Writing a Technical Book for Manning
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Writing a Technical Book for Manning
1–10 of 58 posts
Re: Writing a Technical Book for Manning
#2Great post, lots of detail. After reading this I would be more likely to want to publish with and buy from Manning. I’ve been a technical reviewer for Packt, and since doing so would avoid buying any of their books. As a customer of Mannings’, they seem better, and seeing the inside of the process and the amount of review that happens, I think they sound great all things considered.
Re: Writing a Technical Book for Manning
#3Great post, lots of detail. After reading this I would be more likely to want to publish with and buy from Manning. I’ve been a technical reviewer for Packt, and since doing so would avoid buying any of their books. As a customer of Mannings’, they seem better, and seeing the inside of the process and the amount of review that happens, I think they sound great all things considered.
Why would you avoid Packt?
Re: Writing a Technical Book for Manning
#4Great post, lots of detail. After reading this I would be more likely to want to publish with and buy from Manning. I’ve been a technical reviewer for Packt, and since doing so would avoid buying any of their books. As a customer of Mannings’, they seem better, and seeing the inside of the process and the amount of review that happens, I think they sound great all things considered.
I dropped out of being a technical reviewer for Packt after they declined my suggestions about things that were factually wrong, because that's not what they wanted me to review.
They never fixed the many factual inaccuracies before it went to print.
Re: Writing a Technical Book for Manning
#5Great post, lots of detail. After reading this I would be more likely to want to publish with and buy from Manning. I’ve been a technical reviewer for Packt, and since doing so would avoid buying any of their books. As a customer of Mannings’, they seem better, and seeing the inside of the process and the amount of review that happens, I think they sound great all things considered.
I dropped out of being a technical reviewer for Packt after they declined my suggestions about things that were factually wrong , because that's not what they wanted me to review. They never fixed the many factual inaccuracies before it went to print.
I found Packt books to often be of rather poor quality, and I'm now avoiding things published by them. Manning is slightly better, but not that much. I'd consider both brands to be rather poor at reviewing and editing.
Re: Writing a Technical Book for Manning
#6Great post, lots of detail. After reading this I would be more likely to want to publish with and buy from Manning. I’ve been a technical reviewer for Packt, and since doing so would avoid buying any of their books. As a customer of Mannings’, they seem better, and seeing the inside of the process and the amount of review that happens, I think they sound great all things considered.
Why would you avoid Packt?
My impression from everyone I talked to is that Packt does not care about quality or accuracy, but aims to print a book as fast as possible. I also spoke to an author of a Packt book who said they'd never work with them again.
I'd also note that I often find Packt books which don't even spell the name of the topic they're covering correctly, right on the cover.
Re: Writing a Technical Book for Manning
#7Great post, lots of detail. After reading this I would be more likely to want to publish with and buy from Manning. I’ve been a technical reviewer for Packt, and since doing so would avoid buying any of their books. As a customer of Mannings’, they seem better, and seeing the inside of the process and the amount of review that happens, I think they sound great all things considered.
Why would you avoid Packt?
Read few Packt books written by authors that know nothing about the topic of the book.
For example their blender book is absolute trash and waste of time.
https://www.packtpub.com/hardware-and-creative/blender-3d-ba...
Their model in the middle of the book could be made in 5mins. And most of the book author writes about history of animation and other offtopics.
https://subscription.packtpub.com/book/hardware_and_creative...
Re: Writing a Technical Book for Manning
#8Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would you avoid Packt?
My impression from everyone I talked to is that Packt does not care about quality or accuracy, but aims to print a book as fast as possible. I also spoke to an author of a Packt book who said they'd never work with them again. I'd also note that I often find Packt books which don't even spell the name of the topic they're covering correctly, right on the cover.
I see, thank you, that's good to know.
Re: Writing a Technical Book for Manning
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why would you avoid Packt?
Read few Packt books written by authors that know nothing about the topic of the book. For example their blender book is absolute trash and waste of time. https://www.packtpub.com/hardware-and-creative/blender-3d-ba... Their model in the middle of the book could be made in 5mins. And most of the book author writes about history of animation and other offtopics. https://subscription.packtpub.com/book/hardware_and_crea…
Oh wow, that's egregious, thanks.
Re: Writing a Technical Book for Manning
#10Great post, lots of detail. After reading this I would be more likely to want to publish with and buy from Manning. I’ve been a technical reviewer for Packt, and since doing so would avoid buying any of their books. As a customer of Mannings’, they seem better, and seeing the inside of the process and the amount of review that happens, I think they sound great all things considered.
Why would you avoid Packt?
Not the OP but have avoided Packt books for years: I find them to typically exhibit quite low quality of writing and I assert without proof that they lack the rigor in the editing process that more 'serious' publishers have. Also I think it's pretty easy to become a Packt author; some people I've worked with and a friend have been approached by them. Typically I only buy Manning or O'Reilly but I've read a few garbage titles from the latter of late so I suspect that might not hold for much longer. It'll be interesting to see if perceived quality becomes a market differentiator or if tech books at some point become unprofitable.