Remember 1972? Hippies? Tune in and drop out? Sideburns, boots and VW buses? Back to the earth? Become one with the universe? I was not the only one fascinated by the lure of Zen practice, nor was I alone among would-be adepts to encounter many obstacles to attaining a state of meditation. Brainwave monitors that enabled one to tune in to hidden EEG waves was the new way to achieve a Zen state. But for a struggling college student the main obstacle was price¾these devices cost hundreds of dollars¾a month’s rent on my room. What to do? I worked tirelessly to construct a custom brainwave monitor from Radio Shack transistors¾a quest for a new technology that might empower the Quest. After a year of work, I attained my electronic nirvana. I could journey to the stars with my mind and a 9-volt battery! But what a shame, a friend pointed out, to not share this with the world at large. He insisted that I simply must publish the new solution. I contacted Popular Electronics. The excited editor asked me for a “parts” kit to accompany the “how-to” article. I reluctantly located a small company in Berkeley to supply the kit. I then produced the article and returned to my studies in physics. Picture this: It is December of 1972. The article hits the stands. I am proud, but broke, and subsisting solely on frozen burritos. Three months later, a royalties check for $10,000 finds a new home in my mailbox! Never the ‘A-List’ English student, I nevertheless now know this: I am a writer.

Download Alpha Brainwave Tutorial Article PDF format

Download Alpha Brainwave Construction Article PDF format

On the heels of my 1972 success with the biofeedback project, I focused on a goal to deliver a book covering the sum total of provocative "edge" technologies that I had experimented with to date. After all, I was now “the writer”, so I needed to prove my meld. How many such “deep exploration” technical aids fired our imaginations in the mid-1970s? Biofeedback devices, laser light shows, ESP detectors, Kirlian cameras, not to mention 3-D oscilloscope graphical drawing devices! I was devoted to the cause¾my efforts were the embodiment of a labor of love. But moving into my first apartment, and writing for so many months with no income, I found that I had expended every cent collected from the former Alpha wave biofeedback article. The new book, Projects in Sight, Sound & Sensation, did a swan dive and crashed in the market that was 1974. Perhaps I was too far ahead of the curve, but not enough people seemed to resonate with my labor of love. I was not deterred. Using the manuscript for leverage, I landed a technical writing assignment for a major electronics firm, my first “real” job in the tech field. A job I would soon find I hated.

Projects in Sight, Sound & Sensation had failed to capture public imagination in 1974. I knew my next book had to be more universally appealing. Where was the real revolution going to experience birth and take hold? The mid-1970s were the days that saw the infancy of microprocessor chips. I became certain that these tiny ‘silicon minds’ were poised to transform the world. But few too many people¾at that time¾would have agreed with such a prediction. I suggested to my staid electronic book publisher¾Howard W. Sams¾a new book on the magical microcomputer. Sams was skeptical. My best friend, programmer Michael Pardee, joined with me to convince Sams otherwise. Not only was the book produced in record time, to everyone's amazement, the title sold 100,000+ copies the first year. Now I had explicit career fever! Computer books were my trade. The microchip was my blade (aka: launch platform). A dream based on these silicon marvels awaited me, but first I needed to exit the corporate world of technical writing. The little cartoon character was a big hit, it was created by my friend Robert Gumpertz.

Never underestimate the virtue of simplicity¾such was the lesson of the Your Own Computer book project. While I had conceived and written Microcomputer Primer for techies, the average Joe was struggling with what¾in 1977¾seemed a bizarre question indeed: "Why would I want a personal computer in my home?" We tried to answer this perplexing query with Your Own Computer, a title I co-authored with Michael Pardee. Concise (80 pages) and inexpensive ($2.95), Your Own Computer ascended to the top of the bestseller charts. To glance at the narrative of this title today is an act that illuminates the astonishing trajectory of change in computer technology. Your Own Computer details, among other wonders, the fact that a computer memory board holds 65,000 bytes. By contrast, the PC of the new century arrives ‘out-of-the-box’ with 128,000,000 bytes of memory¾a 2,000 times increase in capacity!

Fast forward to 1979. I have now performed a mind-meld with the technological marvel that is known as the Apple One computer. Steve Jobs¾a figure who emerges from a Volkswagen bus in torn jeans¾arrives dockside at my houseboat. He asks to see the weather station I have created with the Apple. I oblige him with a boat-based demo. He asks me to loan him some gas money to get home. Then he asks me to write a book about the Apple- specifically, the Apple II. I agree. Guess what? Steve enriches my existence with a new Apple II, introduces me to Woz (Steve Wozinak, the technical wizard of the Apple), and Computer Graphics Primer is born. In full color! And you thought ‘bleeding edge publishing’ was a recent phenomenon? I get Midwestern editorial flack for the word “Primer”. Some say it is the undercoating of paint. Others tell me it is what makes a bullet go bang. It’s all a lesson in how incredibly anal editors can be. Another bestseller, the book helps me pay for my first house. Now if I could just meld with a girlfriend who does not protest that I love computers more than . . .

Twisters do not inevitably touch down on the Kansas plains, and Microsoft was not always king of the desktop.  Set the time at 1980. A company called Digital Research owns the operating system for Intel based PCs. It is called CP/M. The concept of a "primer" strikes a chord with readers, and so do concise, easy-to-digest computer books. This is why I conceived and authored CP/M Primer. Weighing in at 92 pages, and costing only $11.95, this 8.5 x 11 spiral bound format title appeals to businesses selling computers with CP/M built in. The result: 200,000 copies sold in less than 6 months. The title is reprinted in 14 languages. CP/M Primer employs two colors, a good number of blue screens, and cartoon characters¾an approach that made this CP/M offering both inviting and useful for the beginner.

McGraw Hill

Word Processing Primer

Computer Animation Primer

Apple Backpack

8086/8088 Microprocessor Primer

The years 1982 to 1984 marked a critical shift in the computer book trade. The markets for these titles were accelerating, and so were the challenges! Previously I had placed each of my books with Howard W. Sams, then a small press based in Indianapolis Indiana. Sams was directed by people I would characterize as ‘shirt sleeve farmer’ Hoosiers. These fine down-to-earth people had souls whose motivations were fused with the corn stalks that rose from soil to sky just beyond their office windows. Over time, they evolved as parent figures to me.

1984

BASIC Programming Primer for PC

Bluebook of Assembly Language

DOS Primer for PC

Pascal Primer

Assembly Language Primer for PC

The personal computer boom had reached its peak in 1983. I met a New York literary book agent named John Brockman. John took one look at my record of accomplishment and said: "Mitchell, all the big New York fiction publishers want to jump on the computer book bandwagon. I can make you a rich man." John exuded confidence and was a consummate dealmaker. “Mitch, everything is image in this business,” John told me. So I got together all my authors, took a photo, and hired a friend to make me a brochure that showed off all our titles. John’s plan was to conduct an auction, sending out the brochure and copies of my books and giving publishers 24 hours to make their bids.

Ever wanted one of those Wall Street Journal artist rendered ‘photo-ops’ of your very own? So did I. This did not turn out as I would have liked, but it trumped the former ‘Don Juan’ image

Yet the entire process was preempted by a publisher called New American Library who begged John to postpone the auction and cut a deal. In less than a single month, he proffered me a 15-book contract accompanied by a $1,000,000 advance. Bang! Overnight I had to hunt and secure office space, hire editors, select managers, and arrange for typesetters. There exists a peculiar kind of heaven where one’s head is capped by a halo, while one’s knuckles go white with fear. Great fortune had walked up to me and pumped my hand. I was scared to death. One of the best things to emerge from this project? The relationships I forged with several of my authors, who subsequently joined ranks with me as employees. One writer stands out in particular–Robert Lafore–author of Assembly Language Primer. I was a fortunate witness to Robert’s career trajectory as he fired off numerous best sellers. He set a high standard for my own career efforts. Publishing can be, at times, a bush of thorns. My million-dollar deal would later reveal a few sharp barbs. A brief clause in the contract labeled "joint accounting" would prove to be an unpleasant reality. Watch out for that one if you ever sign for a group of books!

If your interested in how crude my first brochure was, click out these images.

HyperTalk Bible

Macintosh Midnight Madness

Microsoft QuickC Programming

Tricks of the HyperTalk Masters

Microsoft Multiplan: Of Mice and Menus

Microsoft Macinations

Microsoft has honed the science of fingering human “prospects” at the prime of their life then like a spider they extract all vital creative juices from their brain stems until dry. Okay maybe that is an overstatement; I should say they often leave them wrapped in a web of stock options worth millions. I was not to be immune. Early in 1985 a frantic marketing manager from the new MS Press division seduced me into writing a number of computer books. Company standards were driven against our best efforts; our people were abused to absurd extremes. At the end, Microsoft had nailed my entire staff into hard wood and wormholes with “the requirements”. My valued authors were in tears and revolt.

The beard is back, and it befits the image of a Microsoft author--proud, smart and burned out.

Yet the book topics we had selected seemed so promising. I personally had dived into HyperTalk, only to discover later that this technology could not live up to its dream. I was justly proud of our productions, but I would come to swear I must never work with Microsoft again. One has to make a comprehensive and fair assessment of such a flap. And the reality is this: the creative effort that went into this series of 6 books was stunning. Even titles and cover art telegraphed our best ideas to readers when books hit the marketplace. The last title we produced for Microsoft was Microsoft Machinations. I was shunted in to the studio for a sparkling color dust jacket photo. Microsoft spent more money on that single photograph session than they did on the proofreader. Go figure.

Off with the beard again and back to the slick n' wise look; check the ivy league shirt.

1994

1994 could be thought of the year of playing God. Basking in the success of 1993 and feeling that the buying public was enjoying the books that where on the "edge", I took the company even further across the line that separates the safe from the scary. Almost every book tested the mettle of the book stores, and every book answered that test with success.

1994 Fall Season

Autumn of 1994 was witness to a computer book publishing universe that was experiencing profound changes. One can only call 1994 the "year of the low reader expectation". IDG's ongoing Dummy series skyrocketed to the top of the bestseller lists, while CEO John Killkullen emerged as a veritable Wall Street hero. Killkullen also could boast the distinction of having become the nemesis of the computer publishing mega corps! 

Ziff Davis Press, which had only recently been voted most likely to succeed, was bleeding in returns. How could this have happened? The reading public is the ultimate arbiter of what is relevant, and this public had rejected Ziff Davis’s broad title offering, a line of books that was judged to be both too slick and expensive. The users of 1994 chose instead books that most pundits had predicted could never sell. Meanwhile, the term computer graphics had become part of a common folklore. I now had to question our publishing program's push towards innovative technology. Stereograms, game playing, and animation all gave me pause as I watched our sales of these books slip.

Not heeding my own advice, I was chanting the manta "if it isn’t broken, break it!" as of Spring 1994. We proceeded to implement an interactive CD-ROM based catalog that focused on the concept of a space station in which users freely navigated in order to access information about our books. Simply pop the CD-ROM into a PC! Instantly the reader was guided on a custom 3D trek into distinct “rooms” where we showcased each title. The most spectacular offering of our Autumn 1994 season? Creating Stereograms on Your PC. Stereograms, you may recall, consist of graphic images that appear initially as though they are random graphics. Looking closer in a particular manner, however, reveals a striking 3D image “inside” the page. One example: a swirling vortex that seems to descend “into” the page. (You can view this on your PC display right now: stereogram #1. Allow your eyes to relax, then focus at an area “behind”  the image. Now blur your eyes just a bit to reveal the 3D effect!)

We populated the remainder of the 1994 season with titles from topic areas that no one had yet addressed in print. Gardens of Imagination instructs one how to program 3D maze games such as Doom in C++. Fatal Distractions boasts a collection of no less than 87 freeware and shareware arcade games on a CD-ROM assembled by David Gerrold (the author of the classic Star Trek episode Trouble with Tribbles). Animation How To CD demonstrates how to create skydiving frogs, or engineer columns of marching pencils and elastic diamonds dancing the lambda! Viewer How To offers instruction on how to create one’s own multimedia demos with the same program that empowered classic Microsoft multimedia programs such as Encarta, and Cinemania. Using Compuserve to Make You Rich is a high tech online approach to the management of stocks and investments. Windows Animation Festival CD contains a 650MB bundle of windows animations, together with a 150-page manual describing how they work. PDA Playhouse was called The Interactive Book of Personal Digital Assistants. It was designed to assist users in exploiting the full range of PDA functions and features. Unfortunately, PDAs would not take flight until five years in the future. Moreover, buyers would declare only an interest in using the handheld devices, not reading about them! Modeling the Dream CD emerged as another multi-megabyte collection of dazzling animation and sound effect demos.

Toward the close of 1994, the realization was forced upon us that world was no longer so enamored with 3D animation. People suddenly were voting for more practical books. The Dummy titles were thriving. Our biggest competitor  -Macmillan (with its Sams, New Ryders, and Que imprints)- was effectively bidding to steal our lunch. Their publication of VR Playhouse came across to me as nothing less than a “soul stealing” market maneuver. How did I feel? Spell the word angry!

1995

Was I in my prime? Or at the end of my power curve? I wasn’t sure! The year 1995 would nevertheless surely emerge as the pivotal juncture of my career. Why? I now headed up a company growing like a weed in a rain forest, and I required help. Ill equipped to direct the activities of 30 people, I hired a general manager. Charlie Drucker came on board with solid experience in the corporate world. I loved Charlie- he was the perfect GM! However, the choice angered my right hand man, who would in time depart to start his own business. Personal dynamics can be tough at a critical juncture or size transition. That said, Charlie’s skill and direction empowered me to focus on product again.

We began to experience distributor-based limitations. Our books were simply not marking up sales in the chains that we required. We appealed to them for a better rate, so we could direct more funding into advertising. No dice. Next, we considered a dynamic partnership with a larger publisher. The goal? To leverage a larger entity so as to move our books into the chains in greater quantity. To my surprise, Charlie approached our biggest competitor—which now owned Sams--Macmillan. Sams responded positively: they were “green” on the prospect of distributing of our book line, but “double-green” on the possibility of purchasing Waite Group Press outright. I had never anticipated such a direct offer!

1995 is the year I determined I wanted a child. Selling Waite Group appeared to be the logical life choice to empower my choice to start my own family. 1995 was also the year we created a New Media division (an imprint inside Waite Group) to address the reality that CD-ROM based programs and courses were proving to stand as an increasing cornerstone of our business model. Certified Course in C, a New Media title, facilitated students to earn a graded / certified degree from the University of Phoenix.  Virtual Reality Basic emerged as our first software product. The balance of our line of titles built on the foundations of previous Waite Group efforts. Internet How-To was produced as the second editions of our ray tracing, visual basic, and image lab books. Engines of Creation was our first shelf offering to address the Macintosh platform as a base on which to construct virtual reality realms. We also jumped into the world of Photoshop with our Photoshop Special Effects How To title. DOOM Construction Kit served as our first game book. Finally, 1995 stands as the year we discovered Andre Lamothe. Andre authored his first book on programming video games in C, called Black Art of 3D Game Programming. He then evolved his career to become the world's best selling computer game programming author. Andre's new company is called Extreme Games. Don’t miss investigating this one!

We had anticipated that our book sales at the chains would fall, and our output of titles had in fact diminished. With shifting market realities before us, the prospect of a deal with a capital “D” with Macmillan was looking ever more attractive.

I devoted the final half of 1995 to the negotiation of the sale of my company to Macmillan. This emerged as one of the principal mind-bending experiences of my life. What motivated me so much to make this sale? David Israel: the Macmillan VP of Marketing who engineered the deal. David related to me that the major reason Macmillan wanted to buy my company was to position Waite Group as an internal corporate "think tank" for innovative book concepts. Macmillan believed that we had built the most creative publishing program in the industry. Accordingly, MCP wanted to ensure that the sum body of such superior ideas ought to be wrapped in gold foil and conveyed direct to their own firm’s doorstep. In short, they wanted to engage me in a long-term employment contract. All of this talk appealed to the “boy wonder” in me, the part of me that did things for fun rather than for money. The aggressive hawking of think tanks, big research budgets, and lab visits made my imagination spin. What could it signify if not the authentic confirmation that I was now indisputably valued for what I did best. I remember communicating to my negotiating attorney how happy the offer had made me. But my counsel, speaking to me in a cautious tone, said: "Mitch you can't count on any of the talk about ‘think tanks’ and ‘super idea mills’. MCP is in the business of making money. This purchase of your company may not be with the intent to capture your best ideas. Rather, they may well want to simply capture the shelf space you have denied them over the last 6 years." I protested, but he looked at me as if I was still learning how to tie my shoes.

Negotiations dragged on, and I became ever more convinced that MCP wanted me for my talent, not to recoup shelf space. As the deal closed, however, I witnessed bargaining moves that Simon and Schuster (the owners at the time of MCP) put into play, which worried me. A nebulous fog was wafting inland from just over the horizon. When we took receipt of our carefully worded contract, we noted that changes had been made without a redline. In other words, the new changes had been merged into the document in a clandestine manner. Here was cause for true paranoia. To assess the full extent of the changes, we were reduced to evaluating the contract word by word to compare it with the previous version. Did we find that the changes were in our favor? What do you think?

The “deal” went though. I was paid as expected. This was more money than I could have easily imagined prior to this juncture in life. It was off-putting, even frightening. Some directed karmic debts began to come to fruition. For example, during a down cycle in my previous business, I had sold some private stock to a good friend to keep the business running. The sale afforded me the cash reserves to steer through a bad year, even get back on track. Nevertheless, I had felt bad that the stock return my friend had coming was not a match for the performance of the rest of the stock market. When I finally sold the company, however, my friend's investment was returned to him ten-fold. Clearly, he was pleased.

The deal congealed in 1996. Macmillan immediately went to work to "integrate" the redundant processes in my business with theirs. I was under the impression that this implied elimination of what are known as "back end processes"¾functions such as accounting and ordering. But to MCP it meant a lot more. Over the next few months, I watched as the Waite Group was slowly dismantled as a business, up-ended as a think tank, and turned into something akin to a soap factory for technical books. The words of my attorney haunted me. I knew that what was happening was not something I could complain about, after all it was no longer my company, I had to be a good corporate solider and obediently obey my new masters.

I became particularly despondent the day we lost our desktop production division, since this segment had been key to ensuring that quality and uniqueness prevailed in our titles. At the same time that we confronted the realities of the so-called “integration”, we endured seemingly endless meetings having to do with the design and content of books we planned to publish. MCP’s Unleashed titles were great market performers. Thus, the firm wanted me to focus on the large volumes that had brought them this degree of success. They also desired that I back fill technical areas I had not cultivated to date. I believed this to be a mistake, as the topic areas the firm desired published already boasted a good number of well-written books. I wanted to focus instead on new product ideas. The result? We did both. I worked on the more exciting initiatives, and my crew produced the back-fill titles. My own most exciting project during this juncture was known as the eZone Interactive Guides. This series represented an adaptation of the old Master C concept of transforming the PC into a personal instructor. We infused the project with the conception that the Internet represented the new way for groups of people to collaborate. Thus, this emerged as a combined book / web site that allowed anyone reading the book to step through online tests to confirm the results of their instruction. The approach also encouraged readers to meet with other users and to thus obtain free tutoring. Upon the completion of all tests, readers would be offered a diploma. We garnered our best authors, and then coupled them to the top programmer subjects, such as C, C++, and HTML.

While MCP supported the intrinsic concept of eZone, the firm was experiencing turmoil at the same time, conflicts that distracted them from growing and abetting new ideas. IDG and its Dummy series had captivated the marketplace. The once proud Que books series was displaced by IDG’s yellow-and-black covers poking from bookstore shelves. Now every conceivable topic could be learned by a dummy. Ultimately, MCP was sold, and then sold again¾finally finding a berth with the UK's Pearson Group. With distractions such as these, little time remained to leverage the ‘technology kid’ in California to good effect. Waite Group Press diminished in size, then shrank still further. After two years of witnessing these events at close range, my employment contract expired. I walked away financially more secure than ever before but at the same time psychologically disappointed as I had ever been to see what had happened to my once proud company. And so it is that we arrive at the close of the narrative of my career as publisher and its adjoining tale of the evolution of the computer book.

The Next Decade

An era of writing and publishing ends. During the time Waite Group Press was winding down, the stock market was going nuts. The dot com boom was in full swing and what would any hot blooded american boy with a boat load of cash and time on his hands do? Diving into the stock market and learning about investing seemed like a natural path. But what about all the needs that went unmet during the years of struggling to build the company? I had no steady girl friend, no children, and a big empty house. And I wasn't a boy -- I was a 50 year old man with all the pieces of the American dream. So why wasn't I happy?