Meet Robert Stanek

Beyond Words. A Look at Robert Stanek's Books, Life & More.

250th book by Robert Stanek

Next Stop 50 Million

In 2020, I celebrated huge milestones in my career as a writer, including the publication of my 250th book and having reached 20 million readers worldwide. I've been a writer for a lot of years and it was great fun to take time out to connect with readers over the past few months.

As I looked back on the many years as a professional writer, I started looking forward to the future. Although I'd been a writer for a long time before my first book was published, it was really 1994 that my writing career began. That's when I began work on a little book called Electronic Publishing Unleashed. Okay, it wasn't a little book at all; it was a 1050-page monster and I wrote 800 pages of it over a 6-month period while working full-time in the military and attending multiple classes in my graduate program at Hawaii Pacific University. I wrote the next monster book in 5 months while doing the same. Both books were huge bestsellers that set the course of my life.

So on to that forward looking stuff--the part where I wondered what was next--and that's where I began to wonder about the 50 millionth reader. If the past was a guide for the future, would it take another 10 to 12 years of writing to get there? As I pondered this, my son pointed out that if 20 million had purchased my books and my books had been checked out of libraries about 5 million times, that meant the 25 millionth reader milestone was already achieved. But as tens of millions had read my work on Microsoft websites and training courses, and in publications like PC Magazine and Dr. Dobbs over the past three decades, that meant the 50 millionth milestone was likely already achieved long ago. Or was it? Hmmm... and so the search began.

Celebrating 40 years with Robert Stanek