Jim Heath
Jim Heath started
his career in applied mathematics and engineering. But non-fiction writing gradually took over his
life. He has published
books and long articles on the security of oil supplies, electronic
encryption, dog psychology, the inside story of debt collection, insect
pests, water supplies, and more. But he mainly writes things for
others: ghostwritten books for people and persuasive no-nonsense marketing material for businesses.
Jim's first big writing project: editing the operational manuals for Woodside's North Rankin 'A' offshore gas platform. He handled the output of 22 engineering writers. That project led to writing work for the big mining companies in Western Australia and their suppliers. Which then branched into technical and marketing writing for other Perth businesses. Examples, including work for some small and notably clever companies.
While that was going on, Jim wrote a book of his own about bush flies. It became an Australian best-seller. Encouraged by that, he wrote another book on an equally unusual topic (debt collection). That made twice as much money. It was followed a few years later with a playful but practical book about dog psychology. It sold for years.
Some on-line publications
The Fly in Your Eye. Jim's book about the pesky bush fly. Hard facts, jokes and cartoons. The book has been out of print for years, and here is a free on-line replica.
The Scout Report for Science and Engineering found the book and said this about it in their May 1998 newsletter:
| Based on scientific information from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), author Jim Heath has recently placed this gem of a publication on Australian bush flies online. User-friendly, humorous, concise, yet fully detailed, the publication introduces readers to Australia's bush fly problem and the biological control techniques (introduction of dung beetles) implemented to overcome these insect pests. The discussion of biological control illustrates some of the benefits of this eradication approach. Whether for its biological and entomological merit, or its educational appeal, this website serves as an excellent model of how to introduce and convey a complex subject to the general public. |
His second book was the lowdown about debt collection. A lot of it came from behind the scenes: straight from lawyers, court officials, private investigators and debt collectors -- talking informally and bluntly. There were two versions: one for Western Australia, and one revised for the laws in Victoria, Australia. They are long out of print and the Victorian edition is now on the web: The Debt Book.
Reader's Digest Book Division saw the fly book and asked Jim to help them write a kind of mini-encyclopaedia of hard and somewhat haunting questions: Why in the World? It's full of questions like "Why does wet sand look darker than dry sand?" and "Why does leadless petrol cause such a smell?" They gave him a list of questions (including those two). His assignment: find the answers and write them in the Reader's Digest style.
As an experimental chapter for a book about Perth, Jim wrote: All about the water supply in Perth, Australia. It was put on the web and won a Pick of the Net Award.
That was followed by a 49-page survey for some corporate clients: How electronic encryption works -- a survey on secure email and private electronic data . Viacorp needed to send and receive some very confidential material: contract-submission documents with values in the hundreds of millions of dollars, industrial methods that hadn't been disclosed yet, arbitration documents in disputes over technical matters, early drafts of annual reports, and on and on. When Viacorp's clients started using email, Jim found himself suggesting encryption systems that could be relied on. Few clients had any ideas on the subject themselves. He used the Survey to help people understand the background and what they're doing when they encrypt and decrypt messages.
Other on-line publications about Perth:
- Tips on choosing a suburb in Perth
- The security of petrol and diesel supplies in Western Australia
- Why it's hard to have a good-looking lawn in Perth.
Jim has also ghostwritten non-fiction books. One of these is now on-line: Dead Fish and Fat Cats. How Canada lost most of its fishing industry.
In 2005, he wrote another book of his own: Your Dog is Watching You. (Free on-line copy.) Sums up all the tricks and methods you can use to get your dog under better control. It uses everything known about dog psychology and comes straight from one of the world's top dog-trainers and dog psychologists.
A.C.N. 009 147 111, Australia
technical writing, technical writer, technical writers, copywriters, ghost writer, ghost writers, ghostwriting, non-fiction, non fiction