5 ms·

Absolutely! I have two books out now and there's no way in hell I'd want to market them myself. I also know that many people are buying the hard-copy, not the e

by Ovid 14y ago

Absolutely! I have two books out now and there's no way in hell I'd want to market them myself. I also know that many people are buying the hard-copy, not the ebooks, meaning that even a hard-copy/ebook split wouldn't do terribly well for me.

chromatic 14y ago
I have several books out now, and I'm jealous of anyone who gets marketing support from a "traditional" publisher. The most I've seen in the past four years is that occasionally the publisher tweets about it.
- Ovid 14y ago
  I wonder how much of that is because the books that you (and I) have driven through a traditional publisher have been tech books?
  - cstross 14y ago
    This. I had a tech book out in the mid-90s from Addison-Wesley, and I got quite a way into negotiating with O'Reilly in the early noughties. The tech publishing sector is largely driven by techies for whom a publication history is of value as a check mark on their resume, rather than people who write for a living: consequently there's a race to the margins to document extremely esoteric niche products, and this triggers a race to the bottom on advances/royalties (it's hard to justify paying up a big advance for a book with a market of maybe 2000 readers). Even a badly paid midlist SF novel can expect about twice the advance O'Reilly offer for a tech book: the potential audience is much bigger, and the incentives for publishing in the first place are different.
    - Ovid 14y ago
      You know, I was going to say that my advance for my last book was pretty decent and I'd be surprised that it would be much worse than a midlist SF novel. Then I saw your user name. I suspect you probably know a thing or two about this topic. But I have to admit that the direct impact of my tech books has been a boost to my career, not my bank account.
    - microtherion 14y ago
      In your case (for the Addison-Wesley product), that “esoteric niche product” was… how to set up a web server. You could probably find those 2000 readers for it. I have no idea how A-W treated you as an author, but as a reviewer on that book, I was very well compensated by them, so I assumed they treated authors OK as well.

by Ovid 14y ago

chromatic 14y ago

I have several books out now, and I'm jealous of anyone who gets marketing support from a "traditional" publisher. The most I've seen in the past four years is that occasionally the publisher tweets about it.

Ovid 14y ago
I wonder how much of that is because the books that you (and I) have driven through a traditional publisher have been tech books?
- cstross 14y ago
  This. I had a tech book out in the mid-90s from Addison-Wesley, and I got quite a way into negotiating with O'Reilly in the early noughties. The tech publishing sector is largely driven by techies for whom a publication history is of value as a check mark on their resume, rather than people who write for a living: consequently there's a race to the margins to document extremely esoteric niche products, and this triggers a race to the bottom on advances/royalties (it's hard to justify paying up a big advance for a book with a market of maybe 2000 readers). Even a badly paid midlist SF novel can expect about twice the advance O'Reilly offer for a tech book: the potential audience is much bigger, and the incentives for publishing in the first place are different.
  - Ovid 14y ago
    You know, I was going to say that my advance for my last book was pretty decent and I'd be surprised that it would be much worse than a midlist SF novel. Then I saw your user name. I suspect you probably know a thing or two about this topic. But I have to admit that the direct impact of my tech books has been a boost to my career, not my bank account.
  - microtherion 14y ago
    In your case (for the Addison-Wesley product), that “esoteric niche product” was… how to set up a web server. You could probably find those 2000 readers for it. I have no idea how A-W treated you as an author, but as a reviewer on that book, I was very well compensated by them, so I assumed they treated authors OK as well.