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Ask HN: Technical book publishing?

15 points by bigtunacan ↗ HN
I'm writing my first technical book and am looking for advice on publishing.

There are so many options these days with Amazon self publishing, or more technical niche publishers like PragProg, PacktPub, Leanpub, etc...

Then there is the more traditional route like O'Reilly or Manning.

I'm curious what others' experiences have been and what is the best approach to take?

My longer term goal is to also create some online training courses and potentially speak at technical conferences.

While extra income is not bad, that is not my primary goal here and a lot of what I would be writing about is somewhat niche.

All advice is appreciated.

15 comments

[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 52.7 ms ] thread
jetti
I started my book on C# and XML back in 2013 doing the self publish route on leanpub. That fizzled out because I just wasn't motivated enough to finish on my own. I was contacted last year by Apress and decided to go with them. Their structure made me actually finish the book whereas I wasn't able to before. My overall experience was positive. I procrastinate a lot, so there was some stressful nights meeting deadlines
bigtunacan
I have the same issue. I'm great at meeting deadlines if someone else is setting them. On my own, I often don't stay focused. This is an area where it seems like a traditional publisher like Apress/Manning/O'Reilly would be good.

Were there other benefits to publishing through Apress? It seems like O'Reilly helps to promote their authors through conferences and the like as well.

jetti
No other real benefits other than the advance, but that isn't specific to Apress. The tooling is easy to use, which I mention because I have heard bad things regarding Mannings tooling when it comes to writing.
Arjuna
Hello... this is a topic I'm interested in, because I'd like to write one day. Anyway, I thought you might find these resources useful:

1. Nathan Barry has written extensively about his success with self-publishing. Essentially, his method (I'm simplifying here) is to 1. position yourself as an expert in your field via blogging, then 2. directly market to your audience via email using a 3. tiered pricing model (i.e., multiple packages at increasing price-points). He wrote a book about his methodology entitled "Authority."

Authority:

http://nathanbarry.com/authority

Nathan Barry’s Lessons Learned Selling $355,759 on Gumroad:

http://blog.gumroad.com/post/73421524134/nathan-barrys-lesso...

2. Bob Nystrom has written about his experience writing and marketing "Game Programming Patterns."

http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2014/04/22/zero-to-95688-h...

http://journal.stuffwithstuff.com/2014/11/20/how-my-book-lau...

A comment he wrote regarding publishing:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13878280

3. Advice and insight on the topic of traditional publishing from Patrick McKenzie:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12118914

4. Thread entitled "Ask HN: Has anyone here self-published a book? Any advice?"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6052075

5. Self-publishing success comment involving multiple pricing tiers:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13878266

6. Self-publishing success story entitled "How I Made $70k Self-Publishing a Book about Ruby on Rails."

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13876514

All the best!

itamarst
AFAICT only choices that are likely to make you any money are self-publishing (if done correctly! see links in other comment) and Pragmatic Programmers. PragProg pay 50% royalties, everyone else does 10-20%. They published author outcomes a few years ago: http://pragdave.blogspot.com/2013/11/pragmatic-royalties2013...

If you don't care about money it's about who you'd like editing your stuff, and who you can sell on your book.

bigtunacan
Leanpub pays 90% royalties minus 50 cents per paid purchase. I'm not sure though if some publishers maybe take more steps to help market for their authors or other benefits of differing publishers. 90% of zero sales is still $0.
itamarst
Leanpub is a self-publishing platform. I was talking about traditional publishers, where you get an actual editor. Leanpub is just a toolchain.
bigtunacan
I may be mistaken, but I always thought Pragmatic Programmers was just a self publishing platform as well?
itamarst
Nope, they're a real publisher with editors and everything. At one point they did vanity press runs, years ago, but I think they've stopped.
selmat
Currently, i am in preparing process for my 4th book and i am thinking how to get more money in advance.

Has anyone experience with corporate sponsorship?

bigtunacan
Who have you published through in the past?
jetti
Have you tried pre-sales (assuming you're self-publishing)?
fuzzygroup
I've done technical books for O'Reilly and John Wiley. As long as you are motivated and can finish on your own, I'd strongly advise self publishing. The money will be far, far better and you'll actually have control over the process. With a classical publisher, you will rarely get more than the initial advance. And, disturbingly, when I published with O'Reilly, I don't think I ever got statements showing sales. If the material you're writing is niche then I'd strongly advice LeanPub (I buy a lot of books there).
bigtunacan
Do you do any conference speaking as well? It seems like O'Reilly sponsors a lot of conferences and will often have authors speaking and doing book sales at these as a way of promotion?