4 ms·
Most technical authors don't write a book for the money -- they write a book for the prestige (and proportionally higher consulting rates).
by calcsam 10y ago
Most technical authors don't write a book for the money -- they write a book for the prestige (and proportionally higher consulting rates).
- spdustin 10y agoThis is likely to be the more useful answer here. The biggest benefit comes from listing "author of [book you can buy at bookstore]" on your CV or web site. The marketing power of your name being seen by potential employers (or their employees who point to you as the domain expert of a topic). Not from actual royalties past the royalty advance which, as others have mentioned, would be rare. Of course, the value of that would depend on if you trade on your name; e.g. if you're a freelance consultant.
- clifanatic 10y ago> The biggest benefit comes from listing "author of [book you can buy at bookstore]" on your CV What about "[book you could buy at bookstore at one point, but not any more]"?
- spdustin 10y agoI guess that would depend on if the book is still relevant to and likely to be owned by the person you're pitching. Or, of course, you're making a glib commentary about retail bookstores, in which case, s/bookstore/amazon\.com/g.
- clifanatic 10y ago> s/bookstore/amazon\.com/g Well, anybody can self-publish on Amazon (and I do mean anybody, including the completely illiterate), so I'm not sure that's a very high bar.
- GFischer 10y agoWhile many can, I'm pretty sure not many actually do :) (at least for technical topics). It depends on whether the employer will care to check your book references or not, I guess.
- ghaff 10y agoEven if you're not a consultant but otherwise have a job role that relates to your profile in the industry in some way or other, books are valuable. I would add that, in many cases, a book is a book. People have short attention spans today anyway so for topics that don't require 100s of pages of code examples and screenshots etc. shorter may be just as good as longer. There are a lot of short books out there these days and they can be just as valuable as giveaways and credibility enhancers as a doorstop is.
- clifanatic 10y agoCan confirm: I didn't publish for the money, I published for the prestige. Still waiting for all the prestige to roll in...
- julian_t 10y agoAbsolutely. When I was starting out on my own I got the opportunity to write for Wrox Press. When talking to clients and going for contracts, it was definitely worth more than being one more guy with an MCSD. Also, as Dr Johnson noted, writing a book is an excellent way to find out how little you know about a topic ;-)