Looking Forward to Doing Nothing

There’s never enough time to do all the nothing you want.

— Bill Watterson, Calvin and Hobbes

I've been hugely fortunate in my life to do the things I've wanted to do and get paid for them.

I loved my time as an operating room technician (now called a surgical technician). I loved most of the years I practiced nursing, especially those spent in the ICU/CCU (now called the SICU and MICU) and in alcohol and drug rehab. I loved my years teaching nursing, especially my course on geriatric nursing. And I've fully enjoyed my time publishing reference and textbooks for a variety of healthcare students, from medical assisting to nursing to physician assistant students.

It's time now to switch gears and do something else I want to do. I just won't get paid for it. Bummer.

I will be retiring on September 30, 2016, and will be inactivating this blog a time thereafter.

Note: If you would like to follow my personal blog, in which I write about whatever I feel like writing about, you're certainly welcome. Visit http://dontfretnone.blogspot.com/

Thank You

I've met so many wonderful people over the years that I couldn't possibly thank them all for their many kindnesses. But here are some friends and colleagues, some living, some now gone, I'm extraordinarily grateful for having known:

• Nancy Macaulay, friend, mentor, and nurse extraordinaire
• Pat Schull, the best business mind I've ever known and an incredible person to boot
• Nancy Webb, by far the best editor I've ever worked with
• Vince Marteka, who helped refine and strengthen my writing in his warm and welcoming way
• Rob Craven, Jr., for his generosity and for helping me find golf again
• Nancy Dunbar, a ridiculously good nurse gone far too soon
• Glenn Bricker, MD, who helped point me to a career in healthcare a waaay long time ago

I would like to express my gratitude as well for the honor of knowing and working with many magnificent authors, people who moved me through their friendship, professionalism, and dedication, Here are some of them, in no particular order:

• Sharon Eagle, bravery beyond compare
• The amazing and wonderful Carol Tamparo, and also her delightful husband Tom
• Cindi, Cheri, and Candy, my marvelous drinkin' buddies
• Sue Perreira, that great ball of fire
• Mort Diamond, O! Great Man O' Words
• Jim Cawley, Rod Hooker, and Mona Sedrak, the perfect trio of dinner guests
• Connie Lieseke, Terri Brame, Jackie Thelian, and Nancy Gardner, who didn't benefit from their terrific books anywhere near as much as they should have
• The remarkable Debbie Sullivan
• Bill Tindall, Ed Weber, and Dennis Blessing
• Arlene Muller, Scott Massey, Jack Coulehan, and Marian Block
• The incredible Barbara Gylys and her hugely talented daughter Regina
• Gary White, a multitalented rock star

What's Next?

So, what's next for me? Well, at this point I have three adorable grandchildren to fuss over. I have many books I want to read and many golf courses to bungle my way through. Mostly I want to write what I want to write, not what someone else wants me to write, and right now that's a biography. I haven't settled on a topic yet, but I hope to soon.

First, though, I'm going to do a whole bunch of nothing for a few weeks, which actually may be the last time I'll be able to do so for many years to come. At least one can hope.

Farewell, godspeed, and thank you.

Why Textbook Authors Should Also Be Textbook Marketers

An author of mine, the wonderful Arlene Muller, is fast becoming a marketer extraordinaire, and I couldn't be happier.

Arlene's book

Arlene writes How to Survive and Maybe Even Love Health Professions School: Retention And Career Placement Guide, a guide to success in health professions school. She also operates a service called Retention Specialist Today, which provides consulting services to schools that want to increase the rate of retention among their students.

Arlene is always thinking about ways to market her book. She promotes it whenever she speaks to school faculty and administrators. She calls me to suggest ways to help our marketing department better promote her book. She sends potential leads to us so our reps and customer service staff can follow-up and close the sale.

She wants her book to succeed and believes 100 percent that it will, but not just that. It's the drive she has to make sure her book succeeds and the time she spends working every marketing angle available to her.

I wish more authors did that. I wish more authors spoke at their professional conventions, created and maintained an author page on Amazon, blogged on topics related to their book, and overall pushed their book in every avenue available to them.

Marketing a textbook is a full-time, team-based job, and the more everyone works together, the more books we'll sell and the more students we'll help.

And that's the name of that tune, June.

Er, Arlene.

10 Characteristics of a Successful Textbook Author

Far more people think they can author successfully than actually can. Over the years I've identified several common characteristics of the people who not only actually write a book but who also become invested in its success.

In my view, successful authors:

1. Are deeply devoted not just to teaching but also to learning.
2. Stay up-to-date on what's happening in their profession.
3. Focus on how they can teach better and make more successful students.
4. Have a clear vision of how they can make a better book.
5. Can focus fully on a single task for long periods.
6. Are open, honest, and communicative.
7. Expect more out of themselves than others.
8. Can leave their ego at the door and work toward a common goal.
9. Can put cogent, organized thoughts on paper.
10. Prefer the lighter side of life.

Just my take.

Authors Are Humans Too

Authors aren't robots, they're human. Oh, well.

We textbook publisher-types tend to be a patient lot. We work with authors who, as it turns out, are human.

Humans get sick. They get pregnant. They have babies.

They care for aging or ill parents.

They lose their jobs or have to take on more and more responsibilities in less and less time.

They're busy, and busy people don't always do as much as they want to do, don't complete everything they want to complete.

Go figure.

So we wait. We nudge. We cajole, tease, and yes, sometimes threaten. (Though, truth be told, that almost never works.)

We do our best to protect the publishing company's interests, but in the end, we're dealing with humans.

A colleague at a project update meeting once jokingly said, when discussing some of the travails yet another author was experiencing, that he (let's make the person male this time around, shall we?) had had it with authors. From now on, he would have a new rule: "No heart attacks. No pregnancies. No babies. Welcome to F.A. Davis!"

We all roared because we knew exactly what he was talking about.

Life happens. And when it happens to authors, we publisher-types wait it out and hope for the best.

Because we're human too.

Dang it.