Okay, so I'm writing a book

Wednesday, February 27 2008 - Data Access

I give in.

For years, every time a publisher has asked me "so Julie, when are you going to write a book for us?" I had my answer ready. "I'll do it when you are prepared to give me a $50,000 advance, come to my house weekly to cook dinner and clean the house and also pay for a full year of marriage counseling." So they finally go the point of my not-really-that-funny joke and stopped asking.

Then Microsoft went and created this thing called Entity Framework which intrigued me... a lot. I played with it and learned plenty about it. I wrote some articles which were extremely frustrating because they have a limitation on how long they can be. I have been speak at conferences and user groups about it for over a year, but can never fit everything I want to say in a 60 or 75 minute slot (finally I'm doing full day sessions at a few conferences!). I have written a gazillion blog posts about it and answered lots of questions in the forums.

But still I wasn't happy. Entity Framework was leaking out of me and I could not satisfy my need to talk and write about it.

So I finally gave in and talked to a few publishers and said that it was time.

I am now writing a book for O'Reilly called "Programming Entity Framework". I have actually started writing it already and am hoping to have it in print in October. This gives me a short time frame to write it in since there are about 3 monhts needed for the actual production of the book so it has to be done by then.

Call me crazy. But, really, I was going to self-combust otherwise. I'm so happy having a valid excuse to play with Entity Framework every day now.

There is a much bigger problem though with this. It's not that my husband and I will probably be eating spaghetti for the next 4 months or the dust bunnies that will be taking over our house.

The problem is that the animal which I really want to have on my cover has been used already for a VBA book (which I have). Of course, that would be a Newfoundland dog. How perfect is a dog? Isn't data an old faithful friend? And we're teaching it some new tricks with Entity Framework! Maybe we could have a write-in campaign to convince them to let me have another Newfie!

Anyway, until there is an official cover, I have invented this one for myself:

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#1 Charles Petzold on 2.27.2008 at 5:49 PM

Congratulations! There are few jobs in this world that let you hold a finished product in your hands and say "I made this."I was about to give you a list of book-writing advice until I remembered I did a blog entry on that very subject:http://www.charlespetzold.com/blog/2006/07/240338.html

#2 Julia Lerman on 2.27.2008 at 5:55 PM

Thank you Charles. I think I've heard that one of the other few jobs in this category is parenting,, something I have even less experience with. :-) I'm happy to be reminded about your earlier post.

#3 Michael K. Campbell on 2.27.2008 at 6:22 PM

Congrats!And... on that mockup, I won't buy unless there's a picture of wally on it.

#4 Matthieu MEZIL on 2.28.2008 at 8:03 AM

October, it's too far, hurry up Julie :p

#5 Rob Hale on 2.28.2008 at 9:34 AM

Congratulations Julie!After giving so much to the VT development community it doesn't surprise me you felt like you would explode if you didn't share what you knew.As for the animal for the O'Reilly cover maybe they would let you do a Newfie puppy.

#6 Fred Beiderbecke on 2.28.2008 at 10:01 AM

That's very cool.Will O'Rielly be doing the pre-release download that they do for some of their things (at least I think it is them).I agree, October is too far away.

#7 camey on 2.29.2008 at 11:39 AM

Woo00tt!!Congrats and good luck.I'm already looking forward to the next time I see you so I can get my copy autographed.From here to October is less than a normal pregnancy, but that's how my pregnancy went and you know how well that turned out.Just have Rich pretend you're pregnant and all the dust bunnies and less-than-grandiose dinners will make sense.You're having a baby!

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