Several years in the making, THE BOOK OF DECORATIVE CONCRETE COATINGS (www.thecoatingsbook.com) took Arizona-based coatings manufacturer, Veron Coating Systems, on an eye-opening journey of discovery. What started out as a simple how-to book for applying various coatings to beautify concrete wound up being much more.

"Being a coatings manufacturer, we knew all about how to produce high quality concrete coatings," says Veron President and CEO, Joseph Hook. "What we quickly realized was that to produce a book of this magnitude required a little more effort than just skimming off a tech data sheet and an MSDS."

Hook employed Ted Uram, a technical writer with several years of experience both as a trade magazine editor and systems trainer, to plot the outline for the book. Hook provided Uram with a vast store of technical information, but raw facts alone were simply not enough.

"We both knew right away that we had to do more than just put together a book that talked about the basic steps and showed some pretty pictures," says Uram. "There are already plenty of books like that. If we really wanted to succeed, we had to get our hands dirty."

Uram spent an entire year working with various contractors, both as a laborer and photographer. Beneath the blazing Arizona sun, he worked side-by-side with several of the industry's leading applicators. "Most of the time I just took a lot of pictures," Uram admits. "But I actually got pretty good at applying the coatings as well."