Writing a book: is it worth it?
martin.kleppmann.com
Writing a book: is it worth it?
1–10 of 299 posts
Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?
#2As far as I can tell, writing and publishing a dead-tree book is the best/only way to get on NPR.
As far as I'm concerned, that's the only purpose dead-tree books serve anymore.
Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?
#3Martin deserves every penny of his hard-work on Designing Data Intensive Applications. Experienced engineers can easily use the book as a reference and you can give the book to smart junior engineers to give them a great foundation.
Honestly, the best technical book I’ve ever owned.
Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?
#4I 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's just icing on the cake.
Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?
#5As far as I can tell, writing and publishing a dead-tree book is the best/only way to get on NPR. As far as I'm concerned, that's the only purpose dead-tree books serve anymore.
Technical books in print are generally better formatted than their e-book cousins (O'Reilly's digital library, Kindle) unless they're PDFs. This has a major impact on readability if there are significant amounts of diagrams or code samples or tables in the text.
Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?
#6I 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."
Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?
#7Martin deserves every penny of his hard-work on Designing Data Intensive Applications. Experienced engineers can easily use the book as a reference and you can give the book to smart junior engineers to give them a great foundation. Honestly, the best technical book I’ve ever owned.
I agree - a fantastic book! I have written a longish summary/review of it, including the reasons why I liked it so much:
https://henrikwarne.com/2019/07/27/book-review-designing-dat...
Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?
#8My 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.
Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?
#9Even if you earned $0 from your book, I'd say being able to tell people you wrote a book at interviews and on your resume, and even at parties, would make it worth it.
And you'd be able to call yourself an author, how cool is that?
Re: Writing a book: is it worth it?
#10As far as I can tell, writing and publishing a dead-tree book is the best/only way to get on NPR. As far as I'm concerned, that's the only purpose dead-tree books serve anymore.
Technical books in print are generally better formatted than their e-book cousins (O'Reilly's digital library, Kindle) unless they're PDFs. This has a major impact on readability if there are significant amounts of diagrams or code samples or tables in the text.
I've also found some physical books nicer for reference then their digital versions.