Getting past the frustrations 2

[AYODEJI]

Hi,
I want to resolve into writting simple-language technical books on Furnace & firing, Compressors & Controls, On-line Analysers etc etc as a way to showcase my skills and knowledge. This is in an effort to get past the frustrations of an ineffective appraisal system in my Company.

Do you think this will help in any way? Can you suggest a good publisher for me to contact?

Thanks in advance

 

[RDK]

Writing books is not an easy task.

A friend of mine once wrote a cookbook. She is a dietitian and the book was an attempt to develop a cookbook for people with low literacy skills to understand the dietary control of diabetes and to give them some healthy eating recipes that they could follow. She had the support of the diabetes association and received some funding from some literacy outreach programs.

After two years of part time work on this, she took a one years leave of absence to finish the book. She could not find a publisher for this book who would print it on speculation. She was forced to fund printing of the book out of her own pocket. This included paying for a professional photographer to provide the illustrations for the book, not an economical undertaking.

The book was put into bookstores but she did not receive any money from the sales until the bookstores sold the book, paid the book distributor, who paid the publisher who then paid her. Time from sale to she received the money was several months.

There was no way to find out how the books were selling. After several months she got more than half the books back. She was selling them on the Internet, at flea markets and diabetes meetings. Now several years later she has finished selling the books and while she has never said how they did I suspect that she barely covered out of pocket costs to say nothing about the lost income. A kitchen appliance manufacturer has bought the rights to place a reprint of the cookbook in ovens it is selling so she might be ahead by now.

I would suggest that you forget about writing books only for the desire to show off. You can showcase your talents better ways. If writing appeals to you then you can write technical articles for industry and trade magazines. These will have a wider audience than books and will have a shorter lifecycle time from starting to write to having the article read by someone.

If the company is not appraising your talents properly then perhaps you should look at a different company. You are not an indentured servant with no rights to quit and find a different job. If necessary do that.

The other alternative is that the appraisal system is giving you an honest view of your skills and abilities. This may not match what you think of yourself. I would suggest that you first listen to what the appraisal system is telling you and then take a good hard honest look at your actions and behaviors on the job. You may want to get some third party help in this matter.

The problem with all the attention that schools have given to developing self esteem in children growing up has resulted in a generation with an over inflated view of their skills and abilities. Never having been allowed to fail while learning has developed a generation that cannot conceive of themselves as being less than perfect. I have news for you; no one is perfect. Not you, not me not anyone.

In your post your grammar and use of punctuation is less than perfect. How do you propose to become an author if you cannot get a couple of paragraphs correct?

This is the real world. All that really matters is if you can do the tasks assigned to you. Yes evaluations can be arbitrary and sometimes wrong. What they do is describe how your supervisors perceive your job performance. You are in a situation where your supervisors apparently do not think much of your performance. Perhaps you should take a look at the problem before developing solutions.




Rick Kitson MBA P.Eng

Construction Project Management
From conception to completion

http://www.kitsonengineering.com

 

[StressGuy]

Of course, the other issue with writing a book of a technical nature is the danger of running afoul of any proprietary information you may have from your company.

You will likely have to seek some kind of permission from your employer, who will no doubt expect a cut of the sales.



Edward L. Klein
Pipe Stress Engineer
Houston, Texas

All opinions expressed here are my own and not my company's.

 

[MASSEY]

You could create a web page with the information you want to convey as well as links to spreadsheets and formulae.

If this developed into a reference for yourself and your company and your competitors, your company should recognise the value that you offer and see an untapped gold mine.

Good Luck!

 

[MikeMech]

Friends of mine in the software industry sometimes write what they call "whitepapers", technical papers on technological issues of interest to the field. Their employers encourage this, since their company name also goes on the paper, but they usually expect the employee to work on it in his own time. The benefit is recognition to both employee and company, and if a paper is well received by industry, bonuses sometimes shake loose.

These papers are ususally published online or by a trade journal. I would suggest contacting equipment manufacturers and trade journals in the appropriate fields and see if they would be interested in publishing your tech books on their sites or in serial form in the journal. You may not get paid, but if you use a certain manufacturer's products as examples in your books they may be interested in offering you some sort of renumeration. If not, you can always tell them that their competition would be happy to have their products used instead.

 

[ICman]

AYODEJI,

From your post, I would presume English is your "second language", and that the books you would like to write are not in English. There is usually a greater demand for technical literature in non-English-speaking countries, than here in the U.S.

Otherwise, there are many books on the subjects you suggest, so you would have a difficult time finding a publisher. Given that you are not an established writer, it makes it even harder.

I have written professionally for several years. I currently operate an editing service for a major industry magazine, and my articles have been published in both consumer and trade media. It is not easy.

I don't get turned down often, except when I submit work on speculation. Then, it's maybe 70% of the time. Interestingly, most companies I have worked for DO NOT want their name included. Liability issues, I guess.

As Rick and others have suggested, perhaps there is a better alternative to showcase your talents. A few trade magazine articles might be helpful. Participation in professional societies might work, too.

I have found, sadly, that recognition/assessment is almost always politically- or subjectively-derived. In other words, if your boss likes you, or if he thinks you will make him look good to his boss, you will get a good assessment. If you are not pleased with your latest review, make the reviewer look good.

Good luck!