3 ms·

Donald Knuth wrote the criminally under-appreciated Mathematical Writing [1] [2] which was the collected lectures from a class at Stanford. One of the guest lec

Donald Knuth wrote the criminally under-appreciated Mathematical Writing [1] [2] which was the collected lectures from a class at Stanford. One of the guest lectures was Jeffrey Ullman On Getting Rich. In it, he discusses the economics of book writing and compares its pay with that of other 'professions'. [1] https://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/reviewing-papers/knuth_mathematical_writing.pdf https://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/reviewing-papers/knuth_mathematic... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydsutR72lsg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydsutR72lsg

svat 6y ago
Direct link to specifically Ullman's lecture, in context of the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmnQoDjsWDA&list=PLOdeqCXq1tXihn5KmyB2YTOqgxaUkcNYG&index=21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmnQoDjsWDA&list=PLOdeqCXq1t... Direct links (if your browser/workflow supports it) to the transcript of that lecture: https://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/reviewing-papers/knuth_mathematical_writing.pdf#page=68 https://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/reviewing-papers/knuth_mathematic... or (though it doesn't matter for this lecture) https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/papers/cs1193.pdf#page=68 https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/papers/cs1193.pdf... Takeaways (as of 1987): - “it takes around a thousand hours of labour to write a book […] All in all, our talented specialist or so-so generalist can expect to net maybe $8000 over his book’s lifetime of perhaps five years.” - “you need to aim for ten thousand domestic sales; say two thousand a year for five years. That’s 5–10% of the entire market in a topic like compilers or operating systems. There’s nothing off-the-wall about this, provided you find the right niche: Let yours be the hardest book on the subject, or the easiest.” - If you drive a hard bargain with your publisher, increase your royalties, and sales: “your efforts can net you as much as […] say $100 per hour”. (I imagine some of these numbers will no longer be accurate as of 2021, and even the nature of the publishing industry has changed in perhaps substantial ways…)

svat 6y ago

Direct link to specifically Ullman's lecture, in context of the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmnQoDjsWDA&list=PLOdeqCXq1tXihn5KmyB2YTOqgxaUkcNYG&index=21 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmnQoDjsWDA&list=PLOdeqCXq1t... Direct links (if your browser/workflow supports it) to the transcript of that lecture: https://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/reviewing-papers/knuth_mathematical_writing.pdf#page=68 https://jmlr.csail.mit.edu/reviewing-papers/knuth_mathematic... or (though it doesn't matter for this lecture) https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/papers/cs1193.pdf#page=68 https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/papers/cs1193.pdf... Takeaways (as of 1987): - “it takes around a thousand hours of labour to write a book […] All in all, our talented specialist or so-so generalist can expect to net maybe $8000 over his book’s lifetime of perhaps five years.” - “you need to aim for ten thousand domestic sales; say two thousand a year for five years. That’s 5–10% of the entire market in a topic like compilers or operating systems. There’s nothing off-the-wall about this, provided you find the right niche: Let yours be the hardest book on the subject, or the easiest.” - If you drive a hard bargain with your publisher, increase your royalties, and sales: “your efforts can net you as much as […] say $100 per hour”. (I imagine some of these numbers will no longer be accurate as of 2021, and even the nature of the publishing industry has changed in perhaps substantial ways…)