I've edited, typeset and generally helped develop a couple of books for a friend who self-publishes fiction. I look out for stuff like continuity errors right down to seemingly petty ones, such as a TV being turned off twice. Maybe some readers wouldn’t notice, but I do.
I first read over to get a feel for the book, then I discuss any high-level improvements — little things like suggesting re-ordering chapters to maintain suspense. Sometimes it means breaking bad news gently, such as song lyrics in a work of fiction not falling under the doctrine of fair dealing[0] and licensing fees that make an editor look cheap.
In the self-published space, achieving 9th decile in terms of cover art, editing or typesetting doesn’t seem like much of a challenge. It’s really nice to see a draft become a finished product and be a part of that.
But surely part of the reason the most self-published books do so badly in the first place, is because they're poorly edited.
By analogy: all that $5 plastic junk on Wish/AliExpress/etc. The no-name manufacturing companies responsible for this dross, charge so little because they have no idea how to make quality products. Nobody will pay more than they're charging for the low standard of quality they're capable of putting out, so that's what they have to charge.
But when one of these companies figures out how to make higher-quality stuff, they do start selling it for more, and begin creating a trustworthy brand, and begin marketing that brand on more trustworthy marketplaces, and so they end up with higher profit margins, despite the increased CapEx.
I strongly agree. When I wrote "How To Destroy A Tech Startup In Three Easy Steps" I hired Natalie Sidner as my editor and she re-wrote the book to such an extent that I also offered her a writing credit:
> Of course, in practice, this doesn't seem to happen very often. I'm not sure why.
It is probably twofold.
One is that you might simply don’t know what you don’t know. Maybe what the author really needs is a developmental editor (one who goes through with them the big structure of the work) but if the author thinks of editors as glorified spellcheckers that is what they are going to seek and pay for. The editor might have an opinion about the structure, but if they are not paid for that they won’t get into the details enough to help.
And that leads to the second problem. In a self-publishing context the author has all the money and therefore all the power. They decide when the editing process is done, and every extra week they spend editing comes out of their own rapidly dwindling funds. In a traditional publishing context failure is an option. Many books don’t get published. If the pitch is not good enough, it gets dropped. If the first few chapters is not good enough it gets dropped. If they can’t polish it to satisfaction with an editor the work gets dropped. I’m not saying that quality is the only rubric the publishers use to judge when to drop a book vs when to publish, but it is heavily judged at every step of the way at multiple gates. In contrast the main and only selection force on self-publishing is if the author has the funds and the gumption.
Is it possible that someone has the time to write a book and the talent to be good at it? Furthermore is it possible that the same person also has enough money to not skimp on the editing? And furthermore that they find the right editor for the right job and has the wisdom to give enough time to the process? Certainly. But of course more often than not one or the other is going to go awry from this. And i believe that is the answer to your question. This is why well edited self-published books don’t happen as often as well edited traditionally published ones.
> In a traditional publishing context failure is an option. Many books don’t get published. If the pitch is not good enough, it gets dropped. If the first few chapters is not good enough it gets dropped. If they can’t polish it to satisfaction with an editor the work gets dropped. I’m not saying that quality is the only rubric the publishers use to judge when to drop a book vs when to publish, but it is heavily judged at every step of the way at multiple gates.
Maybe I come from a different writing "culture", but most of the books I see being self-published are restructurings of works previously published online in serial format (if nonfiction, as blog posts; if fiction, as several-times-weekly mini-chapter serial fiction), where the popularity of the output is effectively pre-determined, as the creation and publication of a standalone purchasable book is entirely being driven by demand for such by the existing audience of the source material.
Further, those serial publications are often, these days, being sponsored via Patreon, or published via apps that charge to unlock chapters and give some of that money to the author, and so forth — so the author already has an income stream from their work, that they can reinvest into their work (through editing) to multiply the amount they're making from their work.
In that sense, "editing" for their books becomes exactly the same as "editing" for e.g. a YouTube channel: something where there's a direct proven correlation between "production values" and "attach rate", where that and a steady existing revenue stream will be enough to get you a business loan from any sensible bank.
Likewise, I've attempted many self-published novels, some with high praise from independent readers, and found nearly all to be of miserably poor quality - Andy Weir being the sole exception.
Even if you have the bones of a good story, even if you're a talented writer, a good editing process can transform your work from an unreadable mess to an actual solid novel.
Editors does a lot less for quality of the writing than people tend to think.
Also, there’s nothing stopping someone self publishing from getting an editor to polish their manuscript before publication.
The truth is that most authors who self publish are simply not good at writing.
I am generally a fan of self publishing, it’s great for good writers as they get to keep more of the money and for the ones on the border it allows them to get something out there that might be good enough for a small audience.
Editors vary. A good editor can take something rough and polish it, retaining the voice of the author. A bad editor can suck all the life out of the writing, never having noticed the author’s voice in the first place.
It seems to me there has been a decline in the quality of editing by major publishers in recent years – though it may be that I have become better at noticing prose that would benefit from editing. Self-published stuff is normally worse, but it’s no surprise: hiring an editor would turn many self-published books from a modest profit to a heavy loss.
The thing is that writing can be bad in a multitude of ways, and a good editor can fix at least one of those — and, at the very least, help ensure that the ideas on paper are written according to the norms and conventions of the language.
(First of all, my editor is someone I got from Michael Lynch, who blogged about her. She's now become quite expensive, and you get what you pay for. She's certainly been a "developmental editor" as well as "copy editor" -- she's the guardian of the character of Janet in Inventing the Future [1], for one thing, and doesn't hesitate to tell me when a chapter needs work. And yes, I do pay out of my own pocket.)
Secondly, I also noticed that Kernighan book on the web, and my first thought was "that is such an amateurish cover!" It does not sell the book at all, and I'm not at all surprised that the writing is equally weak.
Third, the Reedsy site is invaluable for finding good professionals. But you have to be the judge of what's good. If you don't have good taste, then you'll just need to be very lucky.
Lastly, Clifford: your friend who said the book was about the people you interacted with did you a tremendous favor. That's what the readers want, even in non-fiction, unless you're writing a purely how-to book.
This book, though, attempts to be something different. Writing history that's accurate and making it interesting is not easy. If it's non-fiction and a long time ago, you find that most people can't remember much of anything, and certainly not any dialog.
I found from my book's reviews that a couple people wanted something more like Kernighan's. Oh well. That's not what I wanted to do, so I'm not sorry. Other people have done that.
Like one of the reviewers said (a 5-star review):
There’s no doubt that this book has a limited audience. In my opinion, to find the book interesting, you need to have a pre-existing interest in computer history, Unix, and programming (in that order). If you already have some familiarity with using Unix (or its derivatives) from the command-line, that will certainly help you understand the significance of many of the items that Kernighan discusses. If you have no prior experience with Unix, then I don’t know why you picked up this book or read this review!
> If it's non-fiction and a long time ago, you find that most people can't remember much of anything, and certainly not any dialog.
It's unclear to me whether you're applying this statement to Kernighan's Unix history, which I haven't read, but he's given some good talks on the matter in recent years that serve as counterexamples to the notion that he doesn't remember anything.
Whether he knows enough to write something that's compelling... I mean, seriously, I don't even know what it would take for a history of Unix to be compelling. I see that your book is a historical novel. Maybe that's the way to go.
> K&R was a real masterpiece.
He has written a number of very good books.
(It occurs to me that the guy is in his late seventies in addition to working without an editor, but I'm not going to jump to any conclusions about the writing without looking at the book)
"can't remember much of anything" : well, until you've tried asking people things about the past, maybe reserve judgment about how perfect memories are.
I'm sure Kernighan remembers certain things that he did, and that's fine for a memoir. Usually, though, if you ask someone else who was there, they either don't remember it at all, or have a completely different set of facts. Or they've died or otherwise become unreachable. One of my podcast interviewers said he'd talked to three people who were at the Jobs-PARC meetings, and gotten three different stories about what happened.
The stories we've all read about Hitler's last days were established by Hugh Trevor-Roper [1], and he talked to hundreds of people, comparing their stories to each other, and making sure they hadn't coordinated their stories. He did it so well that the facts have never been seriously challenged. (unfortunately, he fell for the fake "Hitler diaries" story much later, which kinda damaged his reputation.)
I had some documents to go on (thanks to bitsavers), and I guess Brian must have, too. But I didn't go nearly into the level of thoroughness HT-R did.
I read "Unix: A History and a Memoir" and I thought it was great! Not the most gripping narrative but still a very enjoyable read. "Smacks you in the face" is going a bit overboard...
the biggest thing about publishing is publishing, not editing.
You might be the most correct entertaining writer ever but if you can't convince a publisher that they should publish your book, your book is going to have a hard time ever getting published.
At least, that used to be true, until self publishing online came about and the entire publishing model was tranformed by it.
I think this author is writing about publishing a book, not having a book edited, which are very different things. The mistakes a good editor (or beta readers, etc) would have caught. Boring writing would never have made it through the slush pile at a publisher. But it would also be accompanied by many great books the publisher doesn't think are in style or didn't hook the editor in the first 5 pages so will never get published...
I'm not going to dispute what you're saying, but I can't say I've had that much luck with any type of non-technical book. Many are boring. Many are dumb. My opinion is that it's more about having good content than putting the content in the right order.
Flow matters as much as the content. Some people can just talk about X in a far more enjoyable manner than others.
Isaacson is really good - his Jobs' biography, the Innovators, the Code Breaker - all are firmly footed in facts, but very easy and interesting to read.
"Kitchen Confidentials", "Blind Man's Bluff" and "Seizing the Enigma" are really good in the same sense.
Level down there are "Skunk Works" and "The Soul of a New Machine" - interesting, but dense and sluggish.
At the bottom, to me at least, there's "Unix" and "Most Secret War" - very difficult to get through with all joy lost to being buried in facts and no connective tissue.
While I agree with you that the Sierra book could have used a better editor, I still rather enjoyed it anyway. I finished it in one evening and was engrossed in the history of Sierra.
Counter take: did Kernighan and Williams made a profit from their self published books? If yes, why do you want to monday morning quarterback them?
They may have made more profit from hiring an editor, or engaging in regular book publication, but that's not 100% guaranteed.
Also, they may have self-published just for fun.
There's more than one way to do it, and I don't think we're qualified to judge ex-post if what Brian Kernighan chose to share his memoirs was the best way.
I think you're misreading the comment. The comment is simply about a lack of quality in the text, not necessarily about money and profits. I think we all understand that quality doesn't necessarily translate to money and vice versa.
I don't have a big success story [0] but I'm really grateful to have an option of self-publishing ebooks. It pays my bills and these days I'm even consistently adding to my savings.
As mentioned in the article by Alex, having a following/email list helps a lot. I've also had good experience creating bundles with fellow indie creators, since it helps to reach a wider audience.
I wrote one book (technical, on a hobby subject) which brought me a few hundred dollars (not much but it is in a highly specialized domain and there was very little marketing). I worked with a small editor (who covered all costs except for my time), asking to do most things myself (which they accepted after seeing a draft), and it has been a really rewarding experience!
I used Latex for the editing (giving me a very polished final look, something where most self-published books fail at), did the illustrations myself (drawings, done using photographie and a vector drawing program: the result has fooled some professionals into thinking I am great at drawing), had an army of proofreaders (almost a dozen with various degree of knowledge on the subject matter, paid with a copy of the book, all of them found numerous mistakes) and even a lawyer (for advice on some copyright fine details as the book contains translations from other authors).
Overall I would reommend the experience and will likely do it again (the next step is being in control of the marketing aspect).
I wrote and self-published a intermediate intro to open source tools and the command line and made about $350 total. It was fun and rewarding but it does not pay the bills.
I've also self published a Go & Python book and it has been the most rewarding thing in my life. Every now and then I get tagged on a tweet about how someone really liked the way the Go book was written.
Are there any resources/things you wish you knew before you wrote and self-published a book? I am considering writing a short essay on making security decisions from the business point of view.
2. If your book is open source then perfect technical content first and then edit it
3. Have loads of examples rather than information dump
4. Curse of knowledge is real. What knowledge you consider as common sense will blow a newbie's brains. So we have to read the book in "reverse" kinda way. Every sentence and word has to make sense to anyone and their grandmother.
5. Leanpub is really good for self publishing and your book gets good audience if you make it "pay what you want" rather than a completely paid book.
We might think that paid only is the only way but if your book is free to download then you don't lose paying customers. Those who couldn't afford/don't want to pay are just not able to download.
But if it is free & optional to pay then you get a higher audience.
Leanpub allows you to have a DL kind of thing. Please use it.
Post on related subreddits to get advice. You'll not get such a great advice from anywhere else
Do DM me if you have any questions. I'll love to help!
Thank you very much for sharing your opinion! I've added those to my "Book/Essay" folder, especially liked and agreed with the idea of having the book free to download.
I can't see your email on HN nor DM functionality, is there any chance I can know your email?
I only make a small dent from my self-published book (Deployment from Scratch), but at least I get to keep it. If I write a story one day, I would love to do it with a good publisher and be in the book stores, but for technical content I'll stick to self-publishing (not that I have any energy left to do more titles hah).
I also see some people distributing self-published physical books themselves. Would love to know the hows and economy of it.
I have a Kindle Unlimited subscription because of the wide variety of self-published fantasy books. These aren't as polished as traditional books, but I love reading them because I am tired of the trend of dark/grimdark stories and most popular books are epic in scale.
Andy Weir and Daniel Suarez are two fiction authors off the top of my head who originally self-published, then later got book deals when they became popular.
Hugh Howey self-published his Wool series and has written some good stuff about the process of self-publishing (and the publishing industry in general):
<https://hughhowey.com/?s=self-publishing>
Self publishing fiction is definitely a business minded approach and if you want to get in it I recommend checking out podcasts/YouTube videos covering it. It’s a lot of marketing and churn and hype.
I can't even get to self-publishing. I'm not going to spend money on editing something that probably will never recoup the cost. If I don't pay for editing, it's going to be trash.
Been considering throwing my books in a repo on github and just let people have them free.
Yikes - there's no need to attack someone like that. Perhaps you don't feel you owe people with insufficient understanding of the complexities of proofreading better, but you certainly owe this community much better if you're participating in it.
Fair call Dan. I apologize. I could have worded this better. Friends might offer to do this for free but the value you place on work you sell is out of alignment with costs of production if you repeat.
To be fair, the article says “find a friend” and not “find a professional proofreader”.
So I’d say this is comparable not to asking a photographer to shoot something for free, but to asking a friend (not necessarily a professional photographer) to something for free.
I'm sure you pay your friends every time they help you with anything at all since for anything in the world they could possibly do there's a person out there making a living on that activity.
Many, many writers-- including those published by major publishers-- are supported by friends and family who provide beta-reading and coarse proofreading help.
Buddies get the book free and before everyone else; they're not expected to fully, deeply edit the book, but just give feedback about the most glaring things. This can be a reasonable deal for all involved-- I'd gladly substitute in a book from a buddy for my nightly reading and highlight it and give him feedback.
Of course, I also help my friends with minor professional questions gratis, too.
As a published technical author, if you believe that your self-published book will be "an essential input into [your] way of making a living", then I have some really sad news for you...
Heck, even if I borrow a friends tool, I give it back in at least as good shape as I got it (e.g., clean and add more fuel), and along with a gift like a gift card for a dinner, etc.
When I sent the book proposal to Brockman, he told me bluntly: "I can't sell this. You can't write". Three months later, the story found its way to the front page of the NY Times. First person who called (at 3AM Pacific time): John Brockman. "Lemme sell your book!"
So he went ahead and sold the book proposal. Didn't just sell it. He auctioned it amongst publishers. End of the day, there was a $40,000 advance (wow - more than I was making on my job!)
I started writing: got through the first 5 chapters. Then my friend, Guy Consolmagno visited (he was joining the Jesuits). I showed him the manuscript, and as he read it, his face dropped. After 30 or 40 pages, he looked up and said, "Cliff, this is terrible. It's all about computers."
"Of course, I replied,"I'm writing a book about computer security,"
Guy answered: "Every computer jock in the world will want a copy. Doubleday will probably sell 600 copies."
"Yep, that's the book proposal that they bought!"
"You idiot! They don't want to sell 600 copies," Guy said. "They want to sell 6 thousand. Maybe 60,000. You gotta do better than this..."
"Look, Cliff. Don't write about computers," Guy continued. "Write about people!"
"It's not about people," I replied. "The book's about the Arpanet, about crypto systems, about os holes, about how to manage a Unix system."
"No it ain't," he said. "It's about those hackers in Germany. The bureaucrats in the FBI who have never touched a computer. The NSA people who listen but won't lift a finger. The CIA agents who pester you in Berkeley. It's about the long-hair computer jocks you work with. It's about the nutty living situation you're in. Most of all, it's about you."
Well, I listened to my friend. Tossed those chapters and rewrote 'em. Told my story in first person.
Today, many of you now know me because of that book.
Editing? Mainly my sister Jeannie (who's a professional editor) and David Gernert of Doubleday.
Brockman? He's still running a literary agency in New York. Brother Guy? He's now the director of the Vatican Observatory. Me? I'm still in the Bay Area, wondering how I ever wrote a book.