HN Explorer

Ask HN: What's the best crowdfunding website for a programming book?

14 points by vivaladav ↗ HN
I have recently started to work on a programming book and I would like to launch a crowdfunding campaign to fund the project.

What's the crowdfunding website you would recommend me for something like that?

14 comments

[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 32.0 ms ] thread
codegladiator
Kick starter

Indiegogo

Patreon

edit: not in any order

gus_massa
Have you written a book before? Do you have a sample chapter?
vivaladav
no, first one, but I have been (tech) blogging for a while.

I am working on the ToC for now, sample chapter will be next.

gluejar
Leanpub. Please don't think of it as "crowdfunding" think of it as "audience building".
vivaladav
it looks like a great platform, even if it seems their userbase is not that big. Is that right?
claudiulodro
(No judgement. Just curious) Why does a book need crowdfunding? Between ebooks and print-on-demand it's never been easier or cheaper to self-publish. What would the crowdfunding money be spent on?
vivaladav
As you said publishing is not the problem these days (usually), but writing the book will take months of work and I will also need money to buy hardware and software licenses.

Furthermore a crowdfunding campaign can help measuring interest in the project and should also help building a community before the launch.

subsidd
The author of "you don't know js" successfully crowdfunded on kickstarter
vivaladav
I will check this campaign out, thanks
drallison
What will distinguish your book over all of the other C++ books around? What is it you want people to learn from your book?
vivaladav
it won't be about learning C++ as there are already too many, but it will be more about optimization and performance, from low level code to design decisions.

Ideally the target won't be only experts, but also new programmers who want to learn how to write better code.

drallison
If you are writing about "optimization and performance, from low level code to design decisions" why limit yourself to C++? Won't most of what you have to say be language independent?