I’ve been a writer for 30 years, having finished my first novel in 1986, and I’m no stranger to the ups and downs that come with the business. Heck, even though my work won awards in the interim, I didn’t truly break into publishing until 1995 when my first full-length work of nonfiction catapulted its way onto bestseller lists. That work was followed by a dozen other bestsellers, nearly all of which were published by Macmillan and distributed to the world by Simon & Schuster, that is until the business turned and I found myself at a crossroads. The year was 1998 and I turned away from full-time writing for a short while to work for a Seattle-based startup. Around the same time, I jumped ship from Macmillan and an opportunity to write for Microsoft arose. Microsoft was working on a new series of books called Pocket Consultants. They needed writers who could write fast, clearly, concisely, authoritatively and just as important meet crazy timelines not just once or a few times b...