The Economics of Writing a Technical Book • Hacker News Board

Re: The Economics of Writing a Technical Book

#21

Post by slothario » Mon, May 07, 2018, 6:54 PM UTC

BrentOzar wrote: post #16

My experience in writing a technical book 8 years ago was the same: https://www.brentozar.com/archive/2010/01/the-economics-of-w... I made more money from Amazon affiliate fees linking to our book than I did the actual book. Way more. If you’re out to make money short term, you’re better off writing book reviews then books. Having said that, the book gave me some credibility with clients for a couple of years when I…

That's the main reason I would write a book: to tell people that I wrote a book.

You can literally say, "I wrote the book on that."

Re: The Economics of Writing a Technical Book

#22

Post by mrbill » Mon, May 07, 2018, 6:59 PM UTC

I've never written an ENTIRE technical book, but I've written a number of chapters for multi-author titles (namely, Solaris certification study books).

I don't remember making more than $500 from any single chapter I wrote - but even that sure came in handy at the time. It was usually done as work-for-hire plus I got a couple copies of each finished book.

Ended up being worth more as lines on my resume than anything else.

Re: The Economics of Writing a Technical Book

#23

Post by adamrmcd » Mon, May 07, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

osteele wrote: post #14

I've been pitched to write books a few times, by editors at reputable technical publishers. (HN readers would recognize the names of the publishers.) One of them told me up front that I would be offered an advance of $8K, that it would take 3-6 months to write the book, and that I shouldn't count on earning back the advance. She was clear that the benefits of authorship were reputational. (The price wasn't why I turn…

I think I had the same publisher. Two books done in 2010 & 2011, same basic results.

What's worse, once they hit the shelves they were already out of date. The publisher had no interest in a second edition.

But, the books look aweseme on my resume/linkedin. Today, I'm on a career path I wouldn't be considered for if it wasn't for these projects.

Re: The Economics of Writing a Technical Book

#24

Post by ninjakeyboard » Mon, May 07, 2018, 7:01 PM UTC

I authored and co-authored some books.

I wrote a book on Akka for Packt that has made maybe 5k. Packt is out of India and they have some different standards around topics and contents, but the experience wasn't much different from O'Reilly overall.

And there was a mini book for O'Reilly that netted a couple k, mostly because of later sponsorship. Writing a book is a really tough experience. I found it taxing. It's interesting going to meetups and having people come up to me and shake my hand though saying they read my book.

I'm not super super happy with either book tbh. It's just such a crazy process to try to get something you're 100% happy with, and once it goes into print that's it forever more.

I would say the impact on my career has been noticeable maybe? You become an expert on a topic by writing well on it because you're forced to fill in all the gaps as you go, and then people give you the credit because you have a book. It sort of happens together when writing a book - becoming an expert and receiving the trust because you're an expert. Even if you thought you knew the subject before, you might find you didn't as well as you do at the end of writing on the topic.

Re: The Economics of Writing a Technical Book

#25

Post by rco8786 » Mon, May 07, 2018, 7:03 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #15

jashmenn wrote: post #13

We've published several books, and the author for our latest Vue book earned $20k on the opening weekend. The economics change completely if you self-publish or publish with a smaller firm that has marketing abilities (and better royalty rates). Self publishing is awesome because you keep all the money, but it takes years to build an audience. Honestly, writing the manuscript is the easy part. Building an audience, m…

Well, the other reason $400k in revenue was possible: you were writing about a popular JavaScript framework. There aren't many topics with such a wide audience.

> There aren't many topics with such a wide audience.

What now? The number of people who develop in angular actively is probably in the low 6 figures. In the context of the world that's a very small audience.

Re: The Economics of Writing a Technical Book

#26

Post by commandlinefan » Mon, May 07, 2018, 7:05 PM UTC

osteele wrote: post #14

I've been pitched to write books a few times, by editors at reputable technical publishers. (HN readers would recognize the names of the publishers.) One of them told me up front that I would be offered an advance of $8K, that it would take 3-6 months to write the book, and that I shouldn't count on earning back the advance. She was clear that the benefits of authorship were reputational. (The price wasn't why I turn…

> the benefits of authorship were reputational

LOL. I published a book through Wiley about 8 years ago. I got an advance which I did earn back, and I'm still earning a small bit on sales every year. Reputational? The only time it's ever come up was when I was interviewing for the job I have now and one of the interviewers asked, "oh, I notice you wrote a book about SSL. Do you know stuff besides SSL though?"

Re: The Economics of Writing a Technical Book

#27

Post by JustinGarrison » Mon, May 07, 2018, 7:09 PM UTC

ninjakeyboard wrote: post #24

I authored and co-authored some books. I wrote a book on Akka for Packt that has made maybe 5k. Packt is out of India and they have some different standards around topics and contents, but the experience wasn't much different from O'Reilly overall. And there was a mini book for O'Reilly that netted a couple k, mostly because of later sponsorship. Writing a book is a really tough experience. I found it taxing. It's in…

I completely agree! I learned a lot through the experience of writing the book. I probably put more thought into the topic than most people during the same time which helped me refine my definitions and become more of an expert as I was figuring things out.

The only difference I think is I'm very happy with how our book turned out. It was a ton of work but I'm grateful that other people have been able to learn from our experience.

Re: The Economics of Writing a Technical Book

#28

Post by JustinGarrison » Mon, May 07, 2018, 7:11 PM UTC

mrbill wrote: post #22

I've never written an ENTIRE technical book, but I've written a number of chapters for multi-author titles (namely, Solaris certification study books). I don't remember making more than $500 from any single chapter I wrote - but even that sure came in handy at the time. It was usually done as work-for-hire plus I got a couple copies of each finished book. Ended up being worth more as lines on my resume than anything…

Did you change jobs? Were you able to negotiate a higher salary because of the book? Seeing as this book was just published in November I'm curious to learn how to leverage it into a more long term success.

Re: The Economics of Writing a Technical Book

#29

Post by dsfyu404ed » Mon, May 07, 2018, 7:11 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #15

jashmenn wrote: post #13

We've published several books, and the author for our latest Vue book earned $20k on the opening weekend. The economics change completely if you self-publish or publish with a smaller firm that has marketing abilities (and better royalty rates). Self publishing is awesome because you keep all the money, but it takes years to build an audience. Honestly, writing the manuscript is the easy part. Building an audience, m…

Well, the other reason $400k in revenue was possible: you were writing about a popular JavaScript framework. There aren't many topics with such a wide audience.

>you were writing about a popular JavaScript framework.

When there's a gold rush on you're more likely to strike it rich selling picks and shovels than mining.

Re: The Economics of Writing a Technical Book

#30

Post by commandlinefan » Mon, May 07, 2018, 7:11 PM UTC

yosito wrote: post #4

Another payout of writing a technical book is that it pretty much solidifies you as an expert in the topic and can be a springboard leading to great job opportunities and things like paid offers to speak or teach. If I ever write a technical book, it won't be for the immediate monetary payout, it will be to solidify expert status in a topic.

I commented above - I published a technical book about 8 years ago, that's been pretty well received (lots of 5-star reviews on Amazon, still selling 8 years later). But boosting my career? Solidifying my expertise in a topic? An MCSE would have done more in that direction than having published a book. Mostly people are just confused when they find out.