Great writeup on the under-belly of publishing!

The first 11 books I wrote were published by mainstream publishers (McGraw-Hill, J. Riley, Springer-Verlag, Morgan Kaufman). While I am grateful for the advance monies paid and great support in writing, I eventually decided that I wanted the freedom to write on whatever topics I wanted and all my new stuff is self published, first through lulu.com and now through leanpub.com.

I encourage people to write a book (or books). It is a really fun process. I would suggest using a publisher for a book and then also try self publishing using leanpub.com or some other platform. Decide for yourself with you prefer.