I wrote a book most of a decade back... http://nostarch.com/xen.htm - No-starch approached me, based on some blog posts that I thought were absolutely terrible. Now, I don't know if they just wanted to know if I knew someone, and included the "or you" bit to be polite, but I'm all about grabbing opportunities to do things I'm not qualified to do... as far as I can tell, that's how you get qualified to do things. I th…
Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?
61–70 of 147 posts
Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?
#62I'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…
What's a realistic order-of-magnitude number there? 50? And do you have to agree not to sell them?
Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?
#63What 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…
There is also a ... "business model" ... for technical books which goes like this. Get someone with a PhD to write a book on something. Around the world there are about 300 libraries of record which are legally required to hold a copy of everything published. So you can sell them a book that nobody wants for $200 each. That is $60,000 of sales guaranteed, with minimal requirements for copy editing and other forms of…
Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?
#64E-books are important. They're more than half the unit sales in my case. Look for good e-book royalty rates. Someone mentioned 50% and I have no idea if that's realistic for tech books, but it should certainly be much higher than print. Some tech publishers participate in all-access online libraries, and you get royalties from these too when anyone accesses your book.
Toolchain is important. MS Word intake may mean you'll have less control over quality in post production. O'Reilly can do DocBook/AsciiDoc end to end, and can even push author-submitted ebook updates after launch. Of course if you prefer MS Word and staying hands off in post then great. But I'm always grateful for text markup in a git repo, enough that I'd consider it a big plus when picking from multiple publishers.
When you pick a publisher, make sure that you like their books and would be proud to have a year or two of your own work sitting next to them. Based on stories I've heard from author friends, there seems to be a correlation between production values and author happiness. Typesetting, paper quality, error rates, etc. are all things I care about anyway, and they're also a proxy for other parts of the experience like editorial and technical support. There are big publishers I wouldn't even consider because their catalog is so poor.
Once you start writing, don't stop. Find a steady pace and stick to it. Treat each chapter like a magazine article that's due at the end of the month. The biggest pain for my first book was writing for five months, pausing for two (weekends went to the day job for a bit), then feeling guilty about pausing, procrastinating, and nearly burning out from the stress. The work won't burn you out, the guilt will, so manage the guilt.
My editors were all good people willing to chat, answer questions, and connect me with resources. None of my editors gave me writing feedback. I don't know what's typical in this regard, but I felt quite on my own when it came to drafting and editing. I had mixed feelings about this at first: I was hoping to learn more about writing from an opinionated editor, as with magazine writing or fiction (I imagine). My editors were all good about pestering me for new material on a regular basis, which is a valuable contribution, and we had some good project planning discussions at the beginning.
Keep expectations very low for marketing help from the publisher, especially for niche titles, beyond the publisher brand itself and the occasional full-catalog ebook sale. Ask about marketing channels run by the publisher, such as companion videos, live streaming events, and publisher booths at conferences. Plan to self-promote online, and don't be shy about it. You're writing this book so people will read it, and they can't read it if they don't know about it.
Not sure if this is controversial, but personally I would trade some or all of the advance for a higher royalty. The advance doesn't come close to paying for my time, which means it doesn't shift the risk or up-front production costs to the publisher in a meaningful way. The case where I deliver a completed manuscript but the advance doesn't pay out is one I want to avoid: I want as many people as possible to read my book! If it's a failed investment for the publisher, it's a failed investment for me, even with the advance. One not insignificant advantage of an advance is that it usually pays based on drafting milestones, so it's a nice motivator, but that's merely psychological.
Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
It mostly seems to be, but don't overlook the occasional pearl when they manage to trick a competent person to work for them.
The content of some of their books is written by very capable technical folks. Sadly, being a techy does not make you a good writer. Especially when you're not a native English speaker and are writing in English. What's worse is that their review process seems to be worse than useless. Recently tried to read one of their books, which credited maybe 10 reviewers, and every other line had me cringing so hard it was unr…
I've read an HN thread a few months ago and there was a lot of folks, both readers and writers, complaining about Packt's quality.
Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?
#66As an author of several books with an "established publisher" I guess my main advice is that you know 1000x more about your domain than your publisher and you have a better idea than them what the book should be like so that it will sell a year and a half from now. The best way to write a financially-successful book is not to negotiate the best royalty rates possible, but instead to make sure you write a book people…
Don't rely on any reviewers from the publisher to find mistakes.
Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
By "not very good", do you happen to mean that Packt is a content farm that produces low-quality information written by cheap labor?
It mostly seems to be, but don't overlook the occasional pearl when they manage to trick a competent person to work for them.
Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is also a ... "business model" ... for technical books which goes like this. Get someone with a PhD to write a book on something. Around the world there are about 300 libraries of record which are legally required to hold a copy of everything published. So you can sell them a book that nobody wants for $200 each. That is $60,000 of sales guaranteed, with minimal requirements for copy editing and other forms of…
When I published a book in the UK, we had to send six copies to the UK copyright libraries. They certainly didn't pay for them. So I'm not convinced by this scam.
Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?
#69I have authored a book for Manning (Java testing with Spock) and was approached like you are (they noticed some of my technical articles) My advice 1) Unless you are going to write a big hit, you are not going to earn match. You write a technical book for prestige, not money. Writing a technical book for money is the wrong reason to write it. Stop now. 2)You should really know your topic well. I mean REALLY know it.…
Re: Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I published a book in the UK, we had to send six copies to the UK copyright libraries. They certainly didn't pay for them. So I'm not convinced by this scam.
Same in Poland. There are 15 university libraries that get free copy of any book published in Poland and that's in law.