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

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#71

Post by brendangregg » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

kevstev wrote: post #44

He kind of touches upon it, but there is a lot of value in being able to go into an interview and literally being able to say about a topic "I wrote the book on it." It's a tremendous signal to have overcome the hurdles of getting a publisher to accept you and print your book with your name on it. I used to have several guys on my team that had published books- and they were great, and were constantly getting contact…

I'm pretty sure if I showed up to a performance engineering job interview and said "I wrote the book on performance," as though that was what mattered most, I'd be shown the door. In my opinion it would be horrendously arrogant. In fact, I interviewed at Google while I was writing Systems Performance for Prentice Hall, and I never mentioned it in the interviews for that reason. In such interviews I'm focused on what value I can bring to the company -- what problems I can help them solve in the future. I'm not there to coast on my prior reputation.

Also, regarding "overcome the hurdles": those hurdles are now practically non-existent with various publishers. This results in books on the topic that should never have been published.

I could explain in more detail, but there's a lot of negative connotations with technical book authorship, which I work to overcome in such interviews and in roles. Does the author care more about working on their reputation than working for the company? Did the author only write the book to make an exaggerated name for themselves for the benefit of job interviews? (As you suggested in your opening sentence :-) I personally only write books when I'm already the expert on the topic, and it's a way to share my expertise.

Another interview I had years ago, after telling them about my first book, the interviewer said "so you know the theory, but can you put it in practice?" The assumption being "those that can do, those that can't write books." I was in a worse position for letting them know about it.

And of course, there can be positives for writing books. You are showing a willingness to share your knowledge with others. (You can do that in blog posts as well.)

Edit: added missing word "interview"

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#72

Post by aazaa » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 5:16 PM UTC

> It would be interesting to compare it to working on open source software, another activity that can have significant positive impact but is difficult to get paid for. I don’t have a strong opinion on this at the moment.

Does anyone have views from having tried to do both - book and open source project?

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#73

Post by auggierose » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

brendangregg wrote: post #71

kevstev wrote: post #44

He kind of touches upon it, but there is a lot of value in being able to go into an interview and literally being able to say about a topic "I wrote the book on it." It's a tremendous signal to have overcome the hurdles of getting a publisher to accept you and print your book with your name on it. I used to have several guys on my team that had published books- and they were great, and were constantly getting contact…

I'm pretty sure if I showed up to a performance engineering job interview and said "I wrote the book on performance," as though that was what mattered most, I'd be shown the door. In my opinion it would be horrendously arrogant. In fact, I interviewed at Google while I was writing Systems Performance for Prentice Hall, and I never mentioned it in the interviews for that reason. In such interviews I'm focused on what…

Sounds to me like a good way to weed out bad employers. If they think of a book as a negative, they probably have a few chips on their shoulders. Also, you sound overly modest to me.

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#74

Post by OJFord » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

User23 wrote: post #52

OJFord wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely that doesn't work if it's 'just' some self-published book the interviewers haven't heard of? I don't mean any disrespect to yours at all (since I've never read any book on React, so I can say with certainty not your (unshared name) book on React) but anyone can write a bad book and start selling (or rather, 'offering for sale') PDFs/ePubs on their website ( I've thought about doing it!) that shouldn't make the…

Check GP's profile. The info you're asking about is there.

I'm not really asking for any info, I'm assuming that if that's really worked as described for k___, then their book is well known or regarded in React circles, and that's why.

I don't think that's a good reason to do it, because well-regarded authors didn't become so by writing any old book - they either already were, or they wrote a bloody good one.

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#75

Post by raziel2701 » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 5:21 PM UTC

steveklabnik wrote: post #6

dbrueck wrote: post #4

I wrote a book back in 2000 and it's one of those glad-I-did-it-but-never-again experiences. I think the author nailed it with, "I strongly recommend that you estimate the value of your future royalties to be close to zero." Do it as a way to give back / contribute to a topic you are passionate about, do it for the amazing learning experience, do it for the challenge. And then if you also make some money off it, that…

I'm not sure where I first heard this, but I feel it, even as I think about writing more: "everyone loves having written a book, not so much writing a book."

Taleb has a response about this in Antifragile: "A friend who writes books remarked that painters like painting but authors like “having written.” I suggested he stop writing, for his sake and the sake of his readers."

The greater context of the above was dealing with procrastination: Since procrastination is a message from our natural willpower via low motivation, the cure is changing the environment, or one’s profession, by selecting one in which one does not have to fight one’s impulses.

Not having written a book I don't know what the scars are about writing one that make the process very painful,I don't know if it's the writing itself, or the editing and getting feedback that makes it painful. But maybe procrastination does play a role, especially when one reflects on how much time they've wasted.

So to stop procrastinating, change your environment or profession to one where you don't fight your natural impulses. Easier said than done in this world though.

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#76

Post by yroc92 » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

brendangregg wrote: post #71

kevstev wrote: post #44

He kind of touches upon it, but there is a lot of value in being able to go into an interview and literally being able to say about a topic "I wrote the book on it." It's a tremendous signal to have overcome the hurdles of getting a publisher to accept you and print your book with your name on it. I used to have several guys on my team that had published books- and they were great, and were constantly getting contact…

I'm pretty sure if I showed up to a performance engineering job interview and said "I wrote the book on performance," as though that was what mattered most, I'd be shown the door. In my opinion it would be horrendously arrogant. In fact, I interviewed at Google while I was writing Systems Performance for Prentice Hall, and I never mentioned it in the interviews for that reason. In such interviews I'm focused on what…

A prototypical Hacker News reply.

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#77

Post by Thaxll » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 5:24 PM UTC

geerlingguy wrote: post #8

My favorite line in the post, and one that inspires my own efforts lately: > How to be a 10x engineer: help ten other engineers be twice as good. Producing high-quality educational materials enables you to be a 300x engineer.

Writing a book does not add value to your employer, enabling engineers in the world is one thing but it does not affect your day to day job or people arround you.

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#78

Post by ghaff » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #35

k__ wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I wrote a book about React and after that didn't get asked stupid interview questions anymore.

Surely that doesn't work if it's 'just' some self-published book the interviewers haven't heard of? I don't mean any disrespect to yours at all (since I've never read any book on React, so I can say with certainty not your (unshared name) book on React) but anyone can write a bad book and start selling (or rather, 'offering for sale') PDFs/ePubs on their website ( I've thought about doing it!) that shouldn't make the…

I don't disagree in that a publisher provides some quality floor and they presumably wouldn't have taken your book on if they already have a superior library on the same topic.

That said, put a self-published book on your site and someone can tell pretty quickly from a few minutes with the PDF if it's obviously bad. (Honestly, if I'm doing a book primarily for reputational purposes and I self-publish, I will (and have) just given it away for free.

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#79

Post by TheOtherHobbes » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

It's been noted before that these highly specific niche titles can do very well.

You need a topic where the people who work in it are well paid, even by SV standards, and you can save them a lot of time and effort by condensing the state of the art into actionable information and examples.

So this is not "writing a book" - this is writing a book for a niche market that will pay well for non-obvious high-value technical content.

Something like "Xcode for Beginners" will not be nearly as successful - especially not now that app dev is so established.

Even though Xcode has a lot of quirks, the features and the build process aren't too much of a mystery and most people in the industry will be able to work out the essentials for themselves.

Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?

#80

Post by ghaff » Tue, Sep 29, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

dvt wrote: post #70

ghaff wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a tremendous signal to have overcome the hurdles of getting a publisher to accept you and print your book with your name on it. And I'd add that this is the real value IMO of going with a name publisher--which is otherwise a bit of a mixed bag. Fairly or not a lot of people mentally make at least a bit of mental deduction for a book published independently.

This would be nice if it were actually true. My credentials are pretty top-notch (including writing one book, and editing another) but I still get asked to invert binary trees. I love writing (and I’m working on another book), but other than maybe getting you in the door, you’ll still have to deal with typical tech interview nonsense.

I haven't switched companies since I've written books (and am not a developer anyway) so I can't say about technical interviews. But it's definitely helped me in other ways within my company, with partner companies, etc.