Thanks so much for your time.

I haven’t read any Charles Petzold so I didn’t want to speak directly to his output — although I am curious about his latest book on Turing. For now I will back away from the above comparison. Call it a conceit. Forgive me if you took offense.

I am big fans of Sterling and Kelly and to a certain extent O’Reilly, but [head slap] I hadn’t considered their output to be exhibit A in my floundering argument — and yes it is yours to steal. Thanks for that.

I am also a fan of Andy Inhatko but mostly from his appearances on MBW. On the most recent show he chuckled about having delivered his final pages for ‘iPhone Fully Loaded’ a mere five weeks ago and discovering upon its publication that it is already out of date. That proves your point right there — a new model is needed. Or to be more precise, a shift in perspective needs to skew towards existing, but newer models.

I hope people like yourself can lead that charge and prosper doing it.

Again thanks for your comment.
mark

The only difference is, I think tech writing has been about celebrity for a while now. It’s just that nobody told the rest of the writers. When I was 12 years old, I had a professional crush on David Pogue and began to formulate my plans to be just like him when I grew up. That was nearly 13 years ago and while the majority of the authors in, say, Mac User magazine were anonymous and are now forgoten, David Pogue’s still famous. So is Andy Inhatko. And Robert X Cringely. And, um, Bruce Sterling. And Kevin Kelly. I could keep going. The thing they all have in common, other than perfect front-cover names, is that their writing oozes personality.

I don’t have official numbers but I’d bet money that the two best-selling tech series are Head First (created by celeb Kathy Sierra) and Missing Manual (created by celeb David Pogue). These two got their fame through writing, and they deserve it. They shaped their series’ strongly and that’s why they do so well. O’Reilly – the man and the publisher – also has a level of celeb status, although it seems their quality in general is waning.

I hope you really don’t think I’m like Charles Petzold. I’ve read one of his books and it was terribly written, meandery, and with inappropriate subject matter for the topic at hand. Also, I am pro-competition. I figure, if I’m failing at something, to look to myself for fault rather than blaming the market. I agree with him – and you – about the long-form narrative, but I disagree with the idea that he’s providing it.

( FWIW, when I say “books…are out,” I mean dead tree editions. Pragmatic Programmers and Peepcode, two very different ventures, are making an absolute killing providing the kind of content you just can’t find in blog posts. They rely purely on the quality of their content rather than a monopoly offered by the delivery mechanism. What’s wrong with a professionally packaged ebook, or a well-produced screencast? They are in many ways more suited to the topic of tech.)

Cheers,

Amy