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Comment by ysavir | Hacker News Reader

Then why write a book? If there's no inherent reason to bind your ideas into a single package (which is done for purposes of selling a single item), how do your ideas benefit from having a book structure? Why not write and format as blog posts instead? Or for poetry, a single entry for each poem?

Why use PDFs instead of a format that allows people to bookmark individual pages, and for search engines to index individual chapters?

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> Then why write a book? If there's no inherent reason to bind your ideas into a single package (which is done for purposes of selling a single item), how do your ideas benefit from having a book structure?

To quote Seth Godin, the book is just the souvenir of the idea. And it builds credibility, so you can leverage it for consulting or to do public speaking.

> Then why write a book?

Because it's (mostly) a fun hobby. Writing the novel or poem can be great fun and great annoyance both at the same time. Self-publishing the book is a whole different sort of adventure, but the pleasure of getting a printed copy of my words in book format ... it's a special, very happy feeling.

And afterwards? I don't get many reviews of my work, but it's always fun to read them - even the more negative ones: it demonstrates that my words have reached out to a complete stranger and, somehow, affected them in ways that compelled them to write and post a review.

> Why not write and format as blog posts instead? Or for poetry, a single entry for each poem?

Both are good alternatives. And, yes, I've done (and do) both in a variety of online venues. Collaborative writing can also be fun.

> Why use PDFs instead of a format that allows people to bookmark individual pages, and for search engines to index individual chapters?

The online venue I use for self-publishing[1] converts manuscripts to .epub, .mobi and .pdf versions - all of which can be downloaded from my website. Other self-pub venues offer similar services.

[1] Smashwords - https://www.smashwords.com/

> The online venue I use for self-publishing[1] converts manuscripts to .epub, .mobi and .pdf versions

Do they also allow you to upload your own EPUB or PDF documents? Asking, because I am looking for a publisher.

Smashwords prefers .doc files, but does allow upload of .epub files - though that route is still in beta (and has restrictions). https://www.smashwords.com/about/supportfaq#prep

Amazon's KDP allow uploads in .doc, .docx and .pdf formats - https://kdp.amazon.com/en_US/help/topic/G200735480

Google Play Books take .epub and .pdf files - https://support.google.com/books/partner/answer/3424254?hl=e...

A book can be helpful for other reasons. For a programming book, beginners especially may benefit from a linear structure that covers a predefined amount of content.

For example, you can go from zero rails experience to being able to build a site with Michael Hartl’s rails book. As a reader you can stay focused on the book and roughly assume you can understand Chapter 2 with the information from Chapter 1.

Conversely, a common complaint about intermediate-level Haskell is a lot of it is scattered across blog posts, and is difficult for beginners to follow.

Many web based tutorials are structured as well. Programming in particular is much better learned from a web format rather than PDF. The best tutorials I have seen have embedded placed to see and test code. Quickly jump back and forth to sections describing fundamentals, etc. A PDF is a substandard way to learn about coding imo.

That is a fair question. My older books, as PDFs are on my web site, and my leanpub books are freely readable online. So, all these books get indexed by search engines and show up in search results.

Also, on average I update my eBooks 2 or 3 times so they are hardly static material.

There is something very satisfying about spending 3 or 4 months putting one's thoughts into an eBook. I have about 1300 articles on my blog, but I am sure that by word count, my books are much more content than my blog. To be fair, blogs are easy to update old articles - as eBooks are easy to update.

You can bookmark individual pages in PDFs. PDFs also have the advantage that they are trivial to archive (just copy the file), whereas with websites you'd have to download all the assets (and know which assets to download, so you don't download the whole domain). Another thing is that web browsers these days are pain to use. I'd much rather view a book in a proper document viewer. PDFs also allow for much better typography than web browsers. And forget about having a standard way to render mathematics well in at least 3 different web browsers.

Rather than PDF, you’d actually want an EPUB. All the benefits of the web in a single asset without the format where data goes to die. ePub can be rendered anywhere. PDFs are a pain on the small screen.

Viewing graphs and mathematical formulas is painful on the small screen, regardless of the file format. The problem is the small screen, not PDF.

And AFAIK EPUB gets into the same mess of MathJax as web pages do when they want to render mathematics. No thanks.

Research “marketing ladder”.

Not too much different than where music and albums are today... the money’s in touring, performance, etc.

If my favorite bands had to,live off album sales, those bands wouldn’t exist.

"the money’s in touring, performance, etc."

Not any more. Sadly.

srsly. This is the age of blogs and reddit posts. "Book" is just one possible shape, and certainly not a universal ideal.

> certainly not a universal ideal.

But neither is a blog or reddit post.

I've written two books and read countless others and I strongly believe that books are a much better shape for doing comprehensive justice to a topic.

I've learned a ton from blogs and random articles, of course, but there is nothing quite like the in-depth knowledge you get when a single author has chosen to organize and write an entire book.

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