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Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

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Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#11

Post by tptacek »

joshvm wrote: post #9
nkurz wrote: post #4

The heart of this piece is the author's realization that (relative to their cover price) glossy, expensive cookbooks don't actually cost that much to print: "Until one-day I got lucky. Just by chance I spoke to the print broker who actually worked on the exact bid for that famous book. And he told me precisely: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award…

Well, that and that their initial publishing offer (which is good? I have no experience) is more insulting the more you run through the numbers. On the other hand I've read accounts of people who've published through O'Reilly and were very happy with having a team of people to crunch through the layout, typesetting, etc.

It's insulting for Achatz and Kokanas, but the dirty secret of these advance deals is that while they're certainly tilted towards publishers, book publishing is a losers-pay-for-the-winners business.

That doesn't make book writing for publishers a good deal for anyone, by the way. Executing on a book contract is one of the lower effort/reward things you can do.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#13

Post by cpr »

nickkokonas wrote: post #12

Always exciting to get something up on the hacker news board... weekly reader here for a long time. Happy to answer any questions you may have. -- Nick

Great write-up.

Hey, if you use InDesign and Google Docs, sounds like you could use our DocsFlow plug-in. You're welcome to a free license or two in support of your efforts...

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#14

Post by grepthisab »

qznc wrote: post #10
mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

Great writeup on the under-belly of publishing! The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpu…

This guy [0] thinks mainstream publishers exists mostly for the prestige. [0] https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2017/05/06/crossing-the...

Hard to take this guy seriously. He used to post pretty vile stuff online on a racist message board and had an entire Wikipedia article dedicated to his sockpuppeting.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#15

Post by nickkokonas »

cpr wrote: post #13
nickkokonas wrote: post #12

Always exciting to get something up on the hacker news board... weekly reader here for a long time. Happy to answer any questions you may have. -- Nick

Great write-up. Hey, if you use InDesign and Google Docs, sounds like you could use our DocsFlow plug-in. You're welcome to a free license or two in support of your efforts...

Thank you! I'll let Allen and Sarah know... and reach out.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#16

Post by icantdrive55 »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #2

Great writeup on the under-belly of publishing! The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpu…

Yea, but don't fall into the Vanity Press Club.

Meaning, everyone thinks they have a great novel, or could write non-fiction.

Just watch out for the shady self-publication companies.

Very few books will ever make any money. There's companies that prey on ego.

I have an ex-girlfriend who runs the vanity press part of her company. I look back and remember she saw nothing wrong with cheating while in college, didn't have an original thought the entire time we were together, and her love letters were plagerized. She did like to make money though.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#17

Post by thaumasiotes »

nkurz wrote: post #4

The heart of this piece is the author's realization that (relative to their cover price) glossy, expensive cookbooks don't actually cost that much to print: "Until one-day I got lucky. Just by chance I spoke to the print broker who actually worked on the exact bid for that famous book. And he told me precisely: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award…

> While a weighty tome may literally feel like it's worth a hefty premium

If you asked me what about a big cookbook with glossy pictures would make it cost more than a regular book, I'd go with the glossy pictures, not the mass.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#18

Post by GuiA »

grepthisab wrote: post #14
qznc wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This guy [0] thinks mainstream publishers exists mostly for the prestige. [0] https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2017/05/06/crossing-the...

Hard to take this guy seriously. He used to post pretty vile stuff online on a racist message board and had an entire Wikipedia article dedicated to his sockpuppeting.

Idk about him, and that article is very well written and insightful, with no traces of racism.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#19

Post by designium »

I'm in the process of writing a book about FinTech industry holistically and I'm interested to know if someone has any tip of publishing business-technology book. My target readers are students, professionals either in tech or finance, entrepreneurs and investors.

If anyone could share a bit more about the cost of self publishing would be great.

For some reason, I'm more worried about the copy editing at this point than anything else.

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