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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

#41

Post by mark_l_watson »

ci5er wrote: post #33
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…

> I encourage people to write a book (or books). It is a really fun process. I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but you are insane. I've written a couple for MK and SV and edited a few more conference books and a few more compilations of submitted chapters in an attempt to create a cogently thematic book, and I hated the world, everyone in it and myself. Never again.

Many people agree with you, but I like the process. I do sometimes take a month off with no writing, but not very often.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#42

Post by prawn »

tacomonstrous wrote: post #36
tptacek wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You mean higher effort/reward? Otherwise, I'm confused.

Higher reward/effort?

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#43

Post by austenallred »

The publishing industry is slowly going to unravel.

If you write a very successful book with traditional publishing cut you might make 30-40k. Average is lower. There are power laws at play, but as few as 5% make it past six figures.

So when I wrote a book about step-by-step user acquisition (https://secretsaucenow.com) I self-published. Made $60,000-ish in presales, sold another $60,000 while I was finishing the book. And now pull in 4-8k/month.

If I signed a deal with a publishing company selling the same number of books I would have made ~10k. Instead I found a freelance editor and typesetter ($400), printed the first 100 ($700), and sell the vast majority as eBooks. It's done well, but not earth shatteringly well, and I'm up above $140k in profit.

There is very little reason nowadays, IMO, to not self-publish.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#44

Post by MrMorden »

tomcam wrote: post #34
MrMorden wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big caveat is that Amazon wants you to enroll in the Kindle Unlimited program—and they'll require exclusivity. This is, to be extremely generous, a bad idea for the author.

It is not a requirement of Amazon

Not a requirement that you participate in Kindle Unlimited to sell Kindle ebooks, but Kindle Unlimited requires Amazon exclusivity. (I could have worded that comment better.)

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#45

Post by chrisweekly »

designium wrote: post #19

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 t…

I recently obtained a copy of _Authority_ by Nathan Barry, which seems great so far.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#46

Post by designium »

ghaff wrote: post #30
designium wrote: post #19

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 t…

To add to the comment form nickkokonas, I'd also add that there is a distinction between editing/tech review and copy-editing. They can be done by the same person, especially if you've had at least some serious read-throughs by people you trust who are familiar with the field. But you basically need a content review and a review for flow/grammar/spelling/etc. I've self-published but my objective has never been to mak…

Thanks! I haven't thought of content reviewer but that makes sense. The only issueis that the reviewer would have to know both Finance and Technology, similarly like myself.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#47

Post by designium »

nickkokonas wrote: post #24
designium wrote: post #19

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 t…

You can easily hire a professional copy-editor. In fact, in many instances publishers hire outside third-party experts depending on the subject of the book. Publishing a text-only book with no or minimal pictures is shocking inexpensive.

That's a great insight. I am planning to add some graphs but theycanbe black and white. Maybe that doesn't add much additional cost?

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#48

Post by Mikeb85 »

kevinmchugh wrote: post #39
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

What drove the decision to forgo a recipe tester? Is it at all driven by the target audience? Will the new book have a professional tester, or does the subject matter make a tester even less necessary?

Why would you need a recipe tester for recipes from an award winning restaurant? The audience likely isn't regular home cooks, rather professionals and serious 'foodies'.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#49

Post by dragonwriter »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #48
kevinmchugh wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What drove the decision to forgo a recipe tester? Is it at all driven by the target audience? Will the new book have a professional tester, or does the subject matter make a tester even less necessary?

Why would you need a recipe tester for recipes from an award winning restaurant? The audience likely isn't regular home cooks, rather professionals and serious 'foodies'.

Recipes intended for home cooks from a restaurant are generally, as I understand, not the preparation methods actually used in the restaurant, because home and restaurant equipment is different, and restaurant cooking relied on par cooking and other techniques to optimize order to delivery time.

Re: Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook

#50

Post by puranjay »

austenallred wrote: post #43

The publishing industry is slowly going to unravel. If you write a very successful book with traditional publishing cut you might make 30-40k. Average is lower. There are power laws at play, but as few as 5% make it past six figures. So when I wrote a book about step-by-step user acquisition ( https://secretsaucenow.com ) I self-published. Made $60,000-ish in presales, sold another $60,000 while I was finishing the b…

There's one thing you have to factor: the near-instant credibility a physical book published by a big-name publisher gets you.

This credibility can often turn into some very lucrative gigs.

I wouldn't mind publishing fiction myself, but if I was doing non-fiction, I would want to go through traditional publishing.

It doesn't really matter whether people like, say, Malcolm Gladwell made any money off their books. The credibility their books earned them pays off in the longer run.

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