Richard Lowe Jr: Powerful Ghostwriting, Bestselling Author, Photographer

How do I describe me? How do I put the essentials of this person known as Richard Lowe into a short profile? How does one publish the essence of self into a few paragraphs? That is the puzzle and here is the answer.

In 2013, I decided to leave my job of 20 years and start a new career as a professional author, ghostwriter, blogger and copywriter. I’d been managing a team of IT professionals as the Director of Technical Services and Computer Operations for Trader Joe’s for almost 20 years. I was on call 24×7, managed the Just In Time merchandising and warehousing systems, and my team operated the disaster site. The job was stressful and I was tired all the time. It was time to go, move to a new place, start a new career, and build a new life.

My lifelong dream has been to be a professional author. I fell in love with books when I was just five years old and I discovered an illustrated Grimm’s Fairy Tales on the bookshelf. My mother noticed my interest in books and encouraged me to continue reading. When I was six years old, we visited a public library for the first time. I felt like I’d gone to heaven, surrounded by thousands and thousands of books. From that point forward, we’d visit that magical place once a week and I’d bring home six books, the maximum, to read. I dreamed of magic castles or spaceships, and I set my goal to write stories just like this when I grew up.

The goal of becoming a writer got put on the back burner as I worked my way through school, left home at 19 years old, and struggled to support myself in a career in the computer industry. I kept telling myself that someday I’d find the time to write, but today required focusing on work. Time became even more constrained after getting married to a wonderful woman named Claudia, who suffered from a chronic illness for 8 years until she passed away in 2005. I don’t like grief, so decided to get out and be with people, becoming a well-known photographer.

By the time I was in my early 50s, I’d almost forgotten about that goal that I’d set so long ago. The dream remained, and in 2013, it was time to move on and begin a new life. I quit my job, said goodbye to all my dancer friends who put on an incredible birthday/going-away party, packed up my belongings, and moved clear across the country to Florida.

I love writing books, and now it was time to fulfill that dream. I started work on a novel, which I published under a pseudonym, and wrote dozens of books about management, leadership, computer security, surviving disasters, and so on. I began ghostwriting and quickly realized this was a way to fulfill my passion and earn an income at the same time. What could be better?

Since 2013, I’ve written and published 27 nonfiction books (each with their own audiobook), 20 coloring books, a series of puzzle books, and several novels, short eBooks, and other miscellaneous things – all available on Amazon. I’ve also ghostwritten over 40 books, written over 300 LinkedIn profiles, completed in excess of a dozen case studies, and published several hundred articles on blogs. One of my books, Focus on LinkedIn, sold over 10,000 copies and another, How To Sell on eBay, sold in excess of 2,000 copies – both of these reached Amazon bestseller status.

Richard Lowe The Ghostwriter

I’ve ghostwritten books and other materials on a wide variety of subjects, including:

Computer Security threats and solutions
The Internet of Things
Artificial Intelligence
Management
Retirement
Office Cleaning
Dentistry
Scrum and Agile
The memoir of an Afghani politician
Sales
Property Management
A series of blog articles on the effect of technology on the trucking industry
A series of white papers about Augmented Reality and Robotics
A series of blogs about HVAC
A series of blogs about Financial Services

Life is What you Make it

Throughout my life, I have had a quirky sense of humor because life is full of joy and wonder. This little ball of rock, mud, and water that we all share known as Earth is an incredible place, with many secrets to discover. Beings fill our corner of the universe, some happy and some sad, each of whom have their individual story to tell. My philosophy is to take life with a light heart; I approach each day as a new source of joy and happiness. Those things which are evil or malicious get ignored, discarded or defeated; good gets helped, enriched and fulfilled.

Life is what you make it; if your life sucks, it’s because you’ve worked hard to make it that way. Conversely, if your life is incredible, your positive attitude and actions have paid off.Richard Lowe Jr.

I’ve spent the day hiking the Wonderland of Rocks in Joshua Tree after the spring rains, crawling over boulders and peering at Indian pictographs. I’ve been on boats to the Channel Islands off Santa Barbara, and I’ve stared in fascination at wasps building their homes in Anza-Borrego. I love walking the beaches of California, seeing the mountains, hiking through the snow and smelling the desert after a rainstorm. Now that I live in Florida, I’m sure I’ll explore the wonders in this area as well.

I am a very creative person; I write at least one article every single day, create numerous computer graphics, take thousands of photographs and design and code WordPress websites. In the past, I visited many local and quite a few out-of-state renaissance festivals, plus I’ve attended over 1,200 belly dance shows and am well known in the belly dance and faire communities for my photography. My photos have appeared in numerous flyers, in several books, and on hundreds of websites and in magazines. I’ve even photographed several WWE live events, the Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball, and, one of my favorite events, Bats Day at Disneyland.

To me life is filled with friendship; in fact, you can tell the character of a being from the quality of his friends. The people that I call “friend” are beautiful, caring beings, with whom I share my life, experiences and happiness. These are the people who listen without interrupting, understand other people’s feelings, build up others with positive energy and don’t tear people down with bad news and problems.

The Philosophy Of Richard Lowe

A key point in my own personal philosophy is that life is meant to be lived; anyone can sit on their butt and watch television; there is no skill or creativity involved in that activity. I don’t have cable television hooked up, although I do watch a DVD or Blu-Ray now and then. I would prefer to get up and write a book or create a graphic or work on a website; I would rather travel, get out and see the world, watch dancers, visit faires and just live life to the fullest. I’ve seen too many people die or waste away complaining that they never got a chance to do anything. Me? I prefer to do things. When I am on my deathbed I want to have no regrets, understanding that I lived the best and most productive and ethical life I could.

Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it.Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

You will see many references to belly dance and renaissance faires throughout my websites. When my wife passed away in 2005 I decided to get out into the world and explore in order to fend off the grief and keep myself from caving in. I photographed some of the local renaissance faires and found the performers and workers to be compassionate and caring. At the faire, I watched several belly dance shows and enjoyed the aesthetics of the dance. I enjoy the beauty of the performers and their dance pulled me out of the grief and brought me back to life. I love the colors and movements and the meanings of the choreographers. I met the performers and before long we were best friends. I soon found they were some of the most interesting, ethical, and compassionate people I have ever met. It wasn’t long before I was attending every show I could find, sitting in the front row center seat with my camera in hand and my shutter clicking. I gained many hundreds of friends in both communities, and these friendships continue forward to this day.

In fact, not only have I photographed well over a thousand belly dance shows, but I’ve produced a couple of dozen myself. My favorite production was the Belly Dance Kaleidoscope showcase, which consisted of 14 monthly shows, plus two Christmas dance shows. In addition, several performers are very active contributors to charitable organizations, and I’ve sponsored a number of shows for the purpose of raising money for good causes.

Richard Lowe and the Spiritual Side of Life

The spiritual side of life is of critical importance. I spend many hours studying how to help myself, my family, the groups to which I belong, humanity, life, the physical universe, spirits and, of course, God and the infinite universe. I’ve learned that I can contribute to the betterment of society and can help others, and that I am a good and caring being.

Life is what you make it. That’s one of the truest statements that I’ve ever heard in, well, my life. I have also experienced the comfort of a good friend, a great meal, and all kinds of art, which gave me another perspective, lightened the weight on my shoulders and fill my heart with happiness.

I plan for the future and I don’t spend much time looking back at the past. Who cares what mistakes or missteps were made twenty years ago, after all? I am alive today. I am still astonished to find that I, a person who was one of the most introverted people in the world, now have hundreds of friends. Life is about change. And when life stops changing…you’re dead.

I’m jubilant with myself and my life, satisfied with the paths that I have chosen. Currently, I am a professional writer and ghostwriter and am currently working on a fantasy novel. My hobbies include photography, stamp collecting, reading science fiction, watching movies, painting fantasy miniatures, studying history, collecting rocks and helping people as often as possible. I enjoy curling up with a good book, a cup of hot chocolate and listening to some good music.

Computer Professional

I am a seasoned computer professional who has been working in this field since the internet was called the ARPANET, and there were fewer than 1,000 sites on the whole thing! In the areas of computers, I’ve probably done it all – everything from building the hardware from scratch to creating the programs which deliver water to several cities in the United States.

For 20 years, I served Trader Joe’s as the Director of Technical Services and Computer Operations, where I managed a group of systems and database administrators. My job was to maintain over 300 Windows servers and 500 workstations, along with six mainframes. One of my responsibilities was to support a fully loaded disaster site, ready to take over the company’s business in the event of a major earthquake, fire, or other calamity.

During the 1980’s and 1990’s I was considered a “guru” and wrote several device drivers for RSTS/E and OpenVMS (back when it was just VMS). I was involved in many projects, including:

Part of the design and implementation team for the first disk defragmenter (Diskit/RSTS/E) and its successor on VMS
Developed a telephone fraud detection system
Implemented and supported numerous accounting packages, a water billing system, and several file repair utilities which fixed problems in internal data structures.

I also helped implement and design the SCADA (System Control And Data Acquisition) systems for North Las Vegas, New Haven, Connecticut and Ojai, California. These systems are responsible for getting the water from the rivers and dams to the customers who drink it.

I am A+, MCSE+I and CIW certified. I’ve been in the computer business for 33 years, beginning with the old PDP-11 systems running RSTS/E and RSX, then moving to VAX/VMS (now called OpenVMS), Macintosh, Windows 95, 98, ME, NT, 2000, 2003, XP, 7, 8 and Vista. I also work with Linux, FreeBSD, AIX, and Unix.

Memberships for Richard Lowe

Writing and Speaking

Alliance of Independent Authors
American Writers & Artists, Inc
Association of Ghostwriters
Clearwater Science Fiction and Fantasy Writing Critique Group
The East Lake Writers Workshop
Florida Writers Association
National Novel Writing Month
Nonfiction Authors Association
Toastmasters

Computers

ACM (Association for Computing Machinery)
IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers)
IWA International Webmasters Association
HWG (HTML Writers Guild)
CAUCE (Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial Email)
DECUS (Digital Equipment Corporation User’s Society, no longer active)

Nature

Where You can Find Richard Lowe

You can find out more about my personal brand and employment history at my LinkedIn page (feel free to connect with me) and you can visit my online photo albums.

I would love to hear from you. Please feel free to send a message; if you’d like to discuss ghostwriting your book, you can book a free consultation.

The Books I’ve Published

Click here for a list of the books written and published under the name Richard Lowe.

Books by Richard G Lowe Jr, available on Amazon in Paperback. Hardcover, Kindle and audiobook formats