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Why We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook
- mark_l_watson 9y agoGreat writeup on the under-belly of publishing! The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpub.com. I encourage people to write a book (or books). It is a really fun process. I would suggest using a publisher for a book and then also try self publishing using leanpub.com or some other platform. Decide for yourself with you prefer.
- howfun 9y agoWhen you you self publish can you stil sell kindle edition on Amazon?
- tomcam 9y agoAbsolutely
- MrMorden 9y agoThe big caveat is that Amazon wants you to enroll in the Kindle Unlimited program—and they'll require exclusivity. This is, to be extremely generous, a bad idea for the author.
- mark_l_watson 9y agoSure, it is an easy process but you get a lower royalty from Amazon if you are not exclusive for them. My books sell better on lean pub, but I have also started publishing via the Kindle platform.
- gcb0 9y agoleanpub is a cheap markdown printing. you don't get even bibliographic helpers. let alone full color bled pages. always saw it as printed github wiki pages (which seems to also describe most of their content) ...or am I wrong?
- peterarmstrong 9y ago[Leanpub co-founder here.] We use Markdown for authoring (one of two dialects: either Leanpub Flavoured Markdown or Markua). We automatically produce PDF, EPUB, MOBI (what you were saying, essentially), but we also produce InDesign export. If you have a designer, give him/her the InDesign files. You can then produce exactly what you want as a finished product for print, with as much design as you want. But while the book is in-progress, nothing beats being able to click a button to publish. ...and if you don't want to do the InDesign work, you can just click a button and get a print-ready PDF file automatically produced by Leanpub.
- gcb0 9y agoInteresting. You should make that more obvious on the site. I got the impression it was 100% opaque from web ui -> paying for printed books. Do you offer paper size/weight options? And what are the prices if I already have the book proofed and am just looking for a press?
- peterarmstrong 9y agoWe don't produce print books. Instead, we generate a print-ready PDF or InDesign. With the print-ready PDF, you can use it on unchanged places like Lulu or CreateSpace. (With the print-ready PDF, we alternate margins (wider in middle) and page numbers (put them on the outside), start chapters on the right, etc. We also omit the cover, so that you can use their cover wizard things.) With InDesign, your designer will need to do some work. We produce ICML. Leanpub is primarily an ebook production workflow + storefront. The print-book-ready file export is something we just give away, since our authors want it. We currently don't want to be in the business of producing physical books ourselves.
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- qznc 9y agoThis guy [0] thinks mainstream publishers exists mostly for the prestige. [0] https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2017/05/06/crossing-the-equator-4-small-x-large-publishing-and-st-petersburg-math/ https://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2017/05/06/crossing-the...
- grepthisab 9y agoHard to take this guy seriously. He used to post pretty vile stuff online on a racist message board and had an entire Wikipedia article dedicated to his sockpuppeting.
- GuiA 9y agoIdk about him, and that article is very well written and insightful, with no traces of racism.
- myhrvold 9y agoI've never heard of him espousing detrimental views FWIW. He had a public spat with Google after he left though: https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-be-fired-from-Google/answer/Michael-O-Church?srid=uP9B https://www.quora.com/What-does-it-feel-like-to-be-fired-fro... There used to be a lot more blog articles about it (on that same blog I believe), but now that it's been a number of years (maybe even 10 by now?) I think they've slowly started disappearing. Edit: here's the explanation on why you can't find a lot of his earlier material online: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/44bmmq/why_agile_and_especially_scrum_are_terrible/czp6a7m/ https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/44bmmq/why_agi...
- ryanwaggoner 9y agoHe was fairly active here until being banned a couple years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=michaelochurch https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=michaelochurch
- icantdrive55 9y agoYea, but don't fall into the Vanity Press Club. Meaning, everyone thinks they have a great novel, or could write non-fiction. Just watch out for the shady self-publication companies. Very few books will ever make any money. There's companies that prey on ego. I have an ex-girlfriend who runs the vanity press part of her company. I look back and remember she saw nothing wrong with cheating while in college, didn't have an original thought the entire time we were together, and her love letters were plagerized. She did like to make money though.
- ci5er 9y ago> I encourage people to write a book (or books). It is a really fun process. I don't mean this in a derogatory way, but you are insane. I've written a couple for MK and SV and edited a few more conference books and a few more compilations of submitted chapters in an attempt to create a cogently thematic book, and I hated the world, everyone in it and myself. Never again.
- mark_l_watson 9y agoMany people agree with you, but I like the process. I do sometimes take a month off with no writing, but not very often.
- nkurz 9y agoThe heart of this piece is the author's realization that (relative to their cover price) glossy, expensive cookbooks don't actually cost that much to print: "Until one-day I got lucky. Just by chance I spoke to the print broker who actually worked on the exact bid for that famous book. And he told me precisely: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award imaginable, cost $3.83 per book to print, shrink wrap, and ship to the US. I thought he must be mistaken and I said so. “No way.” He replied, “well that was the first edition, I’m sure the cost has gone down since then.” He thought I was implying that $3.83 per book was too high!" One implication of this is that the cost difference between digital and physical publishing is probably much less than most people think. While a weighty tome may literally feel like it's worth a hefty premium, this is due more to consumer psychology than anything inherent to cost of production.
- bambax 9y agoVery true. Another great insight is: "The end results proved that customers could tell the difference." Customers can always tell the difference between quality and non-quality, and since manufacturing is actually a small part of the retail price, it's crazy to try to save money on quality.
- joshvm 9y agoWell, that and that their initial publishing offer (which is good? I have no experience) is more insulting the more you run through the numbers. On the other hand I've read accounts of people who've published through O'Reilly and were very happy with having a team of people to crunch through the layout, typesetting, etc.
- tptacek 9y agoIt's insulting for Achatz and Kokanas, but the dirty secret of these advance deals is that while they're certainly tilted towards publishers, book publishing is a losers-pay-for-the-winners business. That doesn't make book writing for publishers a good deal for anyone, by the way. Executing on a book contract is one of the lower effort/reward things you can do.
- nickkokonas 9y agoAlways exciting to get something up on the hacker news board... weekly reader here for a long time. Happy to answer any questions you may have. -- Nick
- cpr 9y agoGreat write-up. Hey, if you use InDesign and Google Docs, sounds like you could use our DocsFlow plug-in. You're welcome to a free license or two in support of your efforts...
- nickkokonas 9y agoThank you! I'll let Allen and Sarah know... and reach out.
- nkurz 9y agoGreat to see you here. I do have a few questions: Baseline: that super amazing cookbook that I truly loved, which at the time retailed for $50 and had won every award imaginable, cost $3.83 per book to print, shrink wrap, and ship to the US. First book: All told, the cost per unit was around $10.80 laden for the first edition run of 30,000 books. Second book: Initial estimates for a print run of 15,000 and 30,000 are about $13.80 to $15.20 per unit for the basic book without any ‘extras’. What were the factors that increased the printing costs between these books? Was it mostly photos vs text, or was something else the main driver? And at the volumes you sold, how does this difference end up comparing to the total cost of producing the book? And I’d be happy to work under those terms again. But then 10 Speed Press, a great independent publisher that could adroitly make an unusual deal for a cool book, got sold to Crown Publishing in 2009. ... I really doubt any publisher will make a deal like that again anytime soon. Why do you think this is? Presumably, the deal worked out well enough economically for 10 Speed. While the current incumbent publishers are based on a low-risk high-volume corner-cutting model, might there be room for an upstart to take 10 Speed's place? Or room for a publisher who cares about books as art? If you haven't seen it, the documentary "How to Make a Book with Steidl" is a nice look at a German publisher who appears to stay in business creating books with high attention to detail: http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/steidl_documentary_imprint http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/steidl_documentary_imprint. And at the extreme high end, the Spanish publisher Siloé has a facsimile of the Voynich manuscript coming out that attracted a lot of attention and preorders: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/23/491033798/mysterious-encrypted-medieval-manuscript-set-to-be-published-in-replica http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/08/23/491033798/.... The end results proved that customers could tell the difference. Alinea is in it’s 6th printing edition with over 100,000 copies sold. It won a James Beard Award for Best Cookbook from a Professional Point of View. How does the "super amazing cookbook" that "won every award imaginable" fit into the theory that the attention to detail made a difference? Do you think it would have done even better on the market if they had used the more expensive printing processes you did? Or would it likely have done just about the same, but produced a few hundred thousand dollars less profit for the publisher? I'm worried that the correct conclusion is not that the publishers are missing out, but that maximum profit occurs at relatively low level of quality, such that anyone trying to create a worthy work-of-art in this space is by definition economically irrational. Not that this is a bad thing --- instead, what is the force behind this irrationality, and how can we ensure that it doesn't get drowned out further?
- designium 9y agoI'm in the process of writing a book about FinTech industry holistically and I'm interested to know if someone has any tip of publishing business-technology book. My target readers are students, professionals either in tech or finance, entrepreneurs and investors. If anyone could share a bit more about the cost of self publishing would be great. For some reason, I'm more worried about the copy editing at this point than anything else.
- nickkokonas 9y agoYou can easily hire a professional copy-editor. In fact, in many instances publishers hire outside third-party experts depending on the subject of the book. Publishing a text-only book with no or minimal pictures is shocking inexpensive.
- designium 9y agoThat's a great insight. I am planning to add some graphs but theycanbe black and white. Maybe that doesn't add much additional cost?
- ghaff 9y agoTo add to the comment form nickkokonas, I'd also add that there is a distinction between editing/tech review and copy-editing. They can be done by the same person, especially if you've had at least some serious read-throughs by people you trust who are familiar with the field. But you basically need a content review and a review for flow/grammar/spelling/etc. I've self-published but my objective has never been to make money. It's about supporting other activities that I get paid for. (Which is the situation with a lot of the lighterweight O'Reilly and "Dummies Guides" types of things these days.)
- designium 9y agoThanks! I haven't thought of content reviewer but that makes sense. The only issueis that the reviewer would have to know both Finance and Technology, similarly like myself.
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- FLGMwt 9y agoHad a chance to do the kitchen table at the Aviary. Pretty unforgettable experience despite how much booze they give you. I'm definitely more interesting in this cookbook knowing it was self-published.
- austenallred 9y agoThe publishing industry is slowly going to unravel. If you write a very successful book with traditional publishing cut you might make 30-40k. Average is lower. There are power laws at play, but as few as 5% make it past six figures. So when I wrote a book about step-by-step user acquisition (https://secretsaucenow.com https://secretsaucenow.com) I self-published. Made $60,000-ish in presales, sold another $60,000 while I was finishing the book. And now pull in 4-8k/month. If I signed a deal with a publishing company selling the same number of books I would have made ~10k. Instead I found a freelance editor and typesetter ($400), printed the first 100 ($700), and sell the vast majority as eBooks. It's done well, but not earth shatteringly well, and I'm up above $140k in profit. There is very little reason nowadays, IMO, to not self-publish.
- puranjay 9y agoThere's one thing you have to factor: the near-instant credibility a physical book published by a big-name publisher gets you. This credibility can often turn into some very lucrative gigs. I wouldn't mind publishing fiction myself, but if I was doing non-fiction, I would want to go through traditional publishing. It doesn't really matter whether people like, say, Malcolm Gladwell made any money off their books. The credibility their books earned them pays off in the longer run.
- philsnow 9y ago> There's one thing you have to factor: the near-instant credibility a physical book published by a big-name publisher gets you. > This credibility can often turn into some very lucrative gigs. Does success with a self-published book (or multiple books) translate into making it easier to get books published by big-name publishers on more-acceptable terms?
- triplesec 9y agoCan you tell us what processes you used to sell well / point us at resources? Especially re pre-sales, but also for how to make a good book sustainable like that?
- barking 9y agoMr OT here. IMO the best cookbook ever written was the one my mother had in secondary school. I don't know the name of it and I'm sure it's long out of print. She swore by it, used it all her life and was a marvellous cook.
- pjmorris 9y agoI'll go OT with you. Is there any attribute of 'the best cookbook' that you can remember that'd help us figure out which one it was/is - example recipes, cooking style, memories of the food made from it, or the book itself? Is the book still in the family? I once had a copy of the Alinea cookbook, it's a wonderful object. For mere mortals like me, 'The Way To Cook', by Julia Child is the cookbook I refer to most often and suggest most often to those looking for 'the best cookbook.'
- barking 9y agoAll I can remember is that it was hardback with a plain red cover (if there had been a dust jacket, it was long gone) and she'd have used it in home economics class in 1950s Ireland. It was mainly what I'd call wholesome simple British/Irish food, beef steak and kidney pie and the like but the sweets and cakes are what I most fondly remember, queen of pudding, bread and butter pudding, eve's pudding, dundee cake, shortbread, lovely dark soft gingerbread, sponges, madeira, buns etc etc. Look at what we've lost!
- pjmorris 9y agoHmm. Thanks for the description. I'll see what I can dig up.
- Taniwha 9y agoWhy We Are Self-Publishing the Aviary Cookbook? too many birds ...
- logfromblammo 9y agoI'm actually surprised that printed cookbooks are still economically viable using any kind of publishing model. They remind me of those books from the 1980s filled with printed copies of the source code for computer programs. You would input the text from the book using your keyboard, and compile/interpret the program. That was how many programs were distributed, because a printed book on a truck had higher bandwidth than any other readily-available channel. And then there were also books about learning to write your own programs that may also have included some source code. I think that cookbooks filled with recipes are like the former, and books about learning to make your own recipes are like the latter. Those recipe books simply became obsolete with ubiquitous Internet access. Countless recipes are open source and freely available. Barely anything in a recipe book is eligible for copyright protection. You can basically rewrite instructions in your own words and make your own drawings or photographs, if any, and that boxed spaghetti with canned marinara recipe is now printable as part of your own cookbook. So it is very smart to--as with the book in the article--load up all your recipes with copyright-protected photographs, rather than leaving them out to cut print costs. But even so, that book as described seemed more about trademarks and brands than content. It might be useful for franchisees or for professional imitators. When I am cooking at home, I rarely even refer to a recipe, and when I do, it is just one of the thousands of results from an Internet search. Does anyone here still bother buying cookbooks? Would it not be more useful to simply learn how to cook without referring to recipes? Who needs that level of restaurant-style uniformity and consistency in their own kitchen?
- mcphage 9y ago> Those recipe books simply became obsolete with ubiquitous Internet access. Countless recipes are open source and freely available. These two sentences contradict each other. You are correct: countless recipes are open source and freely available. However, that leads to the same problem with anything else that's freely available online—quality wildly varies. Without some strict curation of what's available, the expected value of a random recipe you find online is often too low to be worth spending the time and ingredients making. Thus recipe books keep their value—if the book is well reviewed, you can have enough confidence in the recipes it contains to be worth the money and effort to make.
- baby 9y agoKind of off-topic on-topic: I went to that restaurant/bar in Chicago to try their cocktails and it was one of the best experience I went through there. Way better than the Milk room (haven't tried Violet hours though). I wish there was an Aviary where I live now :( They do "experimental" cocktails (or artistic cocktails). Cocktail in a bag, Smokey cocktail, bubble tea cocktail, cocktail in a tea pot, ... and they taste amazing as well. If you read that blogpost I suggest googling or checking on TripAdvisor/Yelp for some visual pictures :)