Bill was originally a chef, working first in London and then Geneva, before returning back to the UK in 1981. His first break as a writer was in 1988 working for cult football magazine When Saturday Comes, where he remained until 1993.

He moved to New York in 1994, where he soon met his writing partner Frank Broughton. Within a fortnight of their meeting they started plotting their first book together. The first collaboration came in 1998 with The Manual, a Ministry Of Sound-branded book, but it was with Last Night A DJ Saved My Life (published in 1999), they began to build a reputation. Subsequent to that, they wrote a further two books, How To DJ (Properly) and The Record Players.