Writing a book: is it worth it?

First book (2013) did extremely well and continues to sell well. Lots of good press, translated into multiple languages, excerpts in a national magazine, promotion on a network TV show. Second book (2014) tanked hard. Third book (2019) looked like it would suffer the same fate as the second, but sales have been slowly inching up. Fourth book (2020) has seen abysmal sales, likely because of the pandemic, but it's a direct sequel to the first book and there are opportunities for cross-promotion, so I'm hoping sales eventually pick up.

I've been fortunate that throughout the course of writing these books, I've had a full-time job that pays the bills, so any advances or royalties have been gravy.

But if I could give advice to those who are interested in writing a book, it would be this:

* Unless this is purely a vanity project, do not go in the red. I would not have written my books if I hadn't gotten book deals. I wouldn't have put myself in the red by hiring an editor, a proofreader, an illustrator, a designer, a publicist, etc., which is what you likely will have to do to produce a quality book when self-publishing. A "you have to spend money to earn money" mindset is not the best mindset to have in a category where relatively few books succeed.

* Publishers these days aren't looking for good writers or great writers. They're looking for marketable books in established categories written by half-decent writers with solid platforms. There are certainly exceptions to that, but you can't hurt your chances by strengthening your platform or doing your own market research before even approaching an agent. (By platform I mean a built-in audience -- people to whom you can market the book. For better or worse, this means having lots of newsletter subscribers, YouTube subscribers, a big social media presence, blog readers, etc.)

* If you are an introvert, you will likely find being an author uncomfortable. You might have no problem with the often solitary task of writing the book. But the hardest part (and potentially the most time-consuming part) of being an author is not the writing itself but the marketing and promotion that comes afterward. Don't expect to be able to lean on your publisher for this. After a brief promotional blitz around pub day, you're likely on your own.

* There is a quote attributed to a number of famous writers: "I hate writing, but I love having written." I can all but assure you that if you're working on a book of any decent length or depth, you will reach an "I hate this" moment. But once the book is published, for the rest of your life you get to say that you're an author. It's a pretty cool feeling.

There’s nothing HN typical about him :)

> Also, you sound overly modest to me.

This was my reaction as well. Absolutely no offense to the parent comment, but this sounds like a combination of being overly modest + getting bitten by dumb behaviors by bad companies.

There's also a big difference between:

- Strut into the interview. Drop a copy of your book on the table. "I literally wrote the book - hire me"

And

- "Tell me about yourself" ... "Well, I'm bla bla bla, passionate about xyz, oh, and passionate to the point that I wrote a book about xyz if you're interested in the details"

If you're an arrogant ass, yeah, the book is a liability. But unless you really dislike the thing you wrote and want to squash it, the fact that you wrote a book at all, much less the subject, says something about you as a person. Others in this thread have talked about the positive signals this sends so I won't re-hash those here.

I think one thing that helps, is to have a "timeless topic." People still read Knuth's stuff, and Steve McConnell's Rapid Development is just as valid today, as it was, 25 years ago.

Can you expand on that?

Very interesting comment, thank you!