Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why to Not Write a Book

gwern.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 215 posts

Re: Why to Not Write a Book

#181

Post by gknoy »

Good grief, Gwern is a treasure. Every time I stumble across a link to something they've written, it's chock-full of side quest links to things that are _absolutely amazing_. I happened to leave my mouse briefly over one of the drop-caps, and it turns out there's an entire page dedicated to _generating drop-caps_ with AI, as well as showcasing all sorts of stuff.

"Thank you for making such awesome stuff" seems so pedestrian of a reaction. This is like looking at a fractal cathedral made by one person, where every time I look at it it's a hologram of something amazing and beautiful that I didn't even know was possible.

Re: Why to Not Write a Book

#182

Post by bonoboTP »

sph wrote: post #154
guitarlimeo wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "And now, in the current era of the remake, which still has to reach the film industry" You haven't heard of the Disney live-action remakes of the old classics? It's already starting to happen.

I am not at all surprised. It's pure exploitation of a bias of human psychology: we do not like to leave our comfort zone, that's a fact. Why should they try to risk making something original, when remaking stuff that already exists guarantees you an audience and packed theatres? We had the decade of superhero flicks, we're entering the decade of remakes and re-imagining of beloved franchises of the past 100 years.

What if the 20th century was the unusual time? How much "novel IP" was produced before, in the majority of human history and before? My impression is that inventing unique "3D" characters became common in the modern era. In deep time, people told stories with their cast of characters from their mythology, legends and sages. Folk tales are often written about trope, archetypal characters that are flat and predictable by modern standards.

The expectation that new stories must be set in a freshly created "universe" with fully new characters is quite new. We may be returning to that old mode of storytelling where we repeat more. Just as people still play Shakespeare with new actors each time, why can't we retell a 20th century film with today's actors and technology? And why can't we make sequels about already beloved and known characters? Seems quite natural in fact.

We now have a new canon for this era, and it consists of superman, and Darth Vader etc.

The one (big) difference of course is that in the old times there was no concept of copyright and trademarks so people were free to recombine characters as they wished.

Re: Why to Not Write a Book

#183

Post by Einenlum »

andai wrote: post #133
Einenlum wrote: post #47

Oh boy. I can relate so much to this article and everything said here. I published a book last year and it has been a long journey. It took me one year and a half to write it. But then when you think it's done, it's just a second challenge coming up. I wanted to write a book that was as straight-to-the-point as possible. The publisher I signed with didn't really understand my approach and wanted me to turn it into a…

Without additional context, my guess is that you could have sold more if you had gotten more exposure. If the quality is good and there is a market for it, then it's only potential readers not knowing about it that prevents them from buying it.

I should have mentioned this part indeed. Finding a publisher and following their process is already a hard path. But if you decide to self-publish (which I did) then a whole new story begins. Being a good author is not what matters at this point. You'll need good communication skills and a strategy to get some visibility. You'll need to market your "product" and feel at ease with this. A self-published book can be amazingly written, but without a very good strategy it's a book no one will read, sadly (especially if your audience is very niche, like mine). It's the part I feel the least comfortable with, so I have to accept the very limited reach.

Re: Why to Not Write a Book

#184

Post by vouaobrasil »

tinybrain wrote: post #121
vouaobrasil wrote: post #10

The main reason not to write a book is that the topic doesn't need a book-length treatment, and would be better as an article. Fiction of course is one thing, but even then, some fictional ideas and personality combinations are better as short stories. Personally, as a reader, I find a lot of book ideas interesting (especially in the realm of popular science), but I can stomach very few of them because they are exces…

This is my #1 gripe with non-fiction books. Way too wordy, too many anecdotes, just spit it out already. Please value my time as the reader. I read a lot of books, but I feel like I’m allocating more mental energy skimming half the content than I am absorbing knowledge. 37signals/Basecamp had some illuminating things to say about their book experiences. They kept fighting with the publisher to make their book short,…

Well, I think the problem is the market. When I was a teenager, I didn't mind reading all that stuff because it was all new to me. Now that I've read hundreds of books, I just want the new stuff, which occurs at more infrequent intervals in books do to past reading.

But people who have read a lot are not the main market for any book, unfortunately and seemingly paradoxically.

Re: Why to Not Write a Book

#185

Post by Einenlum »

ghaff wrote: post #163
Einenlum wrote: post #47

Oh boy. I can relate so much to this article and everything said here. I published a book last year and it has been a long journey. It took me one year and a half to write it. But then when you think it's done, it's just a second challenge coming up. I wanted to write a book that was as straight-to-the-point as possible. The publisher I signed with didn't really understand my approach and wanted me to turn it into a…

The advantage of a publisher like Apress or O'Reilly is a lot of people still attach probably excessive value to the publisher pedigree. The downside, as you say, is that they control length, format, pricing, deadlines, etc. I went through the publisher route once through two editions and, on net, I'm glad I did but I've also self-published in no small part because I'd rather write some more bite-size books on narrow…

I agree. Being published by a big name gives you some credibility right away. The issue I personally had with the publisher I signed with (one that you mentioned) is the quality of their products. And I don't mean this specific publisher: it's the whole industry that is mostly broken. I'm not even talking about the content here, only the presentation.

Most publishers can't provide good syntax highlighting for their programming books: mine didn't provide any (we're in 2024 and it's supposedly their domain of expertise so I'm baffled), and their ePub books are generally almost unreadable. I didn't want to make my readers pay $35 or $40 for a book that doesn't provide the basics of what you could expect from a programming book. In my case, the challenge was even bigger cause my book is about two programming languages and I needed syntax highlighting for both and a different theme for each. I don't think I've seen this anywhere yet in the "professional" programming book industry.

Re: Why to Not Write a Book

#186

Post by joenot443 »

smikhanov wrote: post #81
mewse wrote: post #55

I can't stop thinking about this throwaway parenthetical at the start of the blog post: > [...] for many writers, writing a book is about the last thing they should do (unless they feel a book bursting out of them, much like a facehugger). Now, as we all know, the aliens that burst out of people in the Aliens franchise are called 'chestbursters'. "Facehuggers", by comparison, are hatched from alien eggs. So in this m…

Considering how tooth-achingly boring the original post is, this is the best kind of feedback for it.

I found it super readable. I think it helps a lot if you’re familiar with the other authors Gwern is referencing.

Re: Why to Not Write a Book

#188

Post by gwern »

pessimizer wrote: post #177
mewse wrote: post #55

I can't stop thinking about this throwaway parenthetical at the start of the blog post: > [...] for many writers, writing a book is about the last thing they should do (unless they feel a book bursting out of them, much like a facehugger). Now, as we all know, the aliens that burst out of people in the Aliens franchise are called 'chestbursters'. "Facehuggers", by comparison, are hatched from alien eggs. So in this m…

What I think happened is that he said "facehugger" when he meant "chestbuster," likely because 1) the word "chestbuster" almost repeats the word "bursting," and 2) everyone knows that a chestbuster is the only notable symptom (aside from hunger and sudden indigestion) of having been attacked by a facehugger. You've introduced eggmorphing (the transformation of people and other animals into eggs), which is not canon b…

"Facehugger" is a lot more familiar a term, and yeah, I didn't even realize there was a difference because a facehugger leads to bursting-chests, at least in what I remember of the 3 Alien movies I watched. (I also keep thinking of 'facehuggers' thanks to the AI startup Hugging Face. Every time I see their logo+name, I think again to myself, 'what a bizarre brand, it looks like _Alien_, like the poor emoji guy is about have his chest burst from the face-hugging alien'.)

But since the term is apparently not technically correct (which as we all know, is the best - indeed, only - kind of correctness), I have changed it.

Re: Why to Not Write a Book

#189

Post by gwern »

sandworm101 wrote: post #113
mewse wrote: post #55

I can't stop thinking about this throwaway parenthetical at the start of the blog post: > [...] for many writers, writing a book is about the last thing they should do (unless they feel a book bursting out of them, much like a facehugger). Now, as we all know, the aliens that burst out of people in the Aliens franchise are called 'chestbursters'. "Facehuggers", by comparison, are hatched from alien eggs. So in this m…

And they are most fun when their author actually understands the subject. Don't make a trek reference unless you know your Kirks from your Spocks.

This is a strange comparison. It is a humorous throwaway line about SF, where the actual 'subject' is not SF at all. (It's nonfiction writing.) That aside, your Kirk/Spock comparison is also wrong: the difference between Kirk and Spock is not a minor terminological quibble over a monster's name (which was not even the most important monster of that movie). The relationship of Kirk/Spock is the heart of _Star Trek_, the dramatic core, as they oppose and support each other. Even I, a non-Star Trek fan, know that!

Re: Why to Not Write a Book

#190

Post by ghaff »

bonoboTP wrote: post #178
ghaff wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who gave hundreds of talks and wrote at least hundreds of articles etc. over the years, I basically agree. Some I look back on as being particular insightful or clever. But you pretty much have to mostly crank at least to a minimum standard. And, yes, there's a lot of reuse in various ways.

Yes, I'm not trying to disparage it too much, it's just the reality of the job. But I found that even junior PhD students can have a romantic illusion that real scientists just spend their time musing and thinking and sometimes they have a flash of insight which they then enthusiastically share with the others. But the more mundane reality is that papers are projects with their own life cycle. You have to be on time,…

I've even had this discussion with people in at least adjacent roles to mine. We could put together ten very serviceable conference submittals tomorrow that we could spend a week turning into very competent conference presentations within a week. They wouldn't be brilliant but they'd be "good" relative to the norm. It's just one of the things we can crank out like we crank out blogs/columns.
Post reply on HN