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(O'Reilly author and ex-editor here) Editorial effort and quality control also plays into the purchase decision: I have a sense of what "an O'Reilly book" will
by gnat 4y ago
(O'Reilly author and ex-editor here)
Editorial effort and quality control also plays into the purchase decision: I have a sense of what "an O'Reilly book" will be today, just like I have a sense of what "a Packt book" will be. With a self-published book, I might know what the author is like but I can't be so sure what the writing and structure are like.
O'Reilly books today may not be the automatic promise of high-quality texts they used to be when I was writing (last millennium!), but I know that there's a reasonable amount of effort that goes into selecting titles and improving the quality of the book.
You can always find a self-published book that's awesome and an O'Reilly book that's crap, but my experience is that the median O'R book is higher quality than the median self-published tech book.
(I'm not saying you should only buy O'R books -- my library has plenty of non-O'R books)
- jokethrowaway 4y agoWhen buying technical books I don't care particularly about writing skills and structure. I only care about the author credentials and skills. I'll overlook a bad structure and even bad writing if the content is good and will give me value. I'm way more likely to buy the book at 25% of the price with no editor than at 100% of the price with an editor.
- Breza 4y agoA well written book is so much easier to read that I'll pay the premium (within reason). When I read a textbook by Hadley Wickham, I can tell how much he loves novels; he knows how to write in a way that's engaging for the reader. I've tried to slog through technical books that don't have the same writing level (despite the same technical proficiency of the author) and it's painful.