HY
BENDER
hy@hyreviews.com · BookProposal.net · HyOnYourScript.com
· BestNewYorkComedy.com
SUMMARY World-class writer/editor who
has written or co-written 16 acclaimed books under
my own name—including five Dummies books and a Complete
Idiot’s Guide—
that
have sold hundreds of thousands of copies; for clients who were first-time
authors,
ghostwritten two books that became New
York Times bestsellers
(one
mega-seller reached #16 on Amazon.com); written articles for such
diverse
national publications as The New York
Times, Spy, American Film,
Advertising Age; and Mad Magazine; created scores of business
documents,
user
guides, and help systems for such renowned organizations as Morgan Stanley,
Reuters,
New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), American Insurance Group
(AIG),
Northern Telecom, Juno Online Services, and the U.S. Air Force;
for
a podcast about millennials, interviewed such powerhouse corporations
as
Microsoft, AT&T, 3M, Dow Jones/The
Wall Street Journal, Deloitte,
Pricewaterhousecoopers,
Siemens, Eli Lilly, The Mayo Clinic, Salk Institute,
Genentech,
State Farm, Allstate, WordPress.com, Tumblr, and dozens more;
and
as a producer, scouted and developed comedy TV and film projects.
I'm
an expert at quickly learning a subject via phone interviews, online and
paper
research, and careful study of all other relevant information, and then
crafting
friendly, entertaining, and meticulously accurate prose that
communicates
clearly and compellingly to mass audiences.
BOOKS
2006-Present Help writers—ranging from total beginners to New York Times bestselling authors
and Hollywood screenwriters—turn their ideas into dynamic book proposals
and/or screenplays, and/or TV shows. For
example, I helped one recent client—
a first-time author and non-celebrity—get a $1
million advance for his book...and
without the involvement of any agent. (This is
almost unheard of.) The book went on
to
become a New York Times bestseller
and reached #16 on Amazon.com.
2016-Present Editing
short story anthology Ghosts On Drugs,
a cross-genre book I dreamed up and
am producing with Will Paoletto. For details, please visit http://GhostsOnDrugs.com.
2013 Edited
Steve Olsher’s superb book What Is Your
WHAT?, which was published
by Wiley. Steve kindly wrote in his Acknowledgements, "My heartfelt thanks
goes
to Hy Bender, the world’s best editor, for continuing to teach me
the difference between writing and being a writer."
2012 Contributed to graphic horror novel The
Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,
which was illustrated by Simon Bisley and published
by Heavy Metal.
2011 Co-wrote The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Thyroid
Disease, which
leveraged advances in both mainstream and
alternative medicine
to provide cutting-edge advice on what symptoms
to look for,
and how to test, diagnose, and treat hypothyroidism,
hyperthyroidism,
thyroid cancer, and other thyroid diseases.
Also included the latest
medical knowledge on how to shed fat, eat
smart, and maintain
a healthy lifestyle.
2008-2009 Ghostwrote a book about organic products,
and how to purchase them
conveniently and inexpensively regardless of
location. (I normally
can’t list “ghost projects” here, but in this
case the clients generously
gave their permission.)
2004 Contributed to Prentice-Hall book on troubleshooting Windows and Microsoft Office.
2003 Wrote College Survival Guide, a campus guidebook
for new students on
how to deal with such adult challenges as
alcohol, drugs, depression, and sex.
2000 Contributed to The Mad Companion, a humor book
published by Mad magazine.
1998-1999 Wrote The Sandman Companion for
DC Comics, a bestselling literary guide/
biography about fantasy
author superstar Neil Gaiman’s epic on mythology and
dreams (which has sold
millions of copies). Creating this book involved
interviewing over two
dozen people who worked on Sandman
and then
editing 100+ hours of
taped conversations.
1996-1998 Wrote
or cowrote five books in the bestselling
Dummies series:
·
Dummies 101: The Internet for Windows 98
·
Dummies 101: The Internet for Windows 95 (with M.
L. Young)
·
Dummies 101: Netscape Communicator 4
·
Dummies 101: Netscape Navigator (with M. L.
Young)
·
The Internet for Dummies—Starter Kit Edition (with
three other authors)
The Dummies 101 books are 250-page step-by-step tutorials that take
novices
by the hand and carefully
teach them how to use Internet features such as email
and the World Wide Web.
Each of these books includes a software-crammed
CD that I designed and is
supplemented by Web sites that I co-designed. Online
superstore Amazon.com said
of my Communicator book, “This is possibly the
single best book to hand someone who is a relative beginner on the
Web.”
1995 Wrote Getting Started With Windows 95
for WEKA, a hands-on introduction to
Windows that became the second most successful book in the publisher’s history.
1993-1994 Wrote Essential Software for Writers,
a 500-page book that L. R. Shannon in
The New York Times called “exhaustive” and “lots of fun,” and Jerry Pournelle
in Byte Magazine designated as “the book of
the month.” Peter McWilliams
wrote in his syndicated Personal Computers column, “The fact he has reviewed
so
much in the course of a year astounds me. This
book is the best of its kind.”
Creating the book involved carefully evaluating
over 200 top writing-related
programs, including idea generators,
grammar checkers, style replicators, electronic
dictionaries and thesauruses,
poetry processors, and online reference sources.
1990-1992 Wrote two editions of PC
Tools: The Complete Reference, a 900-page tome
published by Osborne/McGraw-Hill. Computer Currents magazine included
this book on its annual list of the top dozen computer books of the year,
calling it “the best” and “a valuable reference.”
1989 Wrote Excel Quick Reference, a 160-page
book published by Macmillan/Que
that I created in 10 days. It went on to sell
over 60,000 copies.
WEBSITES, PODCASTS, MAGAZINES, AND NEWSPAPERS
2007-Present Run the following websites:
·
BookProposal.net: My book proposal and manuscript
development service.
·
HyOnYourScript.com: My screenplay analysis and
doctoring service.
·
BestNewYorkComedy.com: Coverage of NYC live
comedy.
·
HyReviews.com: Coverage of NYC live
comedy, NYC theatre, and more.
·
CIGThyroid.com: The official site of my 16th
book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Thyroid Disease.
2015-2016 Co-hosted podcast The Millennial Career Playbook (TMCPB.com),
for which I interviewed such
powerhouse corporations as
Microsoft, AT&T, 3M, Dow Jones/The Wall Street Journal, Deloitte,
Pricewaterhousecoopers, Siemens, Eli Lilly, The Mayo Clinic,
Salk Institute,
Genentech, State Farm, Allstate, WordPress.com, Tumblr, and dozens more
about
best practices for attracting and retaining millennial employees.
1989-Present Sold media-related articles to such national magazines
as Mad
Magazine,
Spy, American Film, Advertising
Age, Bottom Line/Personal, and
FOLIO: The Magazine for Magazine Management.
Also sold articles
to such technical publications as PC
Magazine, PC World, PC Week,
and Yahoo! Internet Life.
2005 Wrote theatre reviews for The New York Times Arts
& Leisure section.
2001-2002 For Techbargains.com,
a Web site garnering 5 million page-views per month,
wrote reviews of top-of-the-line software.
Programs critiqued included
Microsoft Office, Dreamweaver, and Adobe
Photoshop.
USER GUIDES, ONLINE HELP SYSTEMS, AND BUSINESS WRITING
2006 For the U.S.
Congress, worked on Web-based information retrieval/analysis tool.
2005 For Reuters,
created online help system (via RoboHelp)
for Reuters
Knowledge,
a powerful Web-based financial research &
analysis tool used by tens of thousands
of high-level investment managers, investment
bankers, and corporate officers.
2004 For Gallery
Systems, created Web-based online help system (via RoboHelp) for
eMuseum, a tool for publishing museum
collections on the Web. GS’ 500+ clients
include The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, MOMA,
and The Smithsonian.
2003 For New York
Mercantile Exchange, created Web-based online help system
(via RoboHelp)
and 125-page printed guide (via Microsoft
Word) to help traders
around the world use NYMEX's new Web-based
financial software.
2003 For WorkRelationShips,
Inc., wrote best practices proposals for corporate managers.
2002-2003 For U.S.
Air Force Research Laboratory, wrote 250-page user guide and
complex RoboHelp
online guide documenting AI system that helps create
software ranging from military simulations to
state-of-the-art games.
1999-2001 For Morgan
Stanley, created 150-page user guides, and sophisticated RoboHelp
HTML
online help systems with search
engines, detailed indexes, and
hundreds
of crisscrossing hyperlinks, for the following financial divisions:
·
Program Management Office: Provided extensive advice
and Web-based
forms to help project
managers perform their jobs effectively,
consolidate their project
information online, and streamline
their reporting to senior
management.
·
Private Wealth Management: Detailed the work process
of PWM salespeople,
managers, and controllers; and provided step-by-step instructions on
how to analyze and report on PWM’s daily multimillion dollar trading
activities.
·
Derivative Products &
Foreign Exchange Groups: Provided step-by-step
instructions on how to
evaluate customer account applications via intranet sites.
1999 For Blink.com,
worked with marketing staff and Web artists to make this new
site appealing and accessible. The site quickly
went on to receive accolades from
PC Magazine and Forbes, and to garner $11 million in second-round financing.
1999 For Vitech
Systems, wrote 150-page guide to private equity administration program
used by Goldman
Sachs, DLJ, Thomas Lee, and other major financial institutions.
1999 For Juno Online
Services, used RoboHelp to
rewrite and expand the online
help system of Juno version 3.0, an email
program and World Wide Web dialer
used by this Internet giant’s 6.5 million customers.
1998-1999 For Microvideo
Learning Systems, wrote video scripts and workbooks for eight
two-hour video training tapes on Microsoft Windows and popular
spreadsheet,
database, and word processing software. These
videotapes were purchased at a cost
of $500 to$1,000 each by such top organizations
as IBM, AT&T, American Express,
Pepsico,
Texaco, Mobil Oil, Dow Chemical,
R. J. Reynolds, Sprint, NYNEX, Chase
Manhattan, the FBI, the U.S. Air Force,
the U.S. Navy, and the United Nations.
MISCELLANEOUS
2016-2017 As Director of Television and Film
Development for MSP, scouted and
negotiated
contracts for comedy projects worthy of development,
scouted
and hired comedy talent, and produced comedy pilots.
2004-2011 Ran respected biweekly screenwriting
workshop NYScreenwriters.org,
which helped writers improve their screenplays
via cold readings and
incisive critiques, and also allowed actors and
directors to network with
our writers (which led to some fruitful
collaborations).
1994-2002 Ran monthly
reading group for writers that analyzed the works of great
twentieth century novelists such as William
Faulkner, James Joyce,
Gabriel García Márquez., Isaac Bashevis Singer,
and Vladimir Nabokov.
1990-1994 Ran biweekly
fiction workshop that helped novelists and short story writers
hone their manuscripts, which resulted in
several book sales.
EDUCATION
B.A. in
Journalism, with minor in Computer Science, from New York University.
A NOTE ABOUT LOCATION
I can
perform stellar work for you no matter where you operate. Although I live in
New York,
my
clients' locations have ranged from California to London to Australia; and
between
phone
interviews and email exchanges, we've never experienced a single communications
problem.
My savvy
clients understand that it's preferable to work with an exceptionally skilled
and
efficient writer than someone who simply happens to live nearby.