8 ms·

So you want to self-publish books and courses on programming

194 points by lorendsr 5y ago

ipnon 5y ago
Surely storing Unicode in thin layers of dried tree mush stitched together in a bind is a bit outdated these days, right? Yet the demand for transmitting useful information into brains is higher than ever. If we rethink of books as a medium for thought transmission, especially the actionable thoughts of domain experts, then physical books should seem to us like dinosaur bones. Its the inertia of the dusty university library and the Madison Avenue publishing industry that keeps book relevant. If the sole goal is learning, there is still much unrealized potential to be innovated in web and mobile apps. The iPhone is still only 14 years old. Somewhere between now and universal brain-computer interfaces are many education unicorns waiting to be found.
- mihaic 5y ago
  I have better information retention from reading text in a book than on a Kindle/digital screen. I'm not sure why, but turning the page and feeling a physical object seems to improve my memory. It might be wasteful, but it's often hard to beat the tactile sensation of books.
  - Jtsummers 5y ago
    It improves your memory because it creates a stronger impression. There is more novelty in the experience of reading a physical book than an ebook in an e-reader. Ever notice how you have stronger memories of your first or second drive on some roads to some place than the later drives? After you've made the commute 100 times you find yourself at your office with no strong impression from anything that happened on the way unless there was something novel or eventful (like the suicidal deer that jumped in front of me yesterday)? An e-reader, even if it's a different text, ends up creating a similarly uniform and consistent experience that makes it harder to form the same kind of strong memories that a physical book tends to create. Each page is unique, the position in the book is actually conveyed properly (not just a small number in a corner or a progress bar at the top or bottom that you quickly learn to filter out), every book has a somewhat unique smell. It has weight and heft that also matter in the creation of the memories associated with reading it. Your e-reader will always be the same weight and have the same feeling in your hand no matter what book you're reading in it.
  - vidarh 5y ago
    I mostly read ebooks now, but my main issue w/kindle and similar readers is that a lot of my retention is spatial. E.g I remember where physically something is in a book better than where in a reflowable document something is. Sticking to a single, fixed size reader and avoiding changing font sizes helps solve some of that, but it's not quite the same.
    - renewiltord 5y ago
      I have had the same problem. Especially because going back a page on a Kindle can cause a reflow so words aren’t in the same position. Have you had any luck turning on progress bars on your reader? Hasn’t helped me yet but I know I have a very good intuition on physical books for how far through the book a concept was. I can often just move directly to the area and then scan forward / backwards. On my Kindle or iPad I find this hard.
      - vidarh 5y ago
        Not as much as I'd like. I think losing the tactile idea of physically how far into a book something is loses a signal. On the other hand I think there are potential opportunities there in more strongly visually signalling position in ways you can't with physical books (e.g. by strongly visually signposting locations in various ways), that I wish someone would experiment with.
- reidjs 5y ago
  I like reading books because: 1) easier to focus 2) easier to take/draw notes in the margin 3) static content
  - pvaldes 5y ago
    4) have proven than can last for 200 years, 5) less eye-straining than normal screens, 6) can't be remotely erased or blocked by third parties.
- blacktriangle 5y ago
  What if I told you I had an amazing new technology for information transferal? It has infinite battery life, is readable in almost any lighting conditions, reading it won't wear out your eyes, it is water resistant and wont' break when dropping it or hitting it with a hammer. As an added bonus, the vendor can't stealthily revoke access to this information or change it without telling you. You're allowed to lend it to a single person at a time with the downside that you temporarily no longer have access to the information. This miracle technology is 100% recyclable and its manufacture is environmentally friendly and ethical requiring no rare earth metals. Yeah there's a reason we still love books.
  - sidpatil 5y ago
    > it is water resistant Is it? I wouldn't want to test that claim on any books I own or have borrowed.
    - blacktriangle 5y ago
      Well, it'll survive a coffee spill at least, I can attest to that.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
    - zabzonk 5y ago
      I've dropped many in the bath, and one or two down the loo - they still worked.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - a9h74j 5y ago
    99.9% yes. Acid in most papers still implies an O(100yr) lifetime, AFAIK.
  - crvdgc 5y ago
    Issac Asimov wrote a similar essay in 1974 called The Ancient and the Ultimate.
- segh 5y ago
  You might be interested in Why Books Don't Work by Andy Matuschak https://andymatuschak.org/books/ https://andymatuschak.org/books/
  - ipnon 5y ago
    I have to thank you, because projects like his are exactly what I had in mind with my original post, but I had forgotten this man's name and work for months!
  - PebblesRox 5y ago
    This is really interesting, thank you! I'm dreaming about followup then but for learning, with bite-sized text (or video?) plus opportunities to engage with the text, delivered to me (via email) on a regular basis so I don't have to remember to come back to it. But the future emails are contingent on my engagement so it's impossible to get behind. And it could use the anticipation of something new and exciting factor to keep me engaged. Really interesting to think about! Also I'm thinking about The Little Schemer format and how it includes that engagement in the dialog and the frequent small opportunities to test your thinking. How cool would it be to subscribe to a "book" and to get the next chapter I have to type out a brief reflection of what I've read so far? It would be up to me to decide how involved to make my "reflection" but it would be really cool to have that prompt. I suppose blogs work in a similar way for people who read them as they come out and leave comments. Definitely a lot to think about. This is fun! :)
- BeetleB 5y ago
  The simplest answer is: Well printed material is much easier to read and handle than anything electronic. Eink was a step in the right direction, but there's virtually no innovation in the interfaces of ereaders. Heck - even regular PDF readers on computers/phones have a fairly poor interface. Screens shine when it comes to dynamic content - particularly videos of phenomena (animations of functions as you change the parameter, etc). However, being able to change the form factor of paper (not all books have the same size page), as well as the ease with which one can bend pages is really helpful. Nothing electronic has yet replaced my ability to flip back and forth between two pages.
- vxNsr 5y ago
  Just so you know, the author is talking about books in the general sense. In fact he very strongly implies that he's only talking about e-books.
agladlad 5y ago
This was helpful to read, as someone currently collecting my own unreleased technical writing (possibly for a book). Thank you for focusing on the "why" here and sharing information on the range of possible outcomes. Also, congrats on the launch of https://graphql.guide/ https://graphql.guide/! It is so critical to have well thought out, long-form content available in this day and age.
shahinrostami 5y ago
From this month I've decided to see if I can work on my personal projects full time... these include the books I've self-published through http://datacrayon.com/shop/ http://datacrayon.com/shop/, but now I wonder if it's worth while getting any of them into print...
soapdog 5y ago
I have written a post on the topic of writing a technical book recently which might interest people who are thinking about doing it: https://andregarzia.com/2021/04/writing-a-technical-book.html https://andregarzia.com/2021/04/writing-a-technical-book.htm... I have also launched a free eBook generation SaaS at: https://little.webby.press https://little.webby.press it is completely client-side, there are no accounts and no tracking, just have fun building your own books.
dhosek 5y ago
Any suggestions for fulfillment on PDF ebooks? My kickstarter for my LaTeX book¹ is almost over and I have enough backers that I think I want to do something a bit more sophisticated than just send people a download link (ideally, I'd like to have individually watermarked PDFs for each backer to act as a social deterrent to uploading the file to download sites). It'd be nice also if they could come back later to get a corrected version of the PDF if I do updates in the future.² 1. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/preppylion/the-preppy-lion-an-introduction-to-latex https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/preppylion/the-preppy-l... 2. I'm working on being meticulous about typos but I know they will happen, plus there will likely be updates to LaTeX that will require some minor changes in the text as time goes by.
- gurchik 5y ago
  > ideally, I'd like to have individually watermarked PDFs for each backer to act as a social deterrent to uploading the file to download sites What if someone provides fake information then uploads the book with your watermark?
  - a_t48 5y ago
    The watermark gets the backer's name on it, now the author's name on it.
    - gurchik 5y ago
      I know that. You've misread my question. The idea is that the backer won't upload the PDF on file sharing websites because the author will find it and trace it back to the backer using the watermark. But if the backer was anonymous by means of fake information provided to the author at the time of purchase then it's not deterring anything.
      - a_t48 5y ago
        Whoop, yeah, I did misread.
  - 5y ago
synergy20 5y ago
Economically, a typical programming book will gain you around 20K USD, which is normally a two month pay as a good software(if you can write a book about programming, you're probably very good at it). I don't think it makes much financial sense unless your goal is something else, e.g. consult, fame, etc.
- adamwathan 5y ago
  Just speaking from my own experience, if you execute very well on audience building and marketing you can do much better than this. I have released 2 books and 2 courses for developers and together they have done close to $4m USD in revenue. I wrote in detail about the process of writing, marketing, and releasing my first book here: https://adamwathan.me/the-book-launch-that-let-me-quit-my-job/ https://adamwathan.me/the-book-launch-that-let-me-quit-my-jo... And was interviewed on IndieHackers to talk about the most recent one here: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/098-adam-wathan-of-refactoring-ui https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/098-adam-wathan-of-refa... If the work is a good match for your skills and personality it’s a really great way to make a fantastic living.
  - chrisweekly 5y ago
    Hi Adam, I'm a fan of your writing, but your experience in riding and monetizing Tailwind's explosive growth is obviously a massive outlier.
    - adamwathan 5y ago
      Hey thank you! 3 of 4 of my educational products actually predate Tailwind — I was a millionaire from that business before even releasing Tailwind v0.1.0. Refactoring UI came after but we had built a huge audience for that well before Tailwind as well. I’m an outlier for sure but $20k is low. If you do a great job at everything that goes into running a business like this you can definitely do much better than that. Josh Comeau did an incredible job building his audience and reputation before releasing his CSS course a few months ago for example and he has done over $500k if I remember right.
grecy 5y ago
I wrote a an article [1] about how I self-publish my printed books on Amazon using LaTeX, pandoc and some shell scripts to automate the generation of a print-ready pdf and a standards compliant epub file all in one step. All in all it's been very successful for me, and I highly recommend doing so. The first time you get your printed book in your hand is a magical feeling not quickly forgotten! [1] http://theroadchoseme.com/how-i-self-published-a-professional-paperback-and-ebook-using-latex-and-pandoc http://theroadchoseme.com/how-i-self-published-a-professiona...
tsumnia 5y ago
Honestly? Please don't. I don't mean to be rude, but the quality of some coding books is not good at all. The majority are rehashes of online documentation on what the function does with barely any examples on "real world application" and could easily be found online for free. I've seen enough chapters on how NumPy arrays work to completely disregard them. As an example, I recently picked up a book on Python for Civil Engineering because I was looking for said "real world" examples for a course I was teaching. In total, there are 6 civil engineering examples across the 160 pages and each needs ALL the basic concepts before you see them (although one is just "here's how matplotlib works"). If you choose to self-publish, please have more than the bare minimum in examples. Take a page out of Miguel Grinberg's Flask Tutorial [1] and have the entire book build up to something. If you're doing something like how to do Data Science with language X, use some larger scale datasets, walk through them, and explain what you are seeing beyond "here's the print statement's output". Most of the videos on my YouTube channel that are about "How to use X in Y" get minimal views, because they're so simple that you only need to see it once via a video or webpage to "get it". However, some of my more popular videos are where I implement algorithms like the Luhn Check algorithm. Have that kind of material in your book. [1] https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-i-hello-world https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial...
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- wyclif 5y ago
  You're correct that the quality of programming books is all over the map. Some of them are really bad, and are essentially rehashed SO answers sandwiched between some prosaic filler. There are essentially two kinds of tech books: 1/ Thorough, in-depth technical discussions of programming languages, software, or apps that dive deep enough to enlighten the reader on how they work under the hood 2/ Rehashes of already existing docs, the latter of which do the job more directly without forcing you to read filler text. These books are primarily written to boost the author's reputation Obviously, you should learn to be selective and buy only the #1 type of book. It's not hard to figure out what kind of book it is from looking at the TOC and remembering the type of books you've read from the same publisher.
MavropaliasG 5y ago
Has anyone tried LearnWorlds for publishing their course?
- christophergs 5y ago
  LearnWorlds is a solid choice. If you're after a course platform tailored for technical courses, check out https://coursemaker.org https://coursemaker.org
dSebastien 5y ago
For my first book (https://www.amazon.com/Learn-TypeScript-Building-Applications-understanding-ebook/dp/B081FB89BL https://www.amazon.com/Learn-TypeScript-Building-Application...), I have gone down the classic path. Overall, that experience was far from great. I suffered through the process, and it was painful towards the end, as more parties got involved, and often created more problems than they brought solutions. Of course your mileage may vary; I have no doubt that there are much better publishers out there. I was forced to use specific tools/platforms to edit the content. Those tools were slow, buggy, didn't clearly show what was changed, etc. This was incredibly painful. Obviously, one should not do it for the money. You can get quite a lot if you're lucky enough to be an outlier and write timeless content, but it's very unlikely. I personally went through the process as I was getting started with freelancing and wanted to boost my visibility. It served its purpose, but the opportunity cost was huge. Once the book was released, my publisher didn't invest a whole lot in marketing the content. I did what I could on my end, which kept the sales going, but I felt left alone. Again, it depends on your publisher, and on their belief in your project; your mileage may vary there too... For my new project (https://dev-concepts.dev https://dev-concepts.dev), I have decided to self-publish. Here are my reasons: - Freedom - Ownership - Financial - Responsibility While self-publishing, I can write at my own pace, without external pressure (apart the one I put on myself). I can set my own rules, my own process, use tools of my choice, etc. Importantly, I keep full ownership. Everything I write remains 100% mine, and I can repurpose anything I want to create new content (e.g., video courses, blog articles, etc). This is a key point for me! I also get to decide if I want to give away free copies of my book. From a financial point of view, 100% of the benefits will be mine. This means that I can sell ~5x less copies and still make as much money. I also believe that self-published projects that have a solid copy and are marketed correctly have much a better chances to generate money. The thing is of course that if you're alone, you're alone. Noone else is going to help, review the content, find technical reviewers, provide you a toolchain, fix typos, etc. Personally it doesn't bother me; I find that liberating and empowering!
virwheeler 5y ago
It will good probably useful on counties without proper internet connection. But almost all of the information needed about programming is already on the internet. It's just a one search away and you can find your answer
- dhosek 5y ago
  Although a not insignificant fraction of the time, the answer will be wrong or outdated.

194 points by lorendsr 5y ago

Surely storing Unicode in thin layers of dried tree mush stitched together in a bind is a bit outdated these days, right? Yet the demand for transmitting useful information into brains is higher than ever. If we rethink of books as a medium for thought transmission, especially the actionable thoughts of domain experts, then physical books should seem to us like dinosaur bones. Its the inertia of the dusty university library and the Madison Avenue publishing industry that keeps book relevant. If the sole goal is learning, there is still much unrealized potential to be innovated in web and mobile apps. The iPhone is still only 14 years old. Somewhere between now and universal brain-computer interfaces are many education unicorns waiting to be found.

mihaic 5y ago
I have better information retention from reading text in a book than on a Kindle/digital screen. I'm not sure why, but turning the page and feeling a physical object seems to improve my memory. It might be wasteful, but it's often hard to beat the tactile sensation of books.
- Jtsummers 5y ago
  It improves your memory because it creates a stronger impression. There is more novelty in the experience of reading a physical book than an ebook in an e-reader. Ever notice how you have stronger memories of your first or second drive on some roads to some place than the later drives? After you've made the commute 100 times you find yourself at your office with no strong impression from anything that happened on the way unless there was something novel or eventful (like the suicidal deer that jumped in front of me yesterday)? An e-reader, even if it's a different text, ends up creating a similarly uniform and consistent experience that makes it harder to form the same kind of strong memories that a physical book tends to create. Each page is unique, the position in the book is actually conveyed properly (not just a small number in a corner or a progress bar at the top or bottom that you quickly learn to filter out), every book has a somewhat unique smell. It has weight and heft that also matter in the creation of the memories associated with reading it. Your e-reader will always be the same weight and have the same feeling in your hand no matter what book you're reading in it.
- vidarh 5y ago
  I mostly read ebooks now, but my main issue w/kindle and similar readers is that a lot of my retention is spatial. E.g I remember where physically something is in a book better than where in a reflowable document something is. Sticking to a single, fixed size reader and avoiding changing font sizes helps solve some of that, but it's not quite the same.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    I have had the same problem. Especially because going back a page on a Kindle can cause a reflow so words aren’t in the same position. Have you had any luck turning on progress bars on your reader? Hasn’t helped me yet but I know I have a very good intuition on physical books for how far through the book a concept was. I can often just move directly to the area and then scan forward / backwards. On my Kindle or iPad I find this hard.
    - vidarh 5y ago
      Not as much as I'd like. I think losing the tactile idea of physically how far into a book something is loses a signal. On the other hand I think there are potential opportunities there in more strongly visually signalling position in ways you can't with physical books (e.g. by strongly visually signposting locations in various ways), that I wish someone would experiment with.
reidjs 5y ago
I like reading books because: 1) easier to focus 2) easier to take/draw notes in the margin 3) static content
- pvaldes 5y ago
  4) have proven than can last for 200 years, 5) less eye-straining than normal screens, 6) can't be remotely erased or blocked by third parties.
blacktriangle 5y ago
What if I told you I had an amazing new technology for information transferal? It has infinite battery life, is readable in almost any lighting conditions, reading it won't wear out your eyes, it is water resistant and wont' break when dropping it or hitting it with a hammer. As an added bonus, the vendor can't stealthily revoke access to this information or change it without telling you. You're allowed to lend it to a single person at a time with the downside that you temporarily no longer have access to the information. This miracle technology is 100% recyclable and its manufacture is environmentally friendly and ethical requiring no rare earth metals. Yeah there's a reason we still love books.
- sidpatil 5y ago
  > it is water resistant Is it? I wouldn't want to test that claim on any books I own or have borrowed.
  - blacktriangle 5y ago
    Well, it'll survive a coffee spill at least, I can attest to that.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - zabzonk 5y ago
    I've dropped many in the bath, and one or two down the loo - they still worked.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- a9h74j 5y ago
  99.9% yes. Acid in most papers still implies an O(100yr) lifetime, AFAIK.
- crvdgc 5y ago
  Issac Asimov wrote a similar essay in 1974 called The Ancient and the Ultimate.
segh 5y ago
You might be interested in Why Books Don't Work by Andy Matuschak https://andymatuschak.org/books/ https://andymatuschak.org/books/
- ipnon 5y ago
  I have to thank you, because projects like his are exactly what I had in mind with my original post, but I had forgotten this man's name and work for months!
- PebblesRox 5y ago
  This is really interesting, thank you! I'm dreaming about followup then but for learning, with bite-sized text (or video?) plus opportunities to engage with the text, delivered to me (via email) on a regular basis so I don't have to remember to come back to it. But the future emails are contingent on my engagement so it's impossible to get behind. And it could use the anticipation of something new and exciting factor to keep me engaged. Really interesting to think about! Also I'm thinking about The Little Schemer format and how it includes that engagement in the dialog and the frequent small opportunities to test your thinking. How cool would it be to subscribe to a "book" and to get the next chapter I have to type out a brief reflection of what I've read so far? It would be up to me to decide how involved to make my "reflection" but it would be really cool to have that prompt. I suppose blogs work in a similar way for people who read them as they come out and leave comments. Definitely a lot to think about. This is fun! :)
BeetleB 5y ago
The simplest answer is: Well printed material is much easier to read and handle than anything electronic. Eink was a step in the right direction, but there's virtually no innovation in the interfaces of ereaders. Heck - even regular PDF readers on computers/phones have a fairly poor interface. Screens shine when it comes to dynamic content - particularly videos of phenomena (animations of functions as you change the parameter, etc). However, being able to change the form factor of paper (not all books have the same size page), as well as the ease with which one can bend pages is really helpful. Nothing electronic has yet replaced my ability to flip back and forth between two pages.
vxNsr 5y ago
Just so you know, the author is talking about books in the general sense. In fact he very strongly implies that he's only talking about e-books.

agladlad 5y ago

This was helpful to read, as someone currently collecting my own unreleased technical writing (possibly for a book). Thank you for focusing on the "why" here and sharing information on the range of possible outcomes. Also, congrats on the launch of https://graphql.guide/ https://graphql.guide/! It is so critical to have well thought out, long-form content available in this day and age.

shahinrostami 5y ago

From this month I've decided to see if I can work on my personal projects full time... these include the books I've self-published through http://datacrayon.com/shop/ http://datacrayon.com/shop/, but now I wonder if it's worth while getting any of them into print...

soapdog 5y ago

I have written a post on the topic of writing a technical book recently which might interest people who are thinking about doing it: https://andregarzia.com/2021/04/writing-a-technical-book.html https://andregarzia.com/2021/04/writing-a-technical-book.htm... I have also launched a free eBook generation SaaS at: https://little.webby.press https://little.webby.press it is completely client-side, there are no accounts and no tracking, just have fun building your own books.

dhosek 5y ago

Any suggestions for fulfillment on PDF ebooks? My kickstarter for my LaTeX book¹ is almost over and I have enough backers that I think I want to do something a bit more sophisticated than just send people a download link (ideally, I'd like to have individually watermarked PDFs for each backer to act as a social deterrent to uploading the file to download sites). It'd be nice also if they could come back later to get a corrected version of the PDF if I do updates in the future.² 1. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/preppylion/the-preppy-lion-an-introduction-to-latex https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/preppylion/the-preppy-l... 2. I'm working on being meticulous about typos but I know they will happen, plus there will likely be updates to LaTeX that will require some minor changes in the text as time goes by.

gurchik 5y ago
> ideally, I'd like to have individually watermarked PDFs for each backer to act as a social deterrent to uploading the file to download sites What if someone provides fake information then uploads the book with your watermark?
- a_t48 5y ago
  The watermark gets the backer's name on it, now the author's name on it.
  - gurchik 5y ago
    I know that. You've misread my question. The idea is that the backer won't upload the PDF on file sharing websites because the author will find it and trace it back to the backer using the watermark. But if the backer was anonymous by means of fake information provided to the author at the time of purchase then it's not deterring anything.
    - a_t48 5y ago
      Whoop, yeah, I did misread.
- 5y ago

synergy20 5y ago

Economically, a typical programming book will gain you around 20K USD, which is normally a two month pay as a good software(if you can write a book about programming, you're probably very good at it). I don't think it makes much financial sense unless your goal is something else, e.g. consult, fame, etc.

adamwathan 5y ago
Just speaking from my own experience, if you execute very well on audience building and marketing you can do much better than this. I have released 2 books and 2 courses for developers and together they have done close to $4m USD in revenue. I wrote in detail about the process of writing, marketing, and releasing my first book here: https://adamwathan.me/the-book-launch-that-let-me-quit-my-job/ https://adamwathan.me/the-book-launch-that-let-me-quit-my-jo... And was interviewed on IndieHackers to talk about the most recent one here: https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/098-adam-wathan-of-refactoring-ui https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/098-adam-wathan-of-refa... If the work is a good match for your skills and personality it’s a really great way to make a fantastic living.
- chrisweekly 5y ago
  Hi Adam, I'm a fan of your writing, but your experience in riding and monetizing Tailwind's explosive growth is obviously a massive outlier.
  - adamwathan 5y ago
    Hey thank you! 3 of 4 of my educational products actually predate Tailwind — I was a millionaire from that business before even releasing Tailwind v0.1.0. Refactoring UI came after but we had built a huge audience for that well before Tailwind as well. I’m an outlier for sure but $20k is low. If you do a great job at everything that goes into running a business like this you can definitely do much better than that. Josh Comeau did an incredible job building his audience and reputation before releasing his CSS course a few months ago for example and he has done over $500k if I remember right.

grecy 5y ago

I wrote a an article [1] about how I self-publish my printed books on Amazon using LaTeX, pandoc and some shell scripts to automate the generation of a print-ready pdf and a standards compliant epub file all in one step. All in all it's been very successful for me, and I highly recommend doing so. The first time you get your printed book in your hand is a magical feeling not quickly forgotten! [1] http://theroadchoseme.com/how-i-self-published-a-professional-paperback-and-ebook-using-latex-and-pandoc http://theroadchoseme.com/how-i-self-published-a-professiona...

tsumnia 5y ago

Honestly? Please don't. I don't mean to be rude, but the quality of some coding books is not good at all. The majority are rehashes of online documentation on what the function does with barely any examples on "real world application" and could easily be found online for free. I've seen enough chapters on how NumPy arrays work to completely disregard them. As an example, I recently picked up a book on Python for Civil Engineering because I was looking for said "real world" examples for a course I was teaching. In total, there are 6 civil engineering examples across the 160 pages and each needs ALL the basic concepts before you see them (although one is just "here's how matplotlib works"). If you choose to self-publish, please have more than the bare minimum in examples. Take a page out of Miguel Grinberg's Flask Tutorial [1] and have the entire book build up to something. If you're doing something like how to do Data Science with language X, use some larger scale datasets, walk through them, and explain what you are seeing beyond "here's the print statement's output". Most of the videos on my YouTube channel that are about "How to use X in Y" get minimal views, because they're so simple that you only need to see it once via a video or webpage to "get it". However, some of my more popular videos are where I implement algorithms like the Luhn Check algorithm. Have that kind of material in your book. [1] https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial-part-i-hello-world https://blog.miguelgrinberg.com/post/the-flask-mega-tutorial...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
wyclif 5y ago
You're correct that the quality of programming books is all over the map. Some of them are really bad, and are essentially rehashed SO answers sandwiched between some prosaic filler. There are essentially two kinds of tech books: 1/ Thorough, in-depth technical discussions of programming languages, software, or apps that dive deep enough to enlighten the reader on how they work under the hood 2/ Rehashes of already existing docs, the latter of which do the job more directly without forcing you to read filler text. These books are primarily written to boost the author's reputation Obviously, you should learn to be selective and buy only the #1 type of book. It's not hard to figure out what kind of book it is from looking at the TOC and remembering the type of books you've read from the same publisher.

MavropaliasG 5y ago

Has anyone tried LearnWorlds for publishing their course?

christophergs 5y ago
LearnWorlds is a solid choice. If you're after a course platform tailored for technical courses, check out https://coursemaker.org https://coursemaker.org

dSebastien 5y ago

For my first book (https://www.amazon.com/Learn-TypeScript-Building-Applications-understanding-ebook/dp/B081FB89BL https://www.amazon.com/Learn-TypeScript-Building-Application...), I have gone down the classic path. Overall, that experience was far from great. I suffered through the process, and it was painful towards the end, as more parties got involved, and often created more problems than they brought solutions. Of course your mileage may vary; I have no doubt that there are much better publishers out there. I was forced to use specific tools/platforms to edit the content. Those tools were slow, buggy, didn't clearly show what was changed, etc. This was incredibly painful. Obviously, one should not do it for the money. You can get quite a lot if you're lucky enough to be an outlier and write timeless content, but it's very unlikely. I personally went through the process as I was getting started with freelancing and wanted to boost my visibility. It served its purpose, but the opportunity cost was huge. Once the book was released, my publisher didn't invest a whole lot in marketing the content. I did what I could on my end, which kept the sales going, but I felt left alone. Again, it depends on your publisher, and on their belief in your project; your mileage may vary there too... For my new project (https://dev-concepts.dev https://dev-concepts.dev), I have decided to self-publish. Here are my reasons: - Freedom - Ownership - Financial - Responsibility While self-publishing, I can write at my own pace, without external pressure (apart the one I put on myself). I can set my own rules, my own process, use tools of my choice, etc. Importantly, I keep full ownership. Everything I write remains 100% mine, and I can repurpose anything I want to create new content (e.g., video courses, blog articles, etc). This is a key point for me! I also get to decide if I want to give away free copies of my book. From a financial point of view, 100% of the benefits will be mine. This means that I can sell ~5x less copies and still make as much money. I also believe that self-published projects that have a solid copy and are marketed correctly have much a better chances to generate money. The thing is of course that if you're alone, you're alone. Noone else is going to help, review the content, find technical reviewers, provide you a toolchain, fix typos, etc. Personally it doesn't bother me; I find that liberating and empowering!

virwheeler 5y ago

It will good probably useful on counties without proper internet connection. But almost all of the information needed about programming is already on the internet. It's just a one search away and you can find your answer

dhosek 5y ago
Although a not insignificant fraction of the time, the answer will be wrong or outdated.