Report from the field.

Annie & Lauren Du Graf --July 2009 Launch Party for ASA

I'm a very lucky woman.  I have the benefit of a learned critical intelligence reading and critiquing my book manuscript.  That would be Lauren Du Graf, ASA's first research associate and my good friend.  She saw early versions of the several chapters of the book last spring -- and she was on the receiving end last weekend when I finished the entire manuscript on the deadline I'd set for an early first cut.  She's the only person to date, in fact, who has read the whole manuscript.

So on Tuesday afternoon she delivered the news -- what I had described as a practical, hands-on manual filled with tips and checklists and titled "Safer, Not Sorry: Taking Reasonable Precautions" had morphed into another type of book, one with a distinctive voice that not only offered advice but also told stories with words and pictures.  She found that three of the four sections could be reworked, but wondered about the fourth which should be dropped if it could not be improved.  I am making it sound less polite than she put it, but that's what I like so much about working with her again -- she tells the truth and has an unerring eye for incongruities and fluff.

The result is that I've rewritten the introduction of the book, providing a better basis for the new title, "Advice from a Risk Detective: At Home, At Work, Online and On the Road."  And I have gutted and reframed the fourth section to an acceptable level, with more rewrite in store of course.  She has challenged me everywhere to be more explicit and state how I came to understand what risk is and how it can be managed.

I have a fair number of close friends, and a wide circle of colleagues.  Since we started working together on constructing the content for the ASA website, Lauren has both supported and challenged me without ever sucking up.  Tomorrow, we'll meet with the book's designer.  I asked her originally to sit in because she often is able to represent my perspective better than I can myself.  This time, though, she'll be sitting as an active partner because she's helped make the book as good as it will be in another week.

Writing a book is hard work.

Once you become an executive, you are prized for your ability to write short and sweet, in paragraphs that form an executive summary that other executives can understand.  In the past two years at ASA, I've continued to write short pieces, either monthly columns or research notes that are 300 words or so.

Now I'm coming down to the wire on a book manuscript for which I have created deadlines that back up to the Northwest's largest book event, the Northwest Bookfest on October 1-2.  The name of the book is Safer, Not Sorry: Taking Reasonable Precautions.


The book stems from a desire to influence a larger audience than I can reach in my professional work with corporate clients.I want the book to be small and handy, a reference book rather than a scholarly work. It's written for you and everyone else you know, in plain English. It discusses how to handle your personal risk at home, at work, on the Internet, and in the world while traveling.

And things are coming along pretty well, except that I can't work on it full time at this point.  Emily has been assisting me with the manuscript as a sort of zen master of Microsoft Word.   I intend to be done with at least the first pass of the whole manuscript by a week from today, so that I have time to send it to the two people who will help me bring it to final state -- Lauren is back in the saddle to oversee on editorial & technical aspects and to inspire me to a better end result; and Jesse, who designed ASA's look and logo, will design the book cover and make sense of its interior presentation.

When everything is all done, we'll ship the book as a PDF to Amazon's new independent publishing service called createspace.  I'll have a commercial bookpage on Amazon, and folks can order the book in any quantity, and it will be printed and shipped within two days.

I do have to say that writing a book and growing a business at the same time have put me right at the edge of my comfort zone.  These next couple of months will be quite interesting as we find out whether my deadline is realistic.  Either way, I'll be thinking through how best to manage my personal risk.