4 ms·

I'd be shocked if anyone got a 4 figure advance. I got a few hundred dollars for an XML book in the height of the XML times. Ultimately the book never got finis

I'd be shocked if anyone got a 4 figure advance. I got a few hundred dollars for an XML book in the height of the XML times. Ultimately the book never got finished but everyone I know who has written a tech book (unless it's a huge seller) says expect nothing more than lunch money from it, plus the employment opportunities.

destructionator 10y ago
My book (my first and only) <https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/d-cookbook> https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/d-cookbook> got $3000 advance, plus an on-time completion bonus, and now, two years later, continues to pay me ~$200 royalty checks in excess of the advance every quarter... That's not a large sum of money, considering that it took about 6 months of nights and weekends it took to write the book, but it isn't nothing either.
- solutionyogi 10y ago
  Link is broken.
  - tzs 10y ago
    HN's link recognizer misjudged the length by one, and so is including the ">" end delimiter in the href. Here is the correct link: https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/d-cookbook https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/d-cookbook It would probably be a good idea for HN to recognize <URL> and "URL", since those are specifically mentioned in RFC 3986 as common ways to delimit URLs in text.
TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
My source tells me that low five figure advances happen regularly for the right topics, and four figures aren't unusual at all. In fact she's just received mid four figures for about two weeks of repurposing - i.e. cutting and pasting - content that was already written and needed some reformatting and light editing. This isn't common, but it does happen. A few hundred dollars is more of an insult/negotiating wipe out than a real advance.
prawn 10y ago
I posted above, but a few years back we received $1k per chapter in advance. Four people co-wrote the book, each taking 1-4 chapters from memory.
acangiano 10y ago
I got a $10,000 advance on my first book. $0 advance on my second one. Guess which ones made me the most money?
jedberg 10y ago
I got a $5K advance on an AWS book that never even came out because they cancelled the contract after they paid the advance (a bunch of similar books came out in one month and they just didn't want to bother competing, especially since our book would be two to three months behind).

destructionator 10y ago

My book (my first and only) <https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/d-cookbook> https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/d-cookbook> got $3000 advance, plus an on-time completion bonus, and now, two years later, continues to pay me ~$200 royalty checks in excess of the advance every quarter... That's not a large sum of money, considering that it took about 6 months of nights and weekends it took to write the book, but it isn't nothing either.

solutionyogi 10y ago
Link is broken.
- tzs 10y ago
  HN's link recognizer misjudged the length by one, and so is including the ">" end delimiter in the href. Here is the correct link: https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/d-cookbook https://www.packtpub.com/application-development/d-cookbook It would probably be a good idea for HN to recognize <URL> and "URL", since those are specifically mentioned in RFC 3986 as common ways to delimit URLs in text.

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago

My source tells me that low five figure advances happen regularly for the right topics, and four figures aren't unusual at all. In fact she's just received mid four figures for about two weeks of repurposing - i.e. cutting and pasting - content that was already written and needed some reformatting and light editing. This isn't common, but it does happen. A few hundred dollars is more of an insult/negotiating wipe out than a real advance.

prawn 10y ago

I posted above, but a few years back we received $1k per chapter in advance. Four people co-wrote the book, each taking 1-4 chapters from memory.

acangiano 10y ago

I got a $10,000 advance on my first book. $0 advance on my second one. Guess which ones made me the most money?

jedberg 10y ago

I got a $5K advance on an AWS book that never even came out because they cancelled the contract after they paid the advance (a bunch of similar books came out in one month and they just didn't want to bother competing, especially since our book would be two to three months behind).