Real Engineering Practice And Publications

I was talking to someone about doing some real engineering work today (in the pharma sector), and he told me my CV didn't look like one for a proper design engineer any more, because I had written "about 31" books. I have probably got around 31 publications, but only four of them are whole books. 

I do however know what he means. Practicing engineers (with a few notable exceptions like me and Norm Lieberman) don't usually write much, which is part of how academia has lost its way. 

I had to explain that my detour into academia for a few years was primarily responsible. Seeing that academics only had available to them books written by people who never practiced engineering to teach from led me to write them some books informed by practice.

Though some second- (and tenth-) rate academics were offended by the idea that they might learn something from someone who had decades of practical experience which they did not, some of these books are pretty popular in academia. I consequently have a ranking by references appropriate to the associate professor/professor level appointments I once held in academia.

I knew that this was of no use whatsoever in the eyes of practitioners, but I hadn't realized before today that it was worse than useless. I may need to drop the doctorate and the publications entirely, and gloss over my time in academia. It was only five years of my thirty plus since graduation. I'm an engineer who writes., not a writer with an interest in engineering.