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Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?

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Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?

#31

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

patio11 wrote: post #14

What is a fair, market-rate deal for a first-time technical author writing about a popular subject? You're going to be shocked and dismayed by the offer they give you. Let's get that out of the way now. This is the model: they'll tell you to not do it for the money, in exactly those words, prior to explaining to you terms which imply that they're not doing it for ~92.5% of the money. You will likely be offered someth…

I asked someone who does this. Somewhat transcribed comments:

Expect $0 to $3k from a really shitty publisher who is probably just going to waste your time, or a serious publisher who believes you'll waste the publisher's time, or both.

$3k to $6k from a publisher who has some clue, but the topic is extremely niche. ("Pentesting South African Wifi Networks with Monads")

$6k to $12k from a publisher with some clue for a book that will sell fairly well to a big niche developer audience - something like a developer guide to Android or iOS.

$12k to $25k for super-popular consumer tech books for mainstream topics like macOS, iOS, and so on.

Royalty rates are 8% to 12%, maybe 15% for someone with a track record. (8% and $5k is standard for mid-list unproven fiction. Tech rates can be higher.)

Watch out for comedy royalty rates on ebooks. (15% on a downloadable file? 50% or GTFO.)

True: advances don't usually earn out. And if you write more than one book the unrecouped advances get added together, so you will never, ever, earn out, unless a book becomes an unexpected best-seller.

Which it won't, because publishers do not promote books. There's a sell-in period aimed at store buyers before publication to get the book on physical shelves, but otherwise publishers do somewhere between exactly zero and almost zero marketing and promotion.

Bottom line: writing books on its own is largely a waste of time, unless you want to research a topic and get paid to learn it and don't mind producing a book to pay for the payment.

Writing books as shop windows for other tutorial content and/or consultancy can work very well.

People who know what they're talking about, can write to a deadline and make sense, and are willing to accept pocket money are incredibly rare. Publishers often trawl for new writers, and if they find someone who is all of the above and not too easy to flatter they may be willing to push the advance higher than usual to close the deal.

Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?

#32

Post by destructionator »

baudehlo wrote: post #27
patio11 wrote: post #14

What is a fair, market-rate deal for a first-time technical author writing about a popular subject? You're going to be shocked and dismayed by the offer they give you. Let's get that out of the way now. This is the model: they'll tell you to not do it for the money, in exactly those words, prior to explaining to you terms which imply that they're not doing it for ~92.5% of the money. You will likely be offered someth…

I'd be shocked if anyone got a 4 figure advance. I got a few hundred dollars for an XML book in the height of the XML times. Ultimately the book never got finished but everyone I know who has written a tech book (unless it's a huge seller) says expect nothing more than lunch money from it, plus the employment opportunities.

My book (my first and only) " rel="nofollow">https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/d-cookbook> got $3000 advance, plus an on-time completion bonus, and now, two years later, continues to pay me ~$200 royalty checks in excess of the advance every quarter...

That's not a large sum of money, considering that it took about 6 months of nights and weekends it took to write the book, but it isn't nothing either.

Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?

#33

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

baudehlo wrote: post #27
patio11 wrote: post #14

What is a fair, market-rate deal for a first-time technical author writing about a popular subject? You're going to be shocked and dismayed by the offer they give you. Let's get that out of the way now. This is the model: they'll tell you to not do it for the money, in exactly those words, prior to explaining to you terms which imply that they're not doing it for ~92.5% of the money. You will likely be offered someth…

I'd be shocked if anyone got a 4 figure advance. I got a few hundred dollars for an XML book in the height of the XML times. Ultimately the book never got finished but everyone I know who has written a tech book (unless it's a huge seller) says expect nothing more than lunch money from it, plus the employment opportunities.

My source tells me that low five figure advances happen regularly for the right topics, and four figures aren't unusual at all.

In fact she's just received mid four figures for about two weeks of repurposing - i.e. cutting and pasting - content that was already written and needed some reformatting and light editing.

This isn't common, but it does happen.

A few hundred dollars is more of an insult/negotiating wipe out than a real advance.

Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?

#34

Post by syngrog66 »

Manning once offered me the co-authorship of Hello Python for 5% royalties and (unspecified, possibly 0) advance. To collaborate with an Australian co-author in an Australian timezone. I declined. Figured if I wanted to write a Python book I could do it for sole authorship, at time and pace most convenient to me, for 100% ownership, 80-95% royalty, most format freedom, etc. with the biggest loss being less marketing power. To this day, not sure if I made the right choice or wrong choice. But declining appeared right at the time.

Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?

#35

Post by [deleted] »

cheez wrote: post #15
patio11 wrote: post #14

What is a fair, market-rate deal for a first-time technical author writing about a popular subject? You're going to be shocked and dismayed by the offer they give you. Let's get that out of the way now. This is the model: they'll tell you to not do it for the money, in exactly those words, prior to explaining to you terms which imply that they're not doing it for ~92.5% of the money. You will likely be offered someth…

TL;DR self publish

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?

#36

Post by solutionyogi »

destructionator wrote: post #32
baudehlo wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be shocked if anyone got a 4 figure advance. I got a few hundred dollars for an XML book in the height of the XML times. Ultimately the book never got finished but everyone I know who has written a tech book (unless it's a huge seller) says expect nothing more than lunch money from it, plus the employment opportunities.

My book (my first and only) " rel="nofollow">https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/d-cookbook> got $3000 advance, plus an on-time completion bonus, and now, two years later, continues to pay me ~$200 royalty checks in excess of the advance every quarter... That's not a large sum of money, considering that it took about 6 months of nights and weekends it took to write the book, but it isn't nothing either.

Link is broken.

Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?

#38

Post by pmiller2 »

jonshariat wrote: post #30

I'm currently an author with O'Reilly, writing about the design space. ( http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920038887.do ) I am in the final stages after over a year and half. I was in your position not too long ago and researched as much as I could before accepting, so I will skip things you will find in a quick Google search. Negotiating: 1. Everything is negotiable, remember that 2. Under promise on #pages, they…

I can tell you have actual experience here. These are the same things I've heard people I know who have written books say.

Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?

#39

Post by prawn »

patio11 wrote: post #14

What is a fair, market-rate deal for a first-time technical author writing about a popular subject? You're going to be shocked and dismayed by the offer they give you. Let's get that out of the way now. This is the model: they'll tell you to not do it for the money, in exactly those words, prior to explaining to you terms which imply that they're not doing it for ~92.5% of the money. You will likely be offered someth…

Had an experience that gels with this. Advance of $1k per chapter (I wrote 3 chapters of an 8-10 chapter book) then without the publisher pushing it aggressively, royalties beyond that were minimal. The content did not date too badly so much as the presentation of it did.

Deadlines were brutal, especially incorporating edits and requests to expand/etc. That was a brain-melting experience. Sourcing and providing screenshots was particularly annoying.

Be prepared for it to be tougher than you expect and (as Patrick said) not to earn anything after the advance. Just when you feel like you're done, they'll come back with edits that double your workload.

Before long in my writing experience, I had "THINK ABOUT THE MONEY" taped to the top of my monitor. It was the only way I got through it. Interesting to do it once, but I'm not sure that I'd do it again for a publisher.

Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?

#40

Post by prawn »

baudehlo wrote: post #27
patio11 wrote: post #14

What is a fair, market-rate deal for a first-time technical author writing about a popular subject? You're going to be shocked and dismayed by the offer they give you. Let's get that out of the way now. This is the model: they'll tell you to not do it for the money, in exactly those words, prior to explaining to you terms which imply that they're not doing it for ~92.5% of the money. You will likely be offered someth…

I'd be shocked if anyone got a 4 figure advance. I got a few hundred dollars for an XML book in the height of the XML times. Ultimately the book never got finished but everyone I know who has written a tech book (unless it's a huge seller) says expect nothing more than lunch money from it, plus the employment opportunities.

I posted above, but a few years back we received $1k per chapter in advance. Four people co-wrote the book, each taking 1-4 chapters from memory.
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