HN Books @HNBooksMonth

⬐ forrestbrazeal

Hi HN,

I wrote "The Read Aloud Cloud" [1], 160+ pages of cartoon-filled cloud computing explainers, so my non-technical friends and family would finally understand what I do for a living.

Just for HN, I've uploaded a sneak peek of Chapter 2: "Evolution of the Cloud (A Prehistory)" [2]

Happy to answer questions about:

- How to write a nonfiction book proposal that sells

- The traditional publishing process (and why I went that route instead of self-pub)

- Cloud or tech careers in general

- Cartooning

- Whatever else!

[1] https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Read-Aloud-Cloud/97811196...

[2] https://www.dropbox.com/s/izyele6p60dfb68/Ch2.pdf?dl=0

⬐ redis_mlc

tl;dr:

"Other peoples' servers."

Saved you 159 pages.

⬐ waldrews

So, could you tell us about "The traditional publishing process (and why [you] went that route instead of self-pub)?"

⬐ forrestbrazeal

Here are a few of my learnings:

- Expect nothing from the publisher in terms of marketing support. In fact, a good nonfiction book proposal is going to spend most of its length explaining to the publisher how you will sell the book for them through your connections and credibility - not the other way around. It's all on you.

- Don't do it for the money. You're going to make 10-15% of a pretty small pie. If you want to write info products as a moneymaking side gig and you have any following at all, self publish!

So why go with a traditional publisher? Here was my reasoning:

- The publisher probably will get your book in the hands of a larger absolute number of people, so if you care about maximizing readership and you don't have a stupid-large online following, their network effects through bookstores, library sales, etc will help you sell more copies than you could on your own (though again, you'll see very little of the money!)

- There's still some social proof involved with traditional publishing, and it's a nice thing to do once - just so you know in the back of your head that you "can"

- In my case, I was producing a highly graphic book that really doesn't work except in print and in full color, and I needed the resources of a traditional publishing house to make it not look terrible.

The Wiley experience was overall positive for me and I don't regret it, but if I ever produce a text-based info product in future it's hard to look away from the ROI advantages of self-publishing.

Having recently released a "technical" book with a large traditional publisher (Wiley) [0], here are a few of my learnings:

- Expect nothing from the publisher in terms of marketing support. In fact, a good nonfiction book proposal is going to spend most of its length explaining to the publisher how you will sell the book for them through your connections and credibility - not the other way around. It's all on you.

- Don't do it for the money. You're going to make 10-15% of a pretty small pie. If you want to write info products as a moneymaking side gig and you have any following at all, self publish!

So why go with a traditional publisher? I don't feel this is fully articulated in the OP, but here was my reasoning:

- The publisher probably will get your book in the hands of a larger absolute number of people, so if you care about maximizing readership and you don't have a stupid-large online following, their network effects through bookstores, library sales, etc will help you sell more copies than you could on your own (though again, you'll see very little of the money!)

- There's still some social proof involved with traditional publishing, and it's a nice thing to do once - just so you know in the back of your head that you "can"

- In my case, I was producing a highly graphic book that really doesn't work except in print and in full color, and I needed the resources of a traditional publishing house to make it not look terrible.

The Wiley experience was overall positive for me and I don't regret it, but if I ever produce a text-based info product in future it's hard to look away from the ROI advantages of self-publishing.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Read-Aloud-Cloud-Innocents-Inside/dp/...

⬐ __mharrison__

That's really cool. I would think that for your "non-traditional" book, having a publisher help you would be useful. I haven't seen many "highly graphic" self-published books.

People have various reasons for publishing. Will a publisher get you in front of the most eyes? Maybe, I've talked to a few self-published authors (some who have sold $1Mil+) of their book. Arguably some books do better as self-published works for both distribution and $.

Admittedly, there is social proof for having a book with an animal on the cover.

Congrats again on your work! I love innovative creations. (Have thought about making a Python book for toddlers...)

⬐ ghaff

>The publisher probably will get your book in the hands of a larger absolute number of people,

Maybe. On the other hand, the publisher sets the price which may be higher than you'd want to set it to maximize readership. For that matter, if you really don't care about bringing money in, you can even make a digital version (or a subset of one) available for free--which I've done in the past.

⬐ forrestbrazeal

well, yes and no.

On the one hand, if maximizing eyeballs is really the only reason you want to write a book, maybe it should just be a blog post.

On the other hand, the publisher can and does negotiate price to do volume deals with retailers. Barnes and Noble buys in bulk at a price we can assume is optimal for them.

⬐ ghaff

I think there is some value (for the right project) in longer form works that aren't just a series of independent articles. Of course, nothing wrong with publishing excerpts. There's also nothing wrong with writing a shorter book if that fits the subject matter. Just because the economics of the publishing industry tend to force length to 250+ pages doesn't mean you can't do a 75-100 page book on your own.

I'm not sure how important physical books are outside of Amazon at this point.

But YMMV of course. I'm in a situation where my books are about gaining credibility and visibility. The money is very incidental.

⬐ throwaway_pdp09

Point 1 is familiar; of expecting nothing from the publisher, only extend that to nothing at all. A relative of mine wrote a technical book, got nothing from the publisher in terms of support, advice or feedback, and when published they did absolutely zero marketing.

Other than putting ink on paper, absolutely nothing.

⬐ jerry80

Which publisher was it? Surely this varies quite a bit between publishers.

⬐ throwaway_pdp09

Imperial college press

⬐ petr25102018

Did you create the illustrations yourself or the publisher managed to do them for you?

⬐ forrestbrazeal

I did them myself. Back to the "social proof" thing, the book is the outgrowth of a fairly successful webcomic I've done off and on for a few years [0], which was attractive to the publisher.

[0] https://faasandfurious.com

⬐ petr25102018

Oh nice!

⬐ jdlshore

I agree with this. I published the first edition of my book [1] through O'Reilly and had much of the same experiences. I would add, though, that their expertise in publishing was useful. They took care of copyediting, an ISBN, printing, redrawing my hand-sketched figures, etc. All stuff I could theoretically do or hire out on my own, but have zero interest in managing.

For the second edition, which I'm working on now, I had serious second thoughts about going with O'Reilly again. Ultimately, I decided that I would, mostly because I knew O'Reilly would be able to spread the word a lot further than I would. I've got a decent network, but not an amazing one.

The reasoning was that I'm a consultant, and the cachet, reach, and resulting leads I'll get from publishing through a known publisher are much more valuable than the theoretical profits I'm missing out on. That was certainly true for the first edition.

Having made that decision, I'm glad that I did. O'Reilly's provided a lot more support with the second edition than they did with the first. My production editor has been fantastic; heavily involved with reviewing draft chapters and very supportive. I also managed to swing a better royalty deal (but still far less than minimum wage) and we've had some great conversations about co-marketing the book.

[1] The Art of Agile Development (2007). I'm writing the second edition in the open; you can find it here: https://www.jamesshore.com/v2/books/aoad2

⬐ dhdersch

I will definitely check if my employer will expense this purchase for me.

⬐ forrestbrazeal

Hi HN,

I'm cloud architect and webcomic artist Forrest Brazeal. My new book, "The Read Aloud Cloud", is a quirky cartoon intro to cloud computing for all ages!

Over a decade in the tech industry, I've installed software updates during a live cataract surgery, created robots that perform machine learning on pizza, and sung 168 AWS services in 2 minutes [0].

I couldn't be more excited to share The Read Aloud Cloud, which is out today from Wiley Publishing (the "For Dummies" people) [1]. It uses more than 100 cartoon illustrations, poems, essays, and who knows what else to explain cloud in terms even a CEO can understand.

Just for HN, I've uploaded a sneak peek of Chapter 2: "Evolution of the Cloud (A Prehistory)" [2]

Happy to answer questions about:

- How to write a nonfiction book proposal that sells

- The traditional publishing process (and why I went that route instead of self-pub)

- Cloud or tech careers in general

- Cartooning

- Whatever else!

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BtJAsvJOlhM&feature=emb_logo

[1] https://www.bookdepository.com/The-Read-Aloud-Cloud/97811196...

[2] https://www.dropbox.com/s/izyele6p60dfb68/Ch2.pdf?dl=0