Writing a Technical Book
andregarzia.com
andregarzia.com
I wrote a diary during the almost two years I spent writing and revising a book for Manning Publications. I muse about the trad pub process and my feelings on the great slog that is writing a technical book.
I don't necessarily disagree but a lot of writing (and often graphics/figures) is needed to fill a typical book. You're looking at say 60 to 70 thousand words for a 250 page book. I write a lot and people think of me as being pretty fast--though I certainly know journalists who are faster--but my typical daily output is about 1,000 words assuming I'm spending most of a day on it. Do the math (especially if it's a part-time thing).
This is one of the best things I like about self publishing. I am not restricted by guidelines set by a publisher regarding chapter structure, images, exercises, etc. I can give away free copies, put up free web versions, share source code, etc. And recently I've tried sharing content chapter wise as I write the books.
>Traditional publishing ... PRO: You have professional editors looking over your draft.
I miss this aspect of traditional publishing the most. Also applies to quality of the ebook (formatting, cover, etc) produced.
>The hard part is editing and revising it so that your draft becomes something that is good enough to share.
I actually like the editing and revising part. It's somewhat like bug hunting and feels good to squash them. Creating the first draft has been more difficult for me, since it takes time to organize my thoughts about what I should put in, reading documents, researching ideas etc. When I'm editing, most things are already in place and easier to keep myself occupied with smaller list of tasks.
Genuine question from someone not experienced in the field of publishing: is hiring a freelance/contract editor not an option? In this gig economy world with traditional publishing facing so many challenges, I would think that such editors would be more easily available for specific projects on contract basis, right?
That is an option for sure and I've read a few self published authors mentioning that in their experiences too.
Not for me though for various reasons. I'm happy with what I've earned so far (which only works because of where and how I live, to be put it roughly I need about $150 per month). Last year was good but less than average so far this year. If I consistently get good earnings, I'll look into getting better covers, etc.
Honestly, this is probably overstated. My experience is that, yes, you have professional editors but it's mostly about pushing the book into a certain house style. I'm admittedly an experienced writer but there weren't really a lot substantive changes/restructuring in my case. To be clear, the edits were helpful and things were certainly caught but it's nothing you can't hire for on your own.
IMO, perhaps the biggest benefit is that going with a known tech publisher provides, fairly or not, a certain "gravitas" that a self-published book doesn't.
The hardest part is about marketing for me, and I am happy that I first wrote the book for me and see the completion as an achievement, I talked with a lot of people who thought it was kind of easy to get rich just writing books, I don't think so, not easily.
Also, it's really tough to promote a book without feeling like you're over-trying to do it, and regarding an IT book, except for a reddit community, or twitter I wouldn't know where to start.
I have even been invited to online conferences, people seemed to be interested (don't think they were faking it), but it generated zero sales :)
For example, while writing a book about Vim* I simply used markdown and Pandoc would allow me to translate it to all the different e book formats.
Pandoc supports syntax highlighting out of the box. Unfortunately, there wasn't one for VimL, so I had to implement it myself, but Pandcon would allow me to extend it.
I wonder if that's possible with Scrivener? Does it even support syntax highlighting?