Interview: Richard Carter, author of Magento 1.4 Themes Design.

Richard is the author of our recently published
Magento 1.4 Themes Design which teaches you to customize the appearance of your Magento 1.4 e-commerce store with Magento's powerful theming engine.

Richard Carter is Creative Director at Peacock Carter, a web design agency based in the North East of England. He has worked for clients including Directgov, NHS Choices, University College Dublin and BusinessLink.gov.uk.

Besides this, he has also written books on
Magento 1.3 Themes Design and
MediaWiki Skins Design.

Do visit his blog at
http://www.earlgreyandbattenburg.co.uk. You can also follow him at http://twitter.com/RichardCarter

Packt: Your book is published now. How does it feel to be a published author?

Richard: It’s always a nice feeling to have a book published - this is my fourth now, and it doesn’t get any less exciting!

Packt: What benefits did writing a book bring to your specialist area?

Richard: It’s one thing to understand what you’re doing, but a totally different challenge to explain how to do it - in this case Magento theming - to others.

Packt: Our authors usually have full-time jobs whilst writing for us. Was this the case for you and how did you approach managing your time?

Richard: I do have a full-time job (I work as Creative Director at Peacock Carter Ltd), but managed to write the book in the evenings and with the occasional weekend. I knew, for each chapter, roughly how long it would take to research and then to write. Thus, I was able to plan my life around writing.

Packt: Whilst writing your book, did you find that it overshadowed personal life in any way? How did you deal with this?

Richard: I’m quite used to writing - I find it odd not to be writing! It doesn’t seem to affect my personal life, although I’m sure there were a few weekends when I disowned my friends for the sake of finishing a chapter.

Packt: Do you have any advice for other authors who may be interested in writing for Packt, but are still unsure?

Richard: If you’ve got the knowledge, do it - Packt is very supportive which means you can concentrate on writing the book and imparting your expertise!

Packt: Do you have any tips for other authors, or tricks that you learnt whilst writing, that you'd like to share?

Richard: I tried undertaking the examples in the book in 2 or 3 different ways during my research stage, in an effort to find any ‘gotchas’ that might have caught readers of the book out. It also turned out to be a great way to come across ideas for content elsewhere in the book!

Packt: How did you find the overall experience of writing your book for Packt?

Richard: I like writing for Packt - there’s always support when you need it, and everyone I interacted with was really positive and helpful.

Packt: During the writing process, did you come across any issues/difficulties that affected your writing and how did you overcome these?

Richard: I had a couple of cases of mental blockage when it came to a few points in the book, but I found that if I just left my desk and started thinking about another project, I’d usually have the solution the next day.

Packt: Was there anything interesting that happened during the writing of the book?

Richard: I reviewed a book on Inkscape and one of Drupal 7 whilst writing Magento 1.4 Themes Design - I must be a book addict!

Packt: How did Packt’s Acquisition Editors help you - what kind of things did they help you with and how did they support you throughout the writing process?

Richard: The Acquisition Editors helped in initially planning the book, setting an outline of content with you and reasonable deadlines - though I’ve found my content changed during the course of writing when I came across ideas that I thought readers would find useful.

Packt: What projects, if any, are you working on at the moment?

Richard: Alongside the usual client projects for e-commerce and brochure websites, I’m involved with the Young Entrepreneurs Trust, which supports young business people in my local area, the North East of England.

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