Ask HN: Considerations when asked to write a book?

I will second this. I have had several bad experiences with Packt.

I have written some tech books, one of them best-selling, tech edited others, and written a preface for one. I am also the author of published novels.

The amount of money and contract terms vary widely with the publisher. This is where a contract with one of the big publishers is in your favor. You can also consider self-publishing, but that is a different business model, which I will not cover here.

Don't be afraid to ask for different terms.

In particular:

- You can negotiate for an escalator clause on the royalties. This means that the more books you sell, the higher your rate.

- You can ask for a higher advance or a lower advance and higher royalty rate. You can ask for the advance to be split differently (on contract, 25%, 50%, full MS, final acceptance, etc).

- You should negotiate the option clause. This is the clause that says they get the first option on your next book. Specific terms to negotiate include limiting the scope - not "next book" but "next book on the topic of game development with Python". Also make sure they have a limited time to consider your proposal before deciding to buy it or not. 60 days seems to be a common number, but you can probably negotiate that down.

- Strike any non-compete clauses (that you will not write a book on this topic for anyone else or self publish one).

- Strike any cross-accounting clause. This is where you must earn out the advance on every book you have for a publisher before you can receive royalties on any book (and royalties for book 2 can be counted against the advance for book 1, and so on).

Some publishers pay monthly, some pay quarterly, some bi-annually. Take this into account.

Ask your publisher what their marketing and promotion plan will be for the book. How much support are they putting into it?

Earnings vary a great deal, but I have been very happy over the years, and book earnings have paid large chunks of my mortgage. How much you make depends a lot on the size of the audience, what other books are in the market, the timeliness of the book, and the publisher's approach to distribution and marketing. It tends to be on the small side and I realize my experiences are not typical.

It has opened doors for me and my co-author. We've been offered jobs, contracts, writing opportunities, and speaking opportunities.

I would say this was the best career decision I ever made. It's also draining and time-consuming, so be aware it's a large project.

Good luck!

I've written 3 technical books. I highly recommend talking to an agent. I used studiob.com. Not only will they negotiate money on your behalf, but they'll get crappy clauses taken out. Stuff you've never heard of like "cross accounting clauses". My last contract had a right of first refusal for my next book in their opening offer. The acquisitions editor even laughed when we asked about it because she didn't know it was there.

The agent will take 15% and believe me it's worth it.

Whatever deal you cut, pretend like it's not going to earn out its advance. Because it probably won't. As everyone says, you're not doing it for the money. You're doing it because you love the topic, love to write, and to be seen as an expert in the field. Writing the books themselves earned me very little money. Follow on work, like articles, and using it in salary negotiations, more than paid for itself.

I'd suggest you figure out the book you want to write then shop it around the publishers (again, agent helps). And be picky about the publisher, talk to other authors that used them. They're not all the same. When one publisher hires editors and pays their technical editors and another expects a lot of self-editing and offers a free book to the tech reviewers, the outcomes will be vastly different.

I also wrote a programming book. Expect about an 8% royalty rate, and an advance anywhere from $4k to $8k, paid out in installments as you turn in milestones of the book. Depending on how well your book does, you may never get any more than your advance, or you may get a lot more. I've received about $8k in the two years since the book went on sale, for a total of $16k including my advance.

That may sound like a lot, but keep in mind that it amounts to about $8 per hour based on the amount of work I put into it. It's A LOT of work. But it's very fulfilling, and it's wonderful to receive tweets and reviews from people who your book helped.

Just the Welcome before Chapter 1. Why not just remove the references to IO.js? And explain Node.js.