WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.299 how you started the authorship journey. We're 00:00:03.299 --> 00:00:06.540 seeing a lot of authors pop up nowadays, but 00:00:06.540 --> 00:00:10.820 for you being in the programming world and then 00:00:10.820 --> 00:00:13.599 traveling all over and being an author, that's 00:00:13.599 --> 00:00:16.239 very, very interesting. It's very interesting. 00:00:16.519 --> 00:00:19.039 So tell me more about that. So now I've been 00:00:19.039 --> 00:00:22.629 writing for a good long while. Bruce Tate, I've 00:00:22.629 --> 00:00:25.829 had a number of technical bestsellers. Normally, 00:00:25.910 --> 00:00:30.870 I'm a big fish in a small pond. I did break through 00:00:30.870 --> 00:00:35.390 with a book called Bitter Java, which your readers 00:00:35.390 --> 00:00:38.530 will find is a terrible book with a good title. 00:00:38.929 --> 00:00:43.450 And so this book was written right after I left 00:00:43.450 --> 00:00:47.770 IBM. And to tell just a brief story, this was 00:00:47.770 --> 00:00:51.579 one of the lowest parts of my life. My wife's 00:00:51.579 --> 00:00:55.979 mother was sick and she was overseas when she 00:00:55.979 --> 00:00:58.520 got sick and they couldn't take care of her there 00:00:58.520 --> 00:01:02.840 because of insurance concerns. So we had a two 00:01:02.840 --> 00:01:05.939 level house, but the first level was an open 00:01:05.939 --> 00:01:10.040 concept. So you can imagine there was this dying 00:01:10.040 --> 00:01:13.659 woman in the middle of our breakfast nook with 00:01:13.659 --> 00:01:17.640 two kids and even a wound sucking machine that 00:01:17.640 --> 00:01:23.430 just went. Just basically suffocating the whole 00:01:23.430 --> 00:01:29.030 room and taking all the joy out of life and everything 00:01:29.030 --> 00:01:32.609 that was happening there. I was a technical person 00:01:32.609 --> 00:01:35.530 and the Internet bubble was exploding because 00:01:35.530 --> 00:01:41.170 it was right at the end of 1999. And I was unemployed. 00:01:41.750 --> 00:01:46.409 And when I lost my job, my goal was to start 00:01:46.409 --> 00:01:48.310 writing because I said anybody can write. I'm 00:01:48.310 --> 00:01:51.730 pretty good at it. And so what happened was I 00:01:51.730 --> 00:01:55.769 wrote a book that had an excellent title at exactly 00:01:55.769 --> 00:01:58.310 the right time. And so that bitter Java title 00:01:58.310 --> 00:02:02.269 was important because there was a there's a moment 00:02:02.269 --> 00:02:06.069 in time when when people were were afraid that 00:02:06.069 --> 00:02:07.769 there was this kind of there's going to be this 00:02:07.769 --> 00:02:10.330 overarching language that would control everything. 00:02:10.990 --> 00:02:16.669 And so I wrote this book and this was way back 00:02:16.669 --> 00:02:21.310 when Amazon. wasn't really that popular yet and 00:02:21.310 --> 00:02:25.069 they would they would offer a book for sale before 00:02:25.069 --> 00:02:26.949 you could actually before you could actually 00:02:26.949 --> 00:02:29.830 get it and people saw that name pop up and there 00:02:29.830 --> 00:02:32.949 was a technical community called slash dot right 00:02:32.949 --> 00:02:35.930 so they found this book and the title and um 00:02:35.930 --> 00:02:38.289 so we're in the middle of the breakfast nook 00:02:38.289 --> 00:02:40.449 and the whole family including the mother are 00:02:40.449 --> 00:02:43.370 huddled around the monitor We're hitting refresh, 00:02:43.509 --> 00:02:46.650 refresh. And we said, hey, we sold one. We sold 00:02:46.650 --> 00:02:48.909 one, right? We're number two million on Amazon. 00:02:49.349 --> 00:02:51.750 And it started creeping up and we will keep hitting 00:02:51.750 --> 00:02:55.629 reload, reload, reload until it went to 10 ,000. 00:02:55.629 --> 00:02:58.689 So we were the 10 ,000 best book in all of Amazon, 00:02:58.810 --> 00:03:01.349 not just technical ones. And it kept rising and 00:03:01.349 --> 00:03:05.050 rising until we were amongst the best sellers 00:03:05.050 --> 00:03:08.129 and then higher and higher until I was between 00:03:08.129 --> 00:03:12.879 John Grisham and Stephen Hawking. So number seven 00:03:12.879 --> 00:03:18.979 books of all technical books before it actually 00:03:18.979 --> 00:03:22.759 became wildly available. And then once it became 00:03:22.759 --> 00:03:25.439 available, I didn't sell. I barely sold another 00:03:25.439 --> 00:03:27.479 copy, right? The reviews came out. It wasn't 00:03:27.479 --> 00:03:31.419 a great book. But what it did do is it allowed 00:03:31.419 --> 00:03:34.620 me to start a journey, and I was invited to participate 00:03:34.620 --> 00:03:38.259 in conferences and with other authors. So that's 00:03:38.259 --> 00:03:41.569 how I got started. That's awesome. And since 00:03:41.569 --> 00:03:45.889 then, how many books have you written? Oh, gosh, 00:03:46.150 --> 00:03:51.610 somewhere around 15. Wow. So a lot of them. There 00:03:51.610 --> 00:03:55.210 were a number of books that were well written, 00:03:55.289 --> 00:04:00.009 but sold poorly. And a few books that actually 00:04:00.009 --> 00:04:03.930 did pretty well and actually won some awards. 00:04:04.169 --> 00:04:07.409 There's an award called the Jolt Award. That's 00:04:07.409 --> 00:04:10.240 a productivity. award so i've won that twice 00:04:10.240 --> 00:04:13.460 and then there was a a pretty special book called 00:04:13.460 --> 00:04:16.540 seven languages in seven weeks and the idea of 00:04:16.540 --> 00:04:21.680 that book was that um the the programming world 00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:26.040 was changing from single core computers to multi 00:04:26.040 --> 00:04:29.040 -core computers and when this happened all the 00:04:29.040 --> 00:04:31.180 programming languages really needed to change 00:04:31.180 --> 00:04:35.740 and this book kind of brought people along in 00:04:35.740 --> 00:04:40.079 the journey as i was learning how to navigate 00:04:40.079 --> 00:04:43.079 these waters. And the interesting thing about 00:04:43.079 --> 00:04:45.180 this book was there was a man named Joe Armstrong 00:04:45.180 --> 00:04:49.079 that had written a language called Erlang. And 00:04:49.079 --> 00:04:52.579 the Erlang language was a little bit popular 00:04:52.579 --> 00:04:55.639 in Sweden, but not very popular everywhere else. 00:04:56.319 --> 00:05:00.139 But it was technically beautiful, just an absolutely 00:05:00.139 --> 00:05:02.899 gorgeous language. And then there was a language 00:05:02.899 --> 00:05:04.759 that I was working on that a lot of people knew 00:05:04.759 --> 00:05:07.779 called Ruby. And, in fact, it was a beautiful 00:05:07.779 --> 00:05:11.360 language and a beautiful community. But it was 00:05:11.360 --> 00:05:14.319 written in a way and structured in a way that 00:05:14.319 --> 00:05:17.180 it really wasn't good for the new generation 00:05:17.180 --> 00:05:22.180 of computers that was coming out. And so I wrote 00:05:22.180 --> 00:05:24.600 this book, Seven Languages in Seven Weeks. And 00:05:24.600 --> 00:05:27.660 after I'd written the first three chapters, one 00:05:27.660 --> 00:05:32.220 of them was about Erlang. So I did some kind 00:05:32.220 --> 00:05:35.399 of crazy things that started to get my editor's 00:05:35.399 --> 00:05:38.459 attention. Like I would compare each programming 00:05:38.459 --> 00:05:43.360 language to a movie and a movie star in it. And 00:05:43.360 --> 00:05:45.779 they kind of liked that because it allowed you 00:05:45.779 --> 00:05:48.779 to switch headspace from one to the next. But 00:05:48.779 --> 00:05:51.860 anyway, after I had three languages written in 00:05:51.860 --> 00:05:54.339 the book, my publisher said, hey, I've got a 00:05:54.339 --> 00:05:56.800 couple of reviewers to send it to. And I said, 00:05:56.839 --> 00:05:59.939 that's great. And I get this note back. from 00:05:59.939 --> 00:06:03.079 joe armstrong which was the creator of one of 00:06:03.079 --> 00:06:07.259 the languages and um he actually said the author 00:06:07.259 --> 00:06:10.720 understands my language very well which was patently 00:06:10.720 --> 00:06:14.180 not true right i just based my examples off of 00:06:14.180 --> 00:06:17.540 his examples so he was liking his own work and 00:06:17.540 --> 00:06:20.680 he said but the author doesn't understand this 00:06:20.680 --> 00:06:22.779 other language very well which was called prologue 00:06:22.779 --> 00:06:25.500 it was one of the early artificial intelligence 00:06:25.500 --> 00:06:32.629 languages and um So I basically approached Joe 00:06:32.629 --> 00:06:36.709 to have him teach me prologue. And he adopted 00:06:36.709 --> 00:06:39.610 this whole idea of this book and took me under 00:06:39.610 --> 00:06:42.069 his wing. That really gave me the technical start. 00:06:42.589 --> 00:06:46.250 That's amazing. A lot of technical language, 00:06:46.449 --> 00:06:48.550 lingo in there. I hope people understood that. 00:06:50.189 --> 00:06:53.870 But I want to add on to what you just mentioned. 00:06:54.329 --> 00:06:57.189 Yeah. You definitely went through some ups and 00:06:57.189 --> 00:06:59.810 downs when it comes to distribution of the book. 00:06:59.910 --> 00:07:03.069 But what different things did you do when you 00:07:03.069 --> 00:07:07.730 sold the seven languages in seven weeks? A lot 00:07:07.730 --> 00:07:09.689 of times when people come on our show and they 00:07:09.689 --> 00:07:12.889 want to talk about their book and I go in there 00:07:12.889 --> 00:07:14.850 and I'm like, hey, look at the ratings. They 00:07:14.850 --> 00:07:17.569 have one rating, two ratings. I'm like, when 00:07:17.569 --> 00:07:19.970 was you couldn't get your mom or your sister 00:07:19.970 --> 00:07:22.920 or your brothers to write you a review? You have 00:07:22.920 --> 00:07:26.600 successfully launched a book to 180 reviews. 00:07:26.920 --> 00:07:31.279 I would say that's pretty fairly good. So tell 00:07:31.279 --> 00:07:33.500 us the journey about that. What was the difference 00:07:33.500 --> 00:07:36.079 in the earlier books than this one? And what 00:07:36.079 --> 00:07:39.259 lessons did you learn through that? Yeah, so 00:07:39.259 --> 00:07:42.060 I think that reviewers are important. And it's 00:07:42.060 --> 00:07:44.579 really, it's also important to bring people along. 00:07:44.680 --> 00:07:47.660 I mean, people don't write in a vacuum. And as 00:07:47.660 --> 00:07:52.000 you're aware, the writing business, it isn't 00:07:52.000 --> 00:07:54.899 so lucrative anymore in terms of the book itself. 00:07:55.139 --> 00:07:58.120 But in terms of building a career and building 00:07:58.120 --> 00:08:02.339 connections, it's extremely important. So the 00:08:02.339 --> 00:08:08.060 idea of getting reviews, part of that is building 00:08:08.060 --> 00:08:11.629 community. And once a community has followed 00:08:11.629 --> 00:08:16.629 you around, you can ask them to take a look at 00:08:16.629 --> 00:08:20.089 a book. Or, for example, it might allow you to 00:08:20.089 --> 00:08:22.170 do something different. We have a new book out. 00:08:22.269 --> 00:08:25.370 Well, new as in a couple of years old now. It's 00:08:25.370 --> 00:08:28.569 called Currently Away. And that's the book that 00:08:28.569 --> 00:08:30.850 we talked about last time. So Currently Away 00:08:30.850 --> 00:08:34.929 was a travel memoir. And that was a new genre 00:08:34.929 --> 00:08:39.799 to me. It was a story within a story. But the 00:08:39.799 --> 00:08:43.419 cool thing about that book is that I had an audience 00:08:43.419 --> 00:08:46.340 that I could say, hey, you don't know me in terms 00:08:46.340 --> 00:08:49.419 of a person. You know me as a technical author. 00:08:49.620 --> 00:08:52.379 You don't know the broader Bruce Tate. Come get 00:08:52.379 --> 00:08:55.740 introduced. And we were able to kind of kick 00:08:55.740 --> 00:09:00.259 that book off as well. Yeah, that's awesome. 00:09:00.340 --> 00:09:04.200 Thank you for sharing that. I think a lot of 00:09:04.200 --> 00:09:07.250 times people undervalue. the power of distribution 00:09:07.250 --> 00:09:09.629 and and the community that you need to build 00:09:09.629 --> 00:09:12.090 and the people that you're trying to target yes 00:09:12.090 --> 00:09:15.590 it's not does not mean that the content of your 00:09:15.590 --> 00:09:19.269 book is undervalued anyhow but if it doesn't 00:09:19.269 --> 00:09:21.710 reach the right audience you not might not get 00:09:21.710 --> 00:09:23.649 the right impact that you need like for specifically 00:09:23.649 --> 00:09:26.750 one of your books your specific target audience 00:09:26.750 --> 00:09:29.690 were i'm guessing engineers and software developers 00:09:29.690 --> 00:09:32.850 who are literally focused on learning that language 00:09:32.850 --> 00:09:36.210 and yes it switches out through what genre you're 00:09:36.210 --> 00:09:38.750 trying to target and what team and things you 00:09:38.750 --> 00:09:43.049 use so so what lessons did you learn in that 00:09:43.049 --> 00:09:44.690 bruce like i would love to hear some of those 00:09:44.690 --> 00:09:47.429 lessons that the good bad and the ugly i love 00:09:47.429 --> 00:09:50.610 all three in terms of promotion i've learned 00:09:50.610 --> 00:09:54.950 that um when you get when you finish the um let's 00:09:54.950 --> 00:09:57.379 say the beta version of the book you put the 00:09:57.379 --> 00:10:01.279 last word down in your first rewrite that's probably 00:10:01.279 --> 00:10:03.639 about a quarter of all the work that you're going 00:10:03.639 --> 00:10:07.419 to do with the book the promotion is absolutely 00:10:07.419 --> 00:10:10.440 huge and promotion means going out and talking 00:10:10.440 --> 00:10:14.100 to people about your book it means and you know 00:10:14.100 --> 00:10:16.480 some of this work might be paid some of it might 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:22.539 not be paid um but it's it's finding If you can't 00:10:22.539 --> 00:10:26.639 find the speaking gigs, it's going to conferences. 00:10:26.740 --> 00:10:31.080 It's finding like -minded people. It's doing 00:10:31.080 --> 00:10:35.799 podcasts like this one. But all of that work 00:10:35.799 --> 00:10:39.840 is tremendously important, but it has to be focused 00:10:39.840 --> 00:10:42.320 work, right? You have to be able to find the 00:10:42.320 --> 00:10:44.659 people that are interested in the books that 00:10:44.659 --> 00:10:47.100 you want to write. Like, for example, the Seven 00:10:47.100 --> 00:10:49.620 Languages in Seven Weeks, that launched a new 00:10:49.620 --> 00:10:53.669 genre. Most books at the time were written about 00:10:53.669 --> 00:10:56.870 one specific technology. And what people were 00:10:56.870 --> 00:10:59.110 missing were the holistic view of how do you 00:10:59.110 --> 00:11:01.710 be a good software engineer? What do you have 00:11:01.710 --> 00:11:05.250 to know to be a holistic software engineer? And 00:11:05.250 --> 00:11:07.450 there were a whole lot of problems I had to solve 00:11:07.450 --> 00:11:11.570 for that book. Like one of the problems was... 00:11:12.580 --> 00:11:15.519 Your headspace changes when you go from chapter 00:11:15.519 --> 00:11:18.080 one to chapter two. You can't just have a cliffhanger 00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:21.740 and says, hey, Johnny has got his fingers dug 00:11:21.740 --> 00:11:23.620 into the side of a cliff. He's going to fall. 00:11:23.840 --> 00:11:24.779 What are you going to do? What are you going 00:11:24.779 --> 00:11:27.600 to do? Turn the page. No, I'm going from language 00:11:27.600 --> 00:11:30.659 Ruby to the language IO, and they're completely 00:11:30.659 --> 00:11:32.919 different. And maybe they don't have anything 00:11:32.919 --> 00:11:36.000 to do with each other, but I have to bring the 00:11:36.000 --> 00:11:39.659 reader along. So I had to solve that problem, 00:11:39.799 --> 00:11:43.159 right? To solve that problem, I built these movie 00:11:43.159 --> 00:11:46.399 characters. But that tied into the promotion 00:11:46.399 --> 00:11:50.600 because then I could promote within conferences. 00:11:50.940 --> 00:11:53.899 I could say, hey, Mary Poppins meets the Matrix, 00:11:54.159 --> 00:11:56.179 right? And people say, what does that mean? Well, 00:11:56.320 --> 00:11:59.360 then I could tell this story about the connecting 00:11:59.360 --> 00:12:02.620 of those two ideas in the book and how I got 00:12:02.620 --> 00:12:05.120 your headspace from one book to the next. It 00:12:05.120 --> 00:12:08.360 all ties together. I want to double down on what 00:12:08.360 --> 00:12:13.580 you just said. Yeah. There is a reason that Apple 00:12:13.580 --> 00:12:16.840 is very successful. There's a reason that McDonald's 00:12:16.840 --> 00:12:22.220 mascot is a clown. There's a reason Starbucks 00:12:22.220 --> 00:12:25.080 is very successful in the world. There's a reason 00:12:25.080 --> 00:12:27.419 Google is very successful in the world. Because 00:12:27.419 --> 00:12:31.039 they focus on the user experience and experience 00:12:31.039 --> 00:12:33.960 of any person going through their product, service, 00:12:34.200 --> 00:12:38.419 or customer review, anything. The whole life 00:12:38.419 --> 00:12:40.830 cycle. Yeah, it's a whole life cycle is that 00:12:40.830 --> 00:12:46.029 experience is not on the product itself. I mean, 00:12:46.070 --> 00:12:47.669 that comes along. Obviously, you have to have 00:12:47.669 --> 00:12:50.970 good products to sell, but their focus is on 00:12:50.970 --> 00:12:54.470 improving that from that first click to checkout 00:12:54.470 --> 00:12:58.190 to buying an iPhone, to unboxing an iPhone, to 00:12:58.190 --> 00:13:00.470 holding that iPhone, to having the community 00:13:00.470 --> 00:13:05.710 of iPhone -ers, right? Right. That's why. To 00:13:05.710 --> 00:13:09.710 the conference, right? Exactly. Exactly. Wow. 00:13:09.970 --> 00:13:11.730 Awesome. That was awesome. Thank you for sharing 00:13:11.730 --> 00:13:15.009 that with us, Bruce. Sure. What would you say? 00:13:15.029 --> 00:13:17.789 And this is my last question for you for today's 00:13:17.789 --> 00:13:21.289 segment, Bruce. What would you say is your goal 00:13:21.289 --> 00:13:25.750 for being on the show today? I think I would 00:13:25.750 --> 00:13:28.809 like to introduce people to the book Currently 00:13:28.809 --> 00:13:32.370 Away. The Currently Away book, I think it's an 00:13:32.370 --> 00:13:37.129 important book about a journey. but the types 00:13:37.129 --> 00:13:39.470 of journeys that we take that help us change 00:13:39.470 --> 00:13:43.370 our mindsets. It's about going from a place where 00:13:43.370 --> 00:13:47.429 we were letting life happen to us to imagining 00:13:47.429 --> 00:13:50.470 what must be true if we were to accomplish our 00:13:50.470 --> 00:13:53.870 goals. And this goes right into what you're talking 00:13:53.870 --> 00:13:56.909 about with Vision Bros, right? So we had to have 00:13:56.909 --> 00:14:00.230 a vision and then we had to think about ourselves 00:14:00.230 --> 00:14:03.789 in the future and what must have been true for 00:14:03.789 --> 00:14:08.100 that vision to come true. And when we were done, 00:14:08.240 --> 00:14:12.539 we we had completely remade ourselves and we'd 00:14:12.539 --> 00:14:16.500 we implemented this vision and we surrounded 00:14:16.500 --> 00:14:19.720 ourselves with curious people. You know, we would 00:14:19.720 --> 00:14:23.799 go from place to place, from dock to dock. And 00:14:23.799 --> 00:14:26.500 at the end of that day, we would surround ourselves 00:14:26.500 --> 00:14:28.659 with the boaters of that day. And you would talk 00:14:28.659 --> 00:14:30.860 about how much how you almost wrecked your boat 00:14:30.860 --> 00:14:34.279 that day. Right. And today we do the same thing, 00:14:34.340 --> 00:14:37.460 not on docks, but around dinner tables. And it 00:14:37.460 --> 00:14:40.299 has been a tremendous impact on our lives. So 00:14:40.299 --> 00:14:43.440 Currently Away, that's the story I'd like to 00:14:43.440 --> 00:14:47.159 talk about. That's awesome. So let's share more 00:14:47.159 --> 00:14:51.080 on that. I'd love to hear more about that book. 00:14:52.019 --> 00:14:56.580 Tell me more. So Currently Away is about a time 00:14:56.580 --> 00:15:01.669 of COVID where I... have pretty high risk symptoms 00:15:01.669 --> 00:15:03.870 on a lot of different dimensions. I really thought 00:15:03.870 --> 00:15:07.070 the disease was going to kill me. And my wife 00:15:07.070 --> 00:15:11.129 and I were both depressed in 2022 as we were 00:15:11.129 --> 00:15:15.669 thinking about what was about to happen. And 00:15:15.669 --> 00:15:18.429 we knew we had to quarantine because of my risk 00:15:18.429 --> 00:15:21.710 factors. And one day, my wife looked out the 00:15:21.710 --> 00:15:25.870 window at a river and said, wait a minute, what 00:15:25.870 --> 00:15:28.929 if I quarantine? Instead of being in a 2 ,000 00:15:28.929 --> 00:15:32.090 square foot house, what if it was in a 2 ,900 00:15:32.090 --> 00:15:36.990 square, what if it was a 290 square foot boat 00:15:36.990 --> 00:15:41.830 with a big back porch? How different would our 00:15:41.830 --> 00:15:45.629 life be? And so this was about the story of buying 00:15:45.629 --> 00:15:48.309 the boat, getting ready for that journey, deciding 00:15:48.309 --> 00:15:51.929 to make this journey during this kind of politically. 00:15:53.180 --> 00:15:57.240 charged time and having to be with people on 00:15:57.240 --> 00:16:00.399 both sides of the aisle and how we were able 00:16:00.399 --> 00:16:04.000 to bridge those gaps and navigate some pretty 00:16:04.000 --> 00:16:07.500 real difficulties. And at the same time as we 00:16:07.500 --> 00:16:12.600 were kind of rewiring our boat, we were rewiring 00:16:12.600 --> 00:16:15.519 our life stories. in our futures. Thank you for 00:16:15.519 --> 00:16:17.519 being here today. I'm really happy that you tuned 00:16:17.519 --> 00:16:19.799 in to Vision Pros Live. I'm looking forward to 00:16:19.799 --> 00:16:23.100 seeing your reactions as these episodes continue 00:16:23.100 --> 00:16:24.860 to move forward. This is going to get more and 00:16:24.860 --> 00:16:26.860 more fun. We'll have more and more engagement 00:16:26.860 --> 00:16:29.000 as well. We'll invite people to participate in 00:16:29.000 --> 00:16:31.159 the show. And thank you for giving us your time 00:16:31.159 --> 00:16:33.480 and attention. Have an excellent time building 00:16:33.480 --> 00:16:35.820 out your vision and becoming a vision pro yourself.