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In this first LIVE interview, Kevin sits down with Alvin Ashcraft, a published author and an organizer of TechBash. Alvin, who has released multiple tech books with Packt Publishing, gives insightful details about his book writing process, from concept to manuscript, timeline, tech editing, and publishing. He also discusses the benefits of book authorship for career advancement, revealing how his book helped him land a job at Microsoft. This interview is a valuable resource for any aspiring writer in the tech industry.
Alvin in Twitter: https://twitter.com/alvinashcraft
Morning Dew: https://www.alvinashcraft.com/
Learn WinUI 3 by Alvin Ashcraft: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1805120069
Alvin in Twitter: https://twitter.com/alvinashcraft
Morning Dew: https://www.alvinashcraft.com/
Learn WinUI 3 by Alvin Ashcraft: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1805120069
Creators & Guests
Host
What is Multithreaded Income Podcast?
In the "Multithreaded Income Podcast," host Kevin Griffin navigates the nuanced landscape of generating multiple income streams as a technologist. Aimed at professionals who wish to diversify their revenue while maintaining a focus on technology, this podcast dives deep into unconventional strategies, untapped opportunities, and actionable advice.
Hey there, income innovators.
Welcome to the multi
threaded income podcast.
I'm your host, Kevin Griffin.
Join me every week when I sit down with
a person in the tech industry to discuss
spawning multiple threads of income
to build better financial foundations.
You may want to start freelancing, self
publish a book or a course, or start
working on that next great SaaS idea.
The multi threaded income
community is here to help you
on your journey via our Discord.
Now sit back, relax, and enjoy the show.
Kevin Griffin: Welcome
back to the show, everyone.
This is my first live,
like, in person interview.
Uh, I happen to be at the Tech
Bash conference in Poconos
Mountains, Pennsylvania.
How do you, like?
Alvin Ashcraft: The town,
I think it's Mount Pocono.
Kevin Griffin: Mount Pocono?
Okay.
So, close enough.
Yeah.
I just tell everyone Poconos.
Yeah.
And they think, oh, is it like in the
1950s when everyone would drive upstate
to all the different resorts and stuff.
Um.
So, I'm here, I'm, I'm doing two
talks, uh, I'm joined by, I didn't even
mean to introduce you, I'm so rude.
Uh, Alvin Ashcraft, um, one of
the organizers of Tech Bash.
So, I'm so glad to get a
moment to sit down with you.
And, the, the reason we're talking
to Alvin is because in good multi
threaded income, uh, essence,
Alvin just released a book.
And, so let's, let's
start with the book now.
This is not your only book, right?
No,
Alvin Ashcraft: this is my...
Technically my third book, it's
the second edition of my first book
Kevin Griffin: though.
Okay, that still counts.
You had to do work on it.
Right.
Alright, so what's the
name of your new book?
So the new
Alvin Ashcraft: book is Learn WinUI 3,
and it's the second edition of that.
Kevin Griffin: Excellent.
Uh, so second edition, what was
your other book that's not a...
The
Alvin Ashcraft: other one that's
not part of that is um, Parallel
Programming and Concurrency for...
With C sharp 10 and dot net six.
Kevin Griffin: Okay, quite a mouthful.
All right.
Yeah, you read that off
the bestseller list.
Um, so I have a night.
I really want to talk to you
about just the how do you get
started even writing a book?
Um, so let's go.
Let's go back, I guess,
to your first book.
How do you make that decision?
Does someone call you?
Do you reach out to someone?
How do you start that conversation?
So
Alvin Ashcraft: let's start started with,
um, The publisher, Pack Publishing, I
had done a bunch of tech reviews for
them on different NET related books.
I think eight different titles that I tech
reviewed before I wrote the first one.
And so they came to me with
the WinUI idea, and I thought
that's right up my alley.
I've done XAML development since WPF
in 2006, so I thought it's something
I could do without too much trouble.
Too much
Kevin Griffin: research.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
Uh, how much, uh, let's talk
about kind of a timeline from you,
you're talking to the publisher.
Right.
You both agree on a topic.
You have that much, um, what's your,
what's your first initial step once you
know what your topic is going to be?
So the first
Alvin Ashcraft: step is
creating the outline, what
are the chapters going to be.
Um, you have to create the sections
within the chapters and um, then
they go through, they approve that
and um, come up with a schedule.
And then we go through and say,
I'm going to be on vacation all
these days, you know, you tweak the
schedule and then start working.
Kevin Griffin: Is the schedule
pretty firm or is there a lot
of flexibility in the schedule?
Alvin Ashcraft: There's some flexibility.
You try to build in as much buffer as
you can with the days off you think
you might have and then you can talk
to them when other things come up.
Kevin Griffin: Uh, okay, so let's
dig down kind of in the schedule.
Sure.
So you work a full time job.
Yes.
Uh, you want to tell us
what you currently do?
Yes.
Alvin Ashcraft: Uh, so
I work at Microsoft.
I joined them March of last year,
2022 and I work on Microsoft.
Learn the documentation
and training website.
I work in the Windows developer Docs.
I work on API Docs, longer form
documentation training module.
Kevin Griffin: So taking your, your day
job, basically creating documentation.
Right.
And now you're writing a book,
which is just more documentation.
Right.
Uh, how, how do you kind of judge
your time between working on your
day job and then working on the book?
Uh, do you have it very siloed?
I do, yeah.
Or do you kind of do it at the same time?
Yeah,
Alvin Ashcraft: so the book writing,
anything that I'm writing from
scratch, I always did on the weekends.
So I would just set aside.
Usually the morning hours on
the weekends to work on that.
Um, if there were edits, rewrites
to do, those I could sometimes work
in in the evenings, but, um, tried
to keep that mostly on the weekends.
Kevin Griffin: Gotcha.
Yeah.
So, all in all, let's kind of start
from, um, You start writing the
book, you're working on weekends.
Yeah.
About how long are you spending on
just the writing phase of the book?
Alvin Ashcraft: The first edition of
the book, I'd say we started in late
January and wrapped up in late September.
Okay.
Kevin Griffin: Yeah,
a good amount of time.
That's a, and that's, um, is it a
milestone per chapter or is it a couple
Alvin Ashcraft: chapters?
Um, yeah, so every chapter
would be a milestone.
They'd have a date for the
first draft of the chapter and
a final draft of the chapter.
Those kind of get staggered
in throughout the year.
Kevin Griffin: So,
September comes and goes.
Um, what's the next step after that?
Alvin Ashcraft: Uh, so after all the, well
there's, there's the tech review steps
that are kind of happening in between.
So after I finish the first draft, they
send it off to the tech reviewer, he goes
through it, and then they send it back
with the suggested edits, I make those.
Kevin Griffin: So that's all kind
of happening as you're writing
the other chapters, someone's
Alvin Ashcraft: reviewing.
So maybe I'm working on chapter 3 writing,
I get chapter 1 back with the edits.
Kevin Griffin: Gotcha.
Yeah.
So when we get to September...
There's really not that many steps
left before it's ready for publish?
It's
Alvin Ashcraft: kind of a
final pass of the chapter to
make sure nothing's changed.
Um, which happens a lot.
Kevin Griffin: When you're
dealing with something like, well,
Microsoft is fairly cutting edge.
Uh, UI is, yeah.
Yeah, the
Alvin Ashcraft: WinUI with the first
edition, I was working on the entire
thing while it was in pre release.
So the book published within a couple
weeks of when the product shipped.
Things changed at the very last minute.
Kevin Griffin: When, as you're
writing the book, do you ever
get a sense of imposter syndrome?
Like, I, I look at a book and the amount
of content in some of these books.
Right.
And I feel like I only know half of it.
And that's not even working with something
that's in development at the time.
How much do you really have to spend
learning as you go writing one of these
Alvin Ashcraft: books?
Yeah, absolutely.
With WinUI, it was brand new, so I was
learning as I went and yeah, try to find
documentation out there or any other
people that are working with it and,
you know, Stack Overflow is a great
resource for working through issues.
Kevin Griffin: Do you have a
benefit having, working for
Microsoft that you could reach out
to members of the team and say?
Um,
Alvin Ashcraft: yeah, with the second
edition, I could definitely do that.
The first edition was before I joined
Microsoft, which actually was interesting.
It helped me almost.
Kind of get the job, uh, at least get
the, the foot in the door, uh, the manager
who ended up hiring me, saw my book and
messaged me on Twitter to see if I wanted
to interview for the position on his team.
Kevin Griffin: Now, I think a lot
of people are wondering, like, this
is multi threaded income and they're
obviously very interested in the income.
And we're not going to talk numbers
or anything like that because
that's different for everyone.
And actually, we'll come back.
I have a couple follow up
questions just to that regard.
But, uh, You're being paid for a book,
obviously there's a lot of time and
effort put in initially to write the book.
We're talking, what, nine months?
Yeah.
Of just nights and weekends working
on content, doing revisions, um,
what's the deal look like nowadays?
Do you get paid up, anything up front?
You just get a better deal on
royalties on the long term?
Can you talk a little bit to that?
Sure.
Sure.
Alvin Ashcraft: Um, so.
So, in the initial contract, when you're
working out the outline kind of at the
same time, um, there's a percent that
you agree upon for, um, the sales.
And then you get some
upfront money with that.
And then, so you have that upfront chunk,
and then after the book is published, you
start earning that percent, and then that
goes against the royalties that you were
Kevin Griffin: prepaid.
Okay, so you kind of
have to earn back your
Alvin Ashcraft: initial payment.
Right, so it was almost a year before
I started getting any actual...
Kevin Griffin: Is a book like, um,
WinUI, so this is your, your second
edition, is it the sort of thing where
you have a perceived lifetime value
for how much you think you're going
to earn on that before no one's caring
about WinUI in its current form?
Alvin Ashcraft: Right.
Yeah, it's, it's hard to predict
and Yeah, I don't really have any
projections of where I think it might go.
Kevin Griffin: You, you just kind of hope
that they come back to you and say, Hey,
would you like to do a third revision?
Right, right.
Um, do...
Alvin Ashcraft: Or I hope that it
lives long enough that they don't
need a third edition for a long time.
Yeah.
Kevin Griffin: Yeah.
Do you get a right of first
refusal for a third edition?
Or is that something that they
can just shop out to anyone?
Alvin Ashcraft: They could
probably shop out to anyone.
But, um, yeah, there's nothing
in the contract that gives me
Kevin Griffin: that.
Okay.
Um, kind of following up on the
conversation of royalties and like
upfront value, I've always heard
it's a good idea to get a book agent
specifically for this sort of stuff.
But that recommendation I heard 10
years ago, so I don't know if that's
something that's still current.
Alvin Ashcraft: Yeah.
I haven't looked into that at all.
I'm not sure.
Maybe for the future.
Yeah, definitely.
Maybe I'll get a better deal.
Kevin Griffin: We've talked
about like the monetary.
Things with writing a book.
Right.
What about the, all the other
reasons you write a book?
Because they always say, you
don't write a book for the money.
No.
So, but there's other, other
reasons you write a book.
Um, could you talk some more about how has
writing a book helped you professionally?
Um, sure.
Alvin Ashcraft: Yeah, I think
it's gotten my name out more.
A lot of people on social media knew
me through my blog and other things,
but it's just another kind of piece
of building that, uh, You have a name
out there and, um, like I mentioned,
my, my boss reached out to me because
he saw the book out there and thought
it might be a good fit for the team.
If I could write a book about something,
I could probably write the docs
Kevin Griffin: about it.
So let's, let's build on that.
Okay.
So you wrote a book on
a Microsoft technology.
So my Microsoft reached out to you
and said, Hey, I read your book.
We are hiring for our team at Microsoft
and we think you'd be a good fit for it.
And I.
This is just me speculating, but I,
I assume your interview process is
probably a lot easier than someone
who's just randomly applying for that
job through, through the job boards.
Alvin Ashcraft: Yeah, I don't know.
I haven't been through other interview
processes without the book, so.
Kevin Griffin: Well, I don't recommend it.
You got the book, so you might
as well do it the way you did it.
Yeah.
So, uh, you've...
Released the book, has gone through
tech editing, how, um, just my
curiosity, how are tech editors
found in these sort of cases?
Alvin Ashcraft: Um, in my
case, I recommended them.
There were people that I knew
knew that kind of technology,
so I gave them a set of names.
They reached out and tried to
find out who was interested.
Kevin Griffin: Are tech editors
compensated, or is that a, I just
love Alvin so much I'm going to review
his book and find all the issues?
Alvin Ashcraft: Right, you get, uh,
there's no payment, you get a free
book and they give you some, um,
Subscription to, you know, the Pact
website where you can read stuff for free.
Kevin Griffin: Have all your books
been through Pact Publishing?
Yes.
Okay.
Alrighty.
Well, I'm not going to take
up more of your time, Alvin.
I, I think it's been really enlightening.
I like talking to authors,
people who create things.
Um, and you hit on a lot of points
that we talked about in other episodes.
And one in particular was, um, you
almost used the term, but the term
we use is, uh, stacking the bricks.
So like career wise, every, every
little thing you do is just building
another brick in the wall of what
your career of your brand, right?
The blog, tech bash, the books.
Yeah, it all adds up.
So even though like you're, you're
not going to retire off a book income,
you're still stacking those bricks.
And that might lead to
another opportunity, like,
like a job at Microsoft.
Alright, Alvin, thank you so
much for hanging out with me.
I appreciate it.
Yeah, it's been good.