3 ms·

Ask HN: Should I write a book?

I participate in an open source project. Last week, I was contacted by a publisher asking for feedback on a book proposal and outline about this project. I was supportive of the idea, but critical of the execution and outline. One of my criticisms was about the author's credentials on the subject. He's made three posts to the mailing list, none of them particularly substantive. I could find little else through Google. He appears to have written one other technical book on a different subject, in a different (human) language. I got a free e-book out of my review and figured that was the last I'd hear. Today, I received another email from the publishing company saying that a co-author for the book might be a good idea and they wondered if I'd be interested. I currently have two jobs: a day job and moonlighting for a startup that should be hiring me full time soon. I'll be in this situation for at least another month, though, and even once I am working at the startup full time it may be fairly demanding. The opportunity sounds exciting, but I'm also concerned that I may be taking on too much. I've never written a book before. I don't even have a blog, though I've been meaning to start one for a long time. I'd love to hear from anyone who's written a book or who's been in a similar situation.

hi_dan 15y ago
do whatever you want. for $20 an hour I'll do your thinking for you.
genbattle 15y ago
I think that we have been contacted by the same publisher about the same book. And have the same feelings on the book and the offer to co-author it. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2926505 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2926505 I was also critical of the author and outline. An unknown author with a single book on ruby to his name. The outline was poorly organised, and there wasn't anything that you couldn't get from the publicly available documentation and tutorials on the language.
- reluctantauthor 15y ago
  Yep, it definitely sounds like the same book. If you put your email in your profile I'd be interested in emailing you, though I suspect I already know who you are.
  - genbattle 15y ago
    Just added my email to my profile, feel free to contact me.
CWuestefeld 15y ago
I've one book under my belt, Inside ISAPI. A couple of high points: It took literally every free moment I had for 6 months. Every evening, all evening, after I got home from work. Every weekend. And technology goes stale so quickly, your book probably won't have a very long lifespan, so you'll be lucky to get very much money out of it. I probably earned much less than $1/hr if I could figure out all the time spent. On the other hand, it's one of the best resume builders you can imagine. Going into a potential employer with your book under your arm is worth quite a bit.
- reluctantauthor 15y ago
  Thanks for the response. It's really helpful. I'm not really that worried about the money, but it sounds like I do have to consider what my free time is worth to me. Did you write your book solo or with a co-author?
  - CWuestefeld 15y ago
    It was with two co-authors. Luckily, we were all coworkers, and friends at that. If you're going into this with someone else, be sure that (a) you can work with them, and (b) you trust them to take the project to completion, so your work isn't wasted.
jamesbritt 15y ago
I've co-authored a book that did OK (Pro VB 6 & XML), and was about halfway through a book (Beginning Ruby) before the publisher (Wrox) went bankrupt and I got next to nothing for my efforts. I've also been paid to write book chapters that never saw the light of day, and assorted articles for magazines, Web and dead-tree. Basically, the money is often poor when predictable, but can be OK if a book does well. Overall, if money is the goal, get a job as a waiter; it will probably pay better. OTOH if your book is among the first on a topic of current interest and doesn't suck you can do alright. It can be a lot of work. For the VB book I needed to spend some time researching some W3C specs and making sure I had some technical details correct, but much of what else I wrote came from an application I had already written, so it was fairly easy to write about. For better or worse it gave me a falsely rosy picture of book writing. :) The Ruby book, though, ended up being more work than I expected; documenting a language's behavior is more detailed than describing an app in that language. (Sadly, many language tech books suck because the authors don't actually know how the language works and fall back on loose, often incorrect, assumptions and analogies.) A book can help build a reputation, get you speaking gigs, and in assorted ways contribute indirectly to income, so book sales alone may not tell the whole story. But it's pretty unpredictable. Books get canceled; hot topics fade away. Maybe you or a coauthor really cannot write. If you're not innately excited about the idea, or don't feel confident in your tech writing skills, you might do well to hold off. Maybe write some blog posts, gauge reader interest, and test market the idea of a book.
Eliezer 15y ago
My reaction is "RUN!". If you aren't an experienced writer, you haven't co-written before, your potential co-author is a possible idiot, and you already have two jobs, then NO. Dear heaven, NO.
- namank 15y ago
  How do you become an experienced writer without writing? To the OP: I say go for it. Whats a month? I'm sure you can start after get hired by the startup. Make it your pet/weekend project.
gallerytungsten 15y ago
I almost did a deal to write a book for a well-known technical publisher. (A hurricane intervened.) The advance was only $8k, which would have probably worked out to less than minimum wage. I'd check the advance amount pronto, as that will probably put you off the deal regardless of the dicey co-author problems. Don't expect to get paid more than the advance. (And "advance" is kind of a misnomer, as you'd get this amount after delivering the manuscript.)
europestup 15y ago
Writing a book is very good for building your personal brand. IF you are interested in that, and IF you think the book could be fixed without too much effort, you could go for it. Having a starting point, however bad, would make it much easier to write the book.

hi_dan 15y ago

do whatever you want. for $20 an hour I'll do your thinking for you.

genbattle 15y ago

I think that we have been contacted by the same publisher about the same book. And have the same feelings on the book and the offer to co-author it. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2926505 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2926505 I was also critical of the author and outline. An unknown author with a single book on ruby to his name. The outline was poorly organised, and there wasn't anything that you couldn't get from the publicly available documentation and tutorials on the language.

reluctantauthor 15y ago
Yep, it definitely sounds like the same book. If you put your email in your profile I'd be interested in emailing you, though I suspect I already know who you are.
- genbattle 15y ago
  Just added my email to my profile, feel free to contact me.

CWuestefeld 15y ago

I've one book under my belt, Inside ISAPI. A couple of high points: It took literally every free moment I had for 6 months. Every evening, all evening, after I got home from work. Every weekend. And technology goes stale so quickly, your book probably won't have a very long lifespan, so you'll be lucky to get very much money out of it. I probably earned much less than $1/hr if I could figure out all the time spent. On the other hand, it's one of the best resume builders you can imagine. Going into a potential employer with your book under your arm is worth quite a bit.

reluctantauthor 15y ago
Thanks for the response. It's really helpful. I'm not really that worried about the money, but it sounds like I do have to consider what my free time is worth to me. Did you write your book solo or with a co-author?
- CWuestefeld 15y ago
  It was with two co-authors. Luckily, we were all coworkers, and friends at that. If you're going into this with someone else, be sure that (a) you can work with them, and (b) you trust them to take the project to completion, so your work isn't wasted.

jamesbritt 15y ago

I've co-authored a book that did OK (Pro VB 6 & XML), and was about halfway through a book (Beginning Ruby) before the publisher (Wrox) went bankrupt and I got next to nothing for my efforts. I've also been paid to write book chapters that never saw the light of day, and assorted articles for magazines, Web and dead-tree. Basically, the money is often poor when predictable, but can be OK if a book does well. Overall, if money is the goal, get a job as a waiter; it will probably pay better. OTOH if your book is among the first on a topic of current interest and doesn't suck you can do alright. It can be a lot of work. For the VB book I needed to spend some time researching some W3C specs and making sure I had some technical details correct, but much of what else I wrote came from an application I had already written, so it was fairly easy to write about. For better or worse it gave me a falsely rosy picture of book writing. :) The Ruby book, though, ended up being more work than I expected; documenting a language's behavior is more detailed than describing an app in that language. (Sadly, many language tech books suck because the authors don't actually know how the language works and fall back on loose, often incorrect, assumptions and analogies.) A book can help build a reputation, get you speaking gigs, and in assorted ways contribute indirectly to income, so book sales alone may not tell the whole story. But it's pretty unpredictable. Books get canceled; hot topics fade away. Maybe you or a coauthor really cannot write. If you're not innately excited about the idea, or don't feel confident in your tech writing skills, you might do well to hold off. Maybe write some blog posts, gauge reader interest, and test market the idea of a book.

Eliezer 15y ago

My reaction is "RUN!". If you aren't an experienced writer, you haven't co-written before, your potential co-author is a possible idiot, and you already have two jobs, then NO. Dear heaven, NO.

namank 15y ago
How do you become an experienced writer without writing? To the OP: I say go for it. Whats a month? I'm sure you can start after get hired by the startup. Make it your pet/weekend project.

gallerytungsten 15y ago

I almost did a deal to write a book for a well-known technical publisher. (A hurricane intervened.) The advance was only $8k, which would have probably worked out to less than minimum wage. I'd check the advance amount pronto, as that will probably put you off the deal regardless of the dicey co-author problems. Don't expect to get paid more than the advance. (And "advance" is kind of a misnomer, as you'd get this amount after delivering the manuscript.)

europestup 15y ago

Writing a book is very good for building your personal brand. IF you are interested in that, and IF you think the book could be fixed without too much effort, you could go for it. Having a starting point, however bad, would make it much easier to write the book.