[HN Gopher] So You Want to Write a Book?
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So You Want to Write a Book?
Author : ed2592
Score : 55 points
Date : 2021-06-13 09:03 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (press.ed2592.xyz)
(TXT) w3m dump (press.ed2592.xyz)
| dorkmind wrote:
| I noticed that the book bindery closed in Berkeley a bit ago.
| It's a shame, since I had a conversation with the guy who ran it
| years ago, and the options he had were really dazzling. I think
| with a little life it could be turned into a hipster boutique,
| but perhaps I'm ten years too late...
|
| https://www.berkeleyside.org/2020/12/02/an-afternoon-at-pett...
|
| There are, of course, plenty of book binderies; this shop just
| had a ton of character. It should have merged with Castle in the
| Air! Alas, that shop has closed too.
| johnillstrain wrote:
| Nice article. I wonder how difficult writing a technical book is.
| I have a few ideas in my mind and it would be great to have them
| released as books.
| lawn wrote:
| It's very time consuming and it's highly unlikely you'll get a
| return of investment in sales to cover the time committed.
| themarkn wrote:
| But it may provide other benefits like helping others & being
| perceived as an expert, which can lead to paid speaking
| opportunities, workshops, or even just another thing on your
| resume to help you appear worth a higher salary next time you
| look for a job.
|
| Book sales themselves are not where your income comes from as
| an author, especially in a niche. It's all the other stuff.
| If your book sells a lot that's awesome, but that isn't a
| realistic plan.
| magicloop wrote:
| I am an author of a self-published book on Amazon. So I
| understand the process but not the process with respect to
| using a "publisher". However, I understand the writing process.
|
| I would say that if you can commit to 1 hr per day for 2 years,
| or some other combination of effort, a book is do-able. In
| truth, that is too much for those with just a casual desire to
| write a book. If it is, maybe consider a short form writing
| format instead, such as a blog.
|
| The most difficult part I found was mastering the documentation
| system and automation. This is important if you want to deliver
| to multiple target formats. Your book needs its own Continuous
| Integration system. The effort here pays for itself many times
| over. For concrete details, I documented my journey at
| https://github.com/faisalmemon/ios-crash-dump-analysis-book
|
| The next most difficult (but fun) part of it is the primary
| research. Most of what you say in a book is known knowledge but
| just compressed down from upstream reading material into the
| story you want to convey. The extra piece is your own insight.
| To have a "solid" book, that piece must be rooted in some
| primary research (so you know what you are saying is
| "correct").
|
| The actual "writing" part is the easy part! The main problems
| are stylistic errors but you can search the internet for tips
| to avoid the pitfalls. (e.g. avoiding repetition, being
| concise, avoiding complex words when a simple word fits better,
| etc.)
|
| For spelling and grammar, I just exported to MS Doc format, and
| used its in-built checker. For proof reading, I just used the
| Mac text-to-speech facility to catch mistakes.
|
| I was quite fearful of the response given my amateur approach
| but experienced quite the opposite. My book was well received.
| (Amazon 5 stars!).
| amelius wrote:
| It doesn't have a table of contents ...
|
| Anyway, instead of dealing with the legalese, I'd self-publish.
| ed2592 wrote:
| Here it is! https://ed2592press.com/author/
| strzibny wrote:
| > You are now ready to begin writing. You will probably use
| Microsoft Word, FrameMaker, or XML
|
| I though you are working on technical books? Word?
|
| What do you offer to someone like me, whose trying to self-
| publish[0]?
|
| [0] https://deploymentfromscratch.com
| asicsp wrote:
| > _Ed2592 Press is the leading publisher of books for computer
| science, cryptography, X, the Internet, and other open systems,
| as well as a pioneer in online publishing._
|
| > _Catalog Cooming soon :)_
|
| Apart from the typo, how is Ed2592 Press a leading publisher
| without even a Catalog to explore? May be I missed something?
|
| I did find the explanation for 2592 interesting.
| wizzwizz4 wrote:
| > _May be I missed something?_
|
| Chapter 3 gives some hints:
|
| > Bookstores tell us that the thing they find most remarkable
| about our success is how consistently all of our books sell. In
| fact, Borders, the most respected and successful bookstore
| chain in the country, reports that ORA is their top publisher,
| in any category, in terms of consistent sell-through of our
| entire line of books. Other bookstores tell us that their
| customers often ask them for the "O'Reilly book" on a topic.
| Our reputation will help sell your book.
| geoah wrote:
| Yeah the name has an interesting story.
|
| > "What is the difference between 2592 and 2^5 * 9^2? There is
| none because 25 equals 32, 92 equals 81 and 32 * 81 = 2592.
| 2592 is one of those numbers called printer error numbers. The
| concept is simple. If some digits of a number, without changing
| their position, are set to exponent without altering the value,
| then this number is a printer error number. Thus: numbers from
| printing error are different representations of the same
| number.
| animesh wrote:
| Are there other numbers like this?
| ed2592 wrote:
| Yes, but 2592 is the only number that has 4 digits
|
| https://erich-friedman.github.io/mathmagic/0601.html
| ed2592 wrote:
| Thanks for the question.
|
| We were another little publishing house that released two,
| three technical books per year. Unfortunately, due to the
| previous owner, we made many errors (such as investing time and
| resources into a project that we found was a scam) and we lost
| part of our readers. Our former business was really a pain,
| tons of people high-paid only to waste time on stupid books.
| Economic crisis of 2008 and 2011 in Italy contributed to this
| and we losted earnings.
|
| I am one of the previous employee and after a discussion with
| the former owner, we got the rights to redistribute the
| content. The old company was removed, and all the employee (10)
| were fired.
|
| Currently we are focusing on re-editing our books and
| developing a solid business plan. We know it's a little bit
| ambitious to say pioneer, but we were one of the first
| technical publishing houses to release digital content in the
| early 90s (in Italy).
| asicsp wrote:
| Thanks for the explanation, good luck with the new set up :)
| ed2592 wrote:
| Glad to be in trending! We admire HN community :)
| 13415 wrote:
| Just go for a publisher that has a track record of typesetting
| and publishing technical books and reaches a large audience. I
| made the mistake of signing a contract with a reputable publisher
| for a rather technical book written in LaTeX without checking how
| their books look first. As it turns out, they are not accustomed
| to typesetting math at all. They want to convert the manuscript
| to Microsoft Word, which is crazy, introduces new errors, and is
| guaranteed to look bad afterwards. I've checked the few technical
| books in their catalogue, and they look awful. But it's too late
| for me to change the publisher now.
|
| So, my advice is send your prospectus only to publishers whose
| books you like and do a little research first. There are
| surprisingly many publishers who don't know what they're doing
| (or, to be fair, have different priorities than you).
| ed2592 wrote:
| Wow. Generally we used to release few books per year only for
| this reason. Each book and each author needs attention and we
| care a lot about focusing on details. (This is a little bit
| more difficult when we had to coordinate many authors on one
| book. Thank god, we had SVN).
|
| We do totally agree with you. Every publisher has different
| priorities: the previous owner aimed only to "make money" in a
| "super-simple-way" aka do not pay freelancers, authors unless
| they start to mention legal way.
|
| Let us guess the company you applied for your book, Apress?
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