Ask HN: Traditional Book vs Web Publication
I'm a fellow tech founder; before this company, I was a professional tea taster and am still an expert in Chinese tea specially and high-end tea generally.
Using my situation as an example, I'm curious about the prevailing views on publishing a traditional print book (via a publishing house - not self-publishing) versus publishing a "book" using subscriber based online publishing tools (for example: ghost.org, WordPress + subscriber management, or Substack).
In general, it seems that a traditional book is:
-) seen as more prestigious - to be a "published author"
-) has editorial support and licensing support for things like artworks and other references
While, for online publishing tools:
-) Web layout has a lot of flexibility over print - color photos, tables, footnotes are all better on the web(?)
-) In theory, by building a subscriber base and publishing over time, a writer could make more money
-) an author could use comments to interact with readers and answer questions
My book is:
1) very niche - advanced techniques in the praxis of Chinese Tea Ceremony
2) must be read in order - its a book that builds on prior information from previous chapters
3) potentially serializable - I plan to write more than one, in a continuous series
My current thoughts are:
-) The prestige is nice, but a steady income from readers is superior - if anyone will subscribe
-) Substack is a poor fit because of its focus on email
-) The traditional publication industry is dying (and was not terribly likely to have high support for super niche topics anyway) and its better to be on the forefront of what's next (the internet!)
*The question*: What would you do in either the general case or my specific case?
@dang long time reader and very-hesitant poster on HN; if this violates any rules, I apologize and would be happy to delete it.