So I'm writing a book

[SouthPaW1227]

Wow, awesome!! I would've loved to have had this in my hands 2 years ago. PUBLISH IT! I can see it selling well for sure.

 

[Reel]

I think your idea is very interesting. For someone considering a career jump, it might be worthwhile to read that one conversation and get some insight. I am considering a "career jump" myself and I spoke with someone in that career currently and he offered much insight similar to your conversation. I think it was the single most useful source of information to me in my decision to pursue it.

I guess the only problem I can see is that some people will only want to look at one conversation. For someone focused or looking at a career jump, they would probably pick it up in the store and read just that career interview, then put it back. I am not sure how you could prevent that or avoid it or if you would just accept that.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: ReelC00L
I think your idea is very interesting. For someone considering a career jump, it might be worthwhile to read that one conversation and get some insight. I am considering a "career jump" myself and I spoke with someone in that career currently and he offered much insight similar to your conversation. I think it was the single most useful source of information to me in my decision to pursue it.

I guess the only problem I can see is that some people will only want to look at one conversation. For someone focused or looking at a career jump, they would probably pick it up in the store and read just that career interview, then put it back. I am not sure how you could prevent that or avoid it or if you would just accept that.

We'd just have to accept that. For people who aren't sure about a specific job, however, it would be a more useful tool. Like, if you knew you liked the medical field, but weren't sure about a particular job, like a doctor or an EMT, you could read the entire medical section.

I think a big part of the actual market will be libraries and guidance counselor offices. Libraries, after all, are oriented towards education, and if you're in school, one of the major resources for job information and help is the guidance counselor office. Two of my counselors have expressed an interest in having a copy kept in their offices for that purpose.

 

[Dubb]

I think you've got a good idea, but it seems that for something like that to really be useful and effective, you'd have to go alot more in-depth. seems like you're just skimming the surface and documenting that with the intention of telling people how to dive in.

 

[SouthPaW1227]

^ Not so. ppl don't want an encyclopedia on it, they just want something they can read quickly. I vote good idea

 

[Kaido]

Also, if it fulfulls its purpose - helping the person who read the single interview and put it back - then I can consider "mission accomplished." The purpose of the book isn't to make a lot of money, it's to help people make a good career decision. Part of the book walks you through the process of identifying what you want to do. I know that when I was graduating high school (2001), I had no clue what I really wanted to do. I knew I liked computers, but it wasn't until interviewing people with various jobs in the computer field that I discovered things that I would enjoy doing. There's no single "right job" out there for anybody, because so many jobs can be the perfect job. For example, I knew I liked the computer field, but as I read interviews with programmers, webmasters, graphics designers, etc., I really started thinking about my experiences with the work and their experiences with the work. I decided that I didn't care for programming or networking enough to make a career out of it, but I do like designing webpages, building computer systems, and doing 2D/3D computer graphics. I can get a job as a webmaster, in a computer repair and custom building shop, or as a graphics designer, and be equally as happy in all of them. If the book can inspire a change in a person's life, I think that's wonderful!

 

[artikk]

Originally posted by: HotChic
Good topic, thoroughly done, good potential market, good timing with the economy picking up, good marketing strategy...

I'd say you're golden. This coming from an ex literary agent who's currently in the recruiting industry. All the best of luck!

:thumbsup:
Good idea, wish you the best of luck, Kaido

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Dubb
I think you've got a good idea, but it seems that for something like that to really be useful and effective, you'd have to go alot more in-depth. seems like you're just skimming the surface and documenting that with the intention of telling people how to dive in.

Originally posted by: SouthPaW1227
^ Not so. ppl don't want an encyclopedia on it, they just want something they can read quickly. I vote good idea

Dubb, in a way, yes. This isn't meant to be a definitive in-depth work for all job types. After high school, I worked as a pizza restaurant manager for a year during my first year of college. I know I could write an entire book on that alone if I wanted to, lol. This book is meant to help a young person find jobs that they would enjoy. Individual in-depth research can be done from there, but the hard part is really figuring out what you want to do and what you're interested in enough to pursue a career in. Additionally, the book is already starting to weigh in at around 500 pages and I don't want to make it much bigger than that

Once you have an idea of what you want to do, there are lots of resources available to further educate yourself being pursuing that job. Trade books and magazines, internships, college degrees, all kinds of things. This book is meant to be more of a starting point, something to point you in the right direction and give you a sense of how things are in the workforce.

 

[Brackis]

Let me know a price , plus where to send the cash to, and I'll buy a copy.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: russianpower

Originally posted by: HotChic
Good topic, thoroughly done, good potential market, good timing with the economy picking up, good marketing strategy...

I'd say you're golden. This coming from an ex literary agent who's currently in the recruiting industry. All the best of luck!

:thumbsup:
Good idea, wish you the best of luck, Kaido

Thanks! It's been a long time coming, but it's almost ready to hit the streets We actually started this project about 6 years ago. It all started with my older brother. He was going to be graduating high school and one of his teachers asked his class what they were planning on doing once they got out. He didn't know, so he talked it over with my dad, who had him talk to a few of his friends who had different kinds of jobs, and we got the idea to do a book on careers. It kind of snowballed from there.

I've learned a ton from this project, especially about how to do projects. I've also picked up a lot of skills. I was pretty shy when we started this, so interviewing people was a big deal for me, but now I'm used to talking to people and asking questions. For each interview, we had to transcribe the tape into Microsoft Word, so my typing skills have definately come a long way. Right now I'm learning Adobe InDesign (probably the hardest package I've put my hands on to date, lol), and I'm learning about marketing, web page design, business stuff, all kinds of things. It's really quite fun. I was a major screw-off in high school and had an aversion to work, but I've learned that once you really get into something it can be way fun. It is a lot of work, and a lot of it is boring (copying and pasting interviews into templates, transcription work, editing, etc.), but a lot of it is fun too. I think it's about that way for any serious project. Part of the process is creative, and part of it is just plug-and-chug. I'm excited that it's almost finished, however. It's cool to see a project through to the end!

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Brackis
Let me know a price , plus where to send the cash to, and I'll buy a copy.

Will do Taking a web design class in college right now, so you'll be able to order online hopefully sometime during summer (or sooner!).

 

[NakaNaka]

You thought about IUniverse?

 

[Perknose]

Jeff Gannon is the man you want to talk to about interesting careers.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: Kaido
I'll post an interview tomorrow if you guys want to see what it looks like. I'm using Adobe InDesign to format it and then export as a PDF with the publisher's printing specs.

How much are you planning on selling it for, and when do you expect to have it out? My brother is graduating from high school this year and has absolutely no direction in his life.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: Dubb
I think you've got a good idea, but it seems that for something like that to really be useful and effective, you'd have to go alot more in-depth. seems like you're just skimming the surface and documenting that with the intention of telling people how to dive in.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. We have an appendix of about 250 books for further in-depth reading. For each of the 25 career fields in our book, we have identified five or ten books that address that specific career. So, once you've found an area or a specific job you're interested in, you can turn to the appendix and find books for further reading and research.

This book only covers common or "hot" jobs in the market. We discovered from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles that there are 12,741 distinct job titles. There was no way we could interview that many people, so we had to pick and choose different career fields and then do networking to find them.

Also, we encourage digging a little deeper. We have a checklist in chapter 1 that runs you through solving the "What should I do?" mystery. One of the items is, "when you find something you like, dig a little deeper." One of the resources for that is the appendix with the 250 specific job books. Another good resource is to conduct an interview yourself. We actually encourage people to use the questions we've developed to interview someone in the job field they're interested in. You can also ask other questions that you have on your mind as well as interview people in jobs we don't have in our book.

 

[Dubb]

Originally posted by: Kaido

Originally posted by: Dubb
I think you've got a good idea, but it seems that for something like that to really be useful and effective, you'd have to go alot more in-depth. seems like you're just skimming the surface and documenting that with the intention of telling people how to dive in.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. We have an appendix of about 250 books for further in-depth reading. For each of the 25 career fields in our book, we have identified five or ten books that address that specific career. So, once you've found an area or a specific job you're interested in, you can turn to the appendix and find books for further reading and research.

This book only covers common or "hot" jobs in the market. We discovered from the Dictionary of Occupational Titles that there are 12,741 distinct job titles. There was no way we could interview that many people, so we had to pick and choose different career fields and then do networking to find them.

Also, we encourage digging a little deeper. We have a checklist in chapter 1 that runs you through solving the "What should I do?" mystery. One of the items is, "when you find something you like, dig a little deeper." One of the resources for that is the appendix with the 250 specific job books. Another good resource is to conduct an interview yourself. We actually encourage people to use the questions we've developed to interview someone in the job field they're interested in. You can also ask other questions that you have on your mind as well as interview people in jobs we don't have in our book.

well, then, :thumbsup:

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: Kaido
I'll post an interview tomorrow if you guys want to see what it looks like. I'm using Adobe InDesign to format it and then export as a PDF with the publisher's printing specs.

How much are you planning on selling it for, and when do you expect to have it out? My brother is graduating from high school this year and has absolutely no direction in his life.

We are planning on selling it for $19.95. We have approximately a month to a month and a half worth of work left to do. It takes about 6 weeks to go from sending the project in to getting books in our hands from the printers. So, IF we complete it in the next month, and IF we get it back from the printers within 6 weeks, and IF we don't run into any roadblocks, we are looking at sometime in May for availability. I will make a post in OT when it becomes available.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: NakaNaka
You thought about IUniverse?

We did a bunch of research about printing methods and decided upon conventional printing methods. Print-on-demand services, such as those available at iUniverse, are great if you're publishing a small amount of books, say, for a specific niche market, but when you want to print hundreds of thousands, they don't offer a lot of margins. We are using Books Just Books to source our printing. Here's a link:

http://www.booksjustbooks.com/

We are also starting our own publishing house as an LLC. Our company name is "Keeper Press". Our slogan of sorts will be something like "Keeper Press: Our Books Are Keepers."

 

[thirtythree]

You posted the wrong interview!

Oh well. Did everyone you interviewed know what you were planning on doing with the interviews? Did they sign anything? Did you use their real names?

 

[Injury]

Definately pitch the book towards high schools and stuff. Good public high schools do so much work nowadays trying to develop career intrests for their students and encouraging them to choose a career path that this book could be one of their most valuable resources.

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Let me know when it is out and I will pass the word around (see sig).

 

[toekramp]

good idea! good luck!

 

[Legendary]

Good idea and it looks you've got your ideas and such. Hopefully it'll turn out well for you. :beer::beer:

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: thirtythree
You posted the wrong interview!

Oh well. Did everyone you interviewed know what you were planning on doing with the interviews? Did they sign anything? Did you use their real names?

Yes, yes, and yes. We have legal release forms we had them sign. Only one person wanted to use a pseudonym.

I haven't gotten to the section with therapists and psychologists yet, but I will email you a copy when I'm done with them if you'd like.

 

[Kaido]

Originally posted by: SarcasticDwarf
Let me know when it is out and I will pass the word around (see sig).

Cool, thanks for the offer! Will do