Writing a book: is it worth it? • Hacker News Board

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#251

Post by billpollock » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 6:52 AM UTC

aliceryhl wrote: post #193

mceachen wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're fighting activation energy. I'd find a way to make it cheap for you (in time and energy) to iterate such that the one-off content that you're providing can be used as stepping stones to a paragraph, and then a chapter, and then a book. As an example, I've written thousands (!) of customer support messages, via email, chat, or reddit, to help my PhotoStructure beta users. I've found that the second or t…

Yeah, it's definitely activation energy. Once I've actually started working on something, I can do anything, but damn, starting is tough.

Start with a high level outline. Organize. See what that looks like and let me know if you have any questions.

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#252

Post by Cthulhu_ » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 7:52 AM UTC

Thaxll wrote: post #110

ticmasta wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, why would an employer want employees who have the capability to write a book on the payroll? That's time that could be spent heads-down coding!

I'm answering to the 300x engineer quote, an x engineer is in the scope of an employer.

An employer would LOVE to have a 300x engineer on board.

I mean take someone like Martin Fowler who wrote a number of highly influential book and a great website. Every time you look for him, you'll find his company or employer, ThoughtWorks. He and his work have put that company on the map as one of the top consultancy firms; he and his work educate everyone that works for that company, they follow his teachings and mindset, and become "10x" because of it.

Companies would be DESPERATE to hire him. Maybe not the kind of employers you think of, no, and maybe you wouldn't hire him for his 'output', but that's a very superficial way to look at it.

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#253

Post by Cthulhu_ » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 7:56 AM UTC

aliceryhl wrote: post #118

I have spent probably thousands of hours writing random responses helping people on forums, just because its the thing that I do to procrastinate. For example, this year I wrote more than 4000 posts on https://users.rust-lang.org/ and 19000 messages on the help channels in a few Discord servers. I'm probably the world expert at spotting the mistake in small snippets of Rust code at this point. I honestly wish I was a…

Mood; right now I have 6 published posts on my personal blog (hosted on github) spanning 5+ years, as well as a couple on my old company blog, but honestly there's a big hurdle to go from shitposting on the internet to publishing posts.

I do see blogposts as a stepping stone to writing books though.

Anyway I've written thousands if not tens of comments all over the internet, but I also have massive impostor syndrome so I never really look back to see if said comments were appreciated or educational.

I've also been fairly active on the Go slack channel, but very much from a beginner's mindset. 10+ years of software development and I still feel like I'm feeling my way around in the dark.

I've got tons of material to write about though, I really should set aside a couple hours to put things down. I feel like that would be a possible way forwards.

But at the same time I'm pretty terrified of being called out for being wrong; not only because it's confrontational, but because I would have to amend or retire my posts. Call me weird but it's giving me a lot of anxiety.

But, I should probably just bite the bullet and go for it, it'll be a way to improve my confidence and advance in my career, because that's been stuck for a while.

I should look into blogging platforms that are like Twitter, but for longer posts. But not full length ones. IDK

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#254

Post by sacado2 » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 8:03 AM UTC

lentinjoseph wrote: post #113

I'm an author of 8 books in Robotics. Here are some of the lessons I have learned from this. Pros 1) Great visibility in the robotics community 2) Started getting good consulting projects 3) Started getting Royalties(Passive income) 4) People start identifying me in conferences 5) Got the invitation to do research in good universities 6) Got good patience which is very useful while working with the robots 7) Knowledg…

> 2) Started getting good consulting projects 3) Started getting Royalties(Passive income)

Yes, I think technical books are a great marketing asset when you're a consultant / freelancer. It gives you a ton of credibility, more so than one more project to your cv / portfolio. Plus, as a bonus, it provides a few royalties. It's a good way to stand out, too: "Do you have a business card so that I put it with all the other business cards I got today and will forget as soon as I get back home?" "No, Mr. Prospect, but let me give you that book I wrote, you'll enjoy it, and you have my contact info on the first page".

Rather than a potential source of passive income, I tend to see it as a marketing tool that has a very low to negative cost. Seen that way, most of your cons aren't that bad.

If I were a freelancer / consultant, I would definitely write books.

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#255

Post by sacado2 » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 8:20 AM UTC

aliceryhl wrote: post #118

I have spent probably thousands of hours writing random responses helping people on forums, just because its the thing that I do to procrastinate. For example, this year I wrote more than 4000 posts on https://users.rust-lang.org/ and 19000 messages on the help channels in a few Discord servers. I'm probably the world expert at spotting the mistake in small snippets of Rust code at this point. I honestly wish I was a…

Why don't you write a book called "rust gotchas: 4000 subtle ways rust can try to f*ck up with you and how you can defeat it"?

I'm (almost) serious (if you do that, do several, specific titles: "100 lifetime gotchas", "100 traits gotchas", etc.) I've read several books that were little more than short blog posts collections, with a common theme but no real overall structure, and, mind you, some of them were pretty good despite of that, because they solved real problems I had. Some people learn better with a bottom-up approach (i.e seemingly random sequence of independent items that eventually let you grasp the big picture) than top-down (3 parts, with each part having 3 chapters, with each chapter having 5 sections, with each section having...)

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#256

Post by user5994461 » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 8:40 AM UTC

I wonder how the economics have changed between when this book was written (2014) and today?

For reference, there are twice as many books published last year than in 2014. It's cumulative of course, you're competing for limited readers against every book written every year since the dawn of time (unless you're writing on a brand new subject).

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#257

Post by justinclift » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 9:10 AM UTC

aliceryhl wrote: post #118

I have spent probably thousands of hours writing random responses helping people on forums, just because its the thing that I do to procrastinate. For example, this year I wrote more than 4000 posts on https://users.rust-lang.org/ and 19000 messages on the help channels in a few Discord servers. I'm probably the world expert at spotting the mistake in small snippets of Rust code at this point. I honestly wish I was a…

Sounds like you respond more strongly to the social aspects (eg feedback mechanism) of forums.

If you can figure out how to leverage that for channeling into a book or blog posts, that'd probably work.

Maybe the technique mentioned by the OP about "releasing each chapter online as an ebook" would get you some of the way there?

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#258

Post by eicossa » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 9:11 AM UTC

milancurcic wrote: post #149

lentinjoseph wrote: post #113

I'm an author of 8 books in Robotics. Here are some of the lessons I have learned from this. Pros 1) Great visibility in the robotics community 2) Started getting good consulting projects 3) Started getting Royalties(Passive income) 4) People start identifying me in conferences 5) Got the invitation to do research in good universities 6) Got good patience which is very useful while working with the robots 7) Knowledg…

Regarding Con 5), it's generally true with some exceptions. I wrote a Fortran book ( https://www.manning.com/books/modern-fortran ) and expect it to stay fresh for at least several years thanks to the slow pace and the unusually high maturity of the technology. On the downside, it's a relatively narrow niche so I don't expect high total number of sales. For instance, about 800 copies have been pre-ordered in the firs…

I am one of the benfactors of your book. I heavily relied on it while trying to parallelize an ancient geophysical inversion code.

Didn't think i'd actually be responding to an author whose book I have spent multiple hours with.

Thanks for the great book!

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#259

Post by hmcamp » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

lentinjoseph wrote: post #179

langitbiru wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can not fathom how you could write 8 books. I have written one book and got it published on Packt. It was a very tiring process. > 5) Books will outdate very easily (Technical books) I feel you. I wrote a blockchain programming book. It was becoming outdated soon just after the book was being released. The pace of the blockchain technology is very fast.

I have started writing in 2014 and done by 8th book in 2019 I guess. It was just a roller coaster ride. I really like the technology I am working on and very interested in writing tutorials. I think that was the main overriding factor of writing books even though it's having a lot of cons. Still planning to write a book, but this time I will go with self-publishing.

Hi, can you share your process for writing?

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#260

Post by sdevonoes » Wed, Sep 30, 2020, 9:50 AM UTC

libraryofbabel wrote: post #166

st1x7 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can someone expand on why the book is so good? I found it very unremarkable but it's recommended so much around here that I suspect that I've missed something important.

Did you find it unremarkable because you already know the material, or because the material isn't relevant to what you do? Anyway, some reasons: * Draws together a wealth of material on databases and distributed systems that wasn't explained in a systematic, accessible way anywhere else. It provides a map to someone coming to this hard-to-navigate area for the first time. * Great balance between being conversant with…

While I agree with all your points (I also think the book is a good one), I don't agree with the "level up" part. I don't see how, after reading carefully the book, any software engineer can "level up". If you don't have practical experience implementing (or dealing with, or maintaining) some of the scenarios the book talks about, then in no way one can "level up" just by reading the book.