Question for Steve

cornflower

I didn't want to put FAO Steve for obvious reasons!

Steve I find what you do for us students amazing and you are definately an inspiration. I just wanted to ask how long it takes you to write articles and books and how you go about publishing your work as I would like to try my hand at it when I am qualified which will hopefully be in about 3 years. It's something I've always wondered how you go about.

Also I am looking to study ACCA F8 in December. Will your next book be out by then or have you got any preseen material you could let us have?

Thanks in advance.

Laura x

Steve Collings

Hi Laura,

I get asked this a lot!

Some articles I can produce in an hour. Others may take a couple of days to a week, depending on what I am writing on and who I am writing for. There is a vast difference writing for student accountants and writing for qualified accountants!! For example I have written an article which is going in August's edition of 'Accountancy' Magazine (the ICAEW mag for their qualified members) and that took me about 4 hours. Conversely I have written one for AccountingWEB on a controversial subject which publishes next week, which took about a fortnight because I had to do a lot of research, including asking practitioners about their experiences of the subject I have written about. So it does vary.

In a lot of cases I am asked to write about a particular subject and to be honest sometimes I dread the 'briefs' because some articles can take bloody ages due to the research involved - particularly on areas like financial instruments which are a minefield!!

Re the book - publication is set for 4 February 2011 so it won't be published in time for the December sittings as it is not primarily directed at students as my last book was. Unfortunately, for confidentiality reasons, I am not permitted to send any of the book's content to anyone other than technical reviewers which have to be authorised by the publisher.

Getting a publisher is a difficult process because the market is saturated with accountancy books. I was lucky because I was approached by a publisher who asked me to do my next book, with another one after that. My advice to you would be to start off doing articles in the professional media on a subject you specialise in. It helps if you specialise in a 'specialist' area e.g. charities (I specialise in Solicitors Accounts Rules and there aren't many technical writers on that subject) so the more specialist the better chance you have of getting your foot in the door!!

Good luck and I look forward to reading some of your stuff in the future.

Best wishes
Steve

cornflower

Thanks Steve for the reply.

So what is controversial about your article then? I'm intrigued!

Steve Collings

I can't discuss that until it's published!!

Kind regards
Steve