Ask HN: What is a fair price to write a tech book?
I have recently been contacted by a publishing company and have been asked to write a 150 - 180 page book covering the essentials of Zendesk (a large company that sells support request software) and I am wondering what would be fair compensation for this work. My timeline is 1.5 months for the 1st draft and here is their explanation of payment:
"We would be paying you an advance against future royalties of 16% which is worth around $1000 (depending on the estimate writing timeline) and split across the writing timeline. Shorter the timeline higher the advances. Normally the breakdown of the advance is:
50% of advance for delivery and acceptance of the first draft of all chapters. 25% of advance for delivery and acceptance of the final draft of all chapters. 25% of advance upon publication. "
If I understand this right, 1000$ with no future royalties sounds extremely low, given the time it would take to write a book, but what would a fair price be?
Thanks, Eric