3 ms·

I wrote a few (new editions of existing) books: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/103-3188513-3470248?field-keywords=chris%20fehily&url=index

by fehily 18y ago

I wrote a few (new editions of existing) books: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/103-3188513-3470248?field-keywords=chris%20fehily&url=index%3Dblended http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/search-handle-url/103-3188...

SwellJoe 18y ago
I found writing to pay too little for too much effort. But, then, I only have the one book published. And, to be fair, I do still get a few hundred dollars in royalties every quarter five years later. So, I guess if I were to write a stable of books over the span of a few years, it could probably turn out to be a reasonable income. But then, it wouldn't be very passive, would it? New editions of existing books is an interesting twist, though. Did you write the originals? If not, how did you end up doing the updates for later editions? (I'd be kinda ticked if my publisher didn't come to me first for a new edition of my book, for example...and it's one reason I didn't write a second book...the apress contract actually had a weird provision about not needing any permission from the original author to release new editions, and granted them the ability to do odd things to the royalty structure for subsequent editions.)
- plinkplonk 18y ago
  "I found writing to pay too little for too much effort". What did you write and how much money (order of magnitude would do) did you make? I am thinking of taking up writing full time. Thanks in advance,
  - SwellJoe 18y ago
    I wrote this: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Webmin-Learned-Stop-Worrying/dp/1886411921/ http://www.amazon.com/Book-Webmin-Learned-Stop-Worrying/dp/1... It's a book about UNIX system administration with Webmin. I made about $10k in the first year or so after it was published, and then I've made $100-$400 per quarter ever since. I haven't done the math on what those ongoing royalties added up to. I just consider it "mad money". I buy myself somethin' pretty with it whenever it comes in, like a Nintendo DS, a BMX bike, or something similarly goofy. Oh, and I received a one-time payment of $3000 for the Japanese translation. I really take great satisfaction in that one...it also looks awesome on the shelf. The American version is cute, but the Japanese version is simply amazing. It is obviously a niche book, and a more general topic would have probably sold more (the best I ever saw it ranked at Amazon was in the 3000s, I think). But, it had ancillary value to me, so I had already written about half of the content before I ever had a book deal for it. It was also free online from the very beginning, so my website was probably competing with book sales. I guess, to be fair, I've gotten probably tens of thousands of dollars worth of marketing value out of that content over the past 8 years or so (I was working on it in one form or another from 2000, or so, onward, and it has been responsible for a large portion of the organic web traffic my two businesses have received). The book (and the wiki that replaced it) has consistently received 30,000 monthly visitors, or more, for as long as I can remember...that's an awful lot of free ad impressions (we have links to our products in strategic locations within the wiki content, and I had banner ads for my previous business' products on every page in the old non-wiki version). It's really high quality traffic, and I'd pay over a buck a click for that kind of traffic from Google AdWords. Actually, now that I'm thinking of it in those terms, it was probably a great investment of my time. I should probably write another one. But, I spent a lot of time writing it. I'd probably go faster today, for a number of reasons.
  - SwellJoe 18y ago
    Oh, and I'll add that I liked working with No Starch and Bill Pollock. They're all really easy going folks, and are very flexible about contract terms, schedules, etc. I can recommend them, if you do decide to write a book. I was crazy late delivering on the last few chapters, and they didn't chop my percentage, even though the contract said they could. And, the percentage they offered me (15%) was quite generous. Also, when I moved to the valley, they went to some lengths to track me down again, so they could send me my royalty checks. I forgot to let them know I'd moved, and my old email address is one that I pretty much never check. So, I think I can say that, all around, they're good people.
    - plinkplonk 18y ago
      @SwellJoe Very useful Information. Thanks !
- fehily 18y ago
  If you want to make an actual living, then write 15-20 midlist books (or 5 bestsellers) and revise them regularly (the real money is in the revisions, not the first editions). You can drop a note to an acquisitions editor to see if any authors have refused their right to revise. Even if you lose money writing a book (you probably will--that's why editors rarely quit to become authors), you can still impress at contractor interviews by showing up with your published book. Or use the book to raise your speaking fees, etc.
  - SwellJoe 18y ago
    Yes, that's true. One of my best contracts was obtained because of the book. It is surprising how much caché a published book has. And for folks looking to make a living from Open Source software, I'd recommend writing a book about your project, since it gives you a huge amount of credibility within the community. Though there are some publishers who put out crappy books that I would think would have a negative impact on your credibility. I won't name names, but two folks I know to be very smart and definitely experts in their field (I believe both are users here, though not frequent users), wrote books for Apress and Packt, respectively...and both are pretty sloppy, occasionally repetitive, and sometimes even wrong. The funny thing is that I know they're both capable of writing great documentation, because they've done it for their projects for years. I had quite a bit of editor input throughout the process of writing my book for No Starch, and I was one of the technical readers for an O'Reilly title, so I know that a lot of effort goes into making sure books from top name publishers (and mid-tiers like No Starch) are readable and reasonably accurate. Then again, I don't know that anyone who ever hired me because of my book actually read it. So maybe it doesn't matter if the book is sloppy. Maybe it just matters that it's available at Amazon.
  - avinashv 18y ago
    > You can drop a note to an acquisitions editor to see if any authors have refused their right to revise. I'm not really familiar with the lingo, but what is an acquisitions editor and/or where can I find one? There's several topics that I am extremely comfortable with and could see myself writing on.

by fehily 18y ago

SwellJoe 18y ago

I found writing to pay too little for too much effort. But, then, I only have the one book published. And, to be fair, I do still get a few hundred dollars in royalties every quarter five years later. So, I guess if I were to write a stable of books over the span of a few years, it could probably turn out to be a reasonable income. But then, it wouldn't be very passive, would it? New editions of existing books is an interesting twist, though. Did you write the originals? If not, how did you end up doing the updates for later editions? (I'd be kinda ticked if my publisher didn't come to me first for a new edition of my book, for example...and it's one reason I didn't write a second book...the apress contract actually had a weird provision about not needing any permission from the original author to release new editions, and granted them the ability to do odd things to the royalty structure for subsequent editions.)

plinkplonk 18y ago
"I found writing to pay too little for too much effort". What did you write and how much money (order of magnitude would do) did you make? I am thinking of taking up writing full time. Thanks in advance,
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  I wrote this: http://www.amazon.com/Book-Webmin-Learned-Stop-Worrying/dp/1886411921/ http://www.amazon.com/Book-Webmin-Learned-Stop-Worrying/dp/1... It's a book about UNIX system administration with Webmin. I made about $10k in the first year or so after it was published, and then I've made $100-$400 per quarter ever since. I haven't done the math on what those ongoing royalties added up to. I just consider it "mad money". I buy myself somethin' pretty with it whenever it comes in, like a Nintendo DS, a BMX bike, or something similarly goofy. Oh, and I received a one-time payment of $3000 for the Japanese translation. I really take great satisfaction in that one...it also looks awesome on the shelf. The American version is cute, but the Japanese version is simply amazing. It is obviously a niche book, and a more general topic would have probably sold more (the best I ever saw it ranked at Amazon was in the 3000s, I think). But, it had ancillary value to me, so I had already written about half of the content before I ever had a book deal for it. It was also free online from the very beginning, so my website was probably competing with book sales. I guess, to be fair, I've gotten probably tens of thousands of dollars worth of marketing value out of that content over the past 8 years or so (I was working on it in one form or another from 2000, or so, onward, and it has been responsible for a large portion of the organic web traffic my two businesses have received). The book (and the wiki that replaced it) has consistently received 30,000 monthly visitors, or more, for as long as I can remember...that's an awful lot of free ad impressions (we have links to our products in strategic locations within the wiki content, and I had banner ads for my previous business' products on every page in the old non-wiki version). It's really high quality traffic, and I'd pay over a buck a click for that kind of traffic from Google AdWords. Actually, now that I'm thinking of it in those terms, it was probably a great investment of my time. I should probably write another one. But, I spent a lot of time writing it. I'd probably go faster today, for a number of reasons.
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  Oh, and I'll add that I liked working with No Starch and Bill Pollock. They're all really easy going folks, and are very flexible about contract terms, schedules, etc. I can recommend them, if you do decide to write a book. I was crazy late delivering on the last few chapters, and they didn't chop my percentage, even though the contract said they could. And, the percentage they offered me (15%) was quite generous. Also, when I moved to the valley, they went to some lengths to track me down again, so they could send me my royalty checks. I forgot to let them know I'd moved, and my old email address is one that I pretty much never check. So, I think I can say that, all around, they're good people.
  - plinkplonk 18y ago
    @SwellJoe Very useful Information. Thanks !
fehily 18y ago
If you want to make an actual living, then write 15-20 midlist books (or 5 bestsellers) and revise them regularly (the real money is in the revisions, not the first editions). You can drop a note to an acquisitions editor to see if any authors have refused their right to revise. Even if you lose money writing a book (you probably will--that's why editors rarely quit to become authors), you can still impress at contractor interviews by showing up with your published book. Or use the book to raise your speaking fees, etc.
- SwellJoe 18y ago
  Yes, that's true. One of my best contracts was obtained because of the book. It is surprising how much caché a published book has. And for folks looking to make a living from Open Source software, I'd recommend writing a book about your project, since it gives you a huge amount of credibility within the community. Though there are some publishers who put out crappy books that I would think would have a negative impact on your credibility. I won't name names, but two folks I know to be very smart and definitely experts in their field (I believe both are users here, though not frequent users), wrote books for Apress and Packt, respectively...and both are pretty sloppy, occasionally repetitive, and sometimes even wrong. The funny thing is that I know they're both capable of writing great documentation, because they've done it for their projects for years. I had quite a bit of editor input throughout the process of writing my book for No Starch, and I was one of the technical readers for an O'Reilly title, so I know that a lot of effort goes into making sure books from top name publishers (and mid-tiers like No Starch) are readable and reasonably accurate. Then again, I don't know that anyone who ever hired me because of my book actually read it. So maybe it doesn't matter if the book is sloppy. Maybe it just matters that it's available at Amazon.
- avinashv 18y ago
  > You can drop a note to an acquisitions editor to see if any authors have refused their right to revise. I'm not really familiar with the lingo, but what is an acquisitions editor and/or where can I find one? There's several topics that I am extremely comfortable with and could see myself writing on.