
Why my book can be downloaded for free (2014) - luu
https://blog.plover.com/book/free-hop.html
======
rikroots
The key takeaway from the article (as far as I'm concerned) is this:

> "So if you write a book it should not be because you want to make a lot of
> money from it but because you have an idea that you want to present to the
> world. And as an author, you owe it to yourself to get your idea in front of
> as many people as possible. By putting the book in your web site, you make
> it available to many people who would not otherwise have access to it: poor
> people, high school students, people in developing countries, and so on."

... Which is why I give all my books away for free[1][2], and have been doing
so for over 10 years.

[1] Obligatory spam link to my website:
[https://rikverse2020.rikweb.org.uk/publications](https://rikverse2020.rikweb.org.uk/publications)

[2] The fact that there's no money in writing poetry is entirely incidental.

~~~
ysavir
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?

~~~
rikroots
> 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/](https://www.smashwords.com/)

~~~
nils-m-holm
> 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.

~~~
rikroots
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](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](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...](https://support.google.com/books/partner/answer/3424254?hl=en&authuser=1&ref_topic=3238502)

------
marijn
This aligns with my experience with
[https://eloquentjavascript.net](https://eloquentjavascript.net), except that
I put it online before publishing on paper, and my hunch is that it wouldn't
have reached anywhere near the level of fame (and thus sales) it did if it
hadn't been available online.

~~~
cosmodisk
Here's how I buy most technical books: I get a pirated copy,as those are
available for 99% of the books.Skim it to see if it's any good at all and then
I go on Amazon and buy it. With your book, I did the same, except that I
didn't need to get a pirated copy- I went to the book's website. It's
pointless for publishers not to release digital versions,as any book can and
will digitised in a matter of hours and available for anyone to download. By
the way,your book is excellent.Any plans to publish more books?

~~~
diggan
Agree. I feel there are two main audiences for technical books. Those who are
interested in the subject and might have a career in/close to it in the
future, and those who are interested in the subject and already work with
it/similar things.

The first group won't be able to afford the book right now, but if you can
still manage to give them the knowledge, they won't forget about it, and might
come back to buy the book when they can afford it. I certainly did this for
many books that been available for free, but as soon as I could, wanted to
support the author. Same goes for Open Source software with donation jars.

The second group just want to be able to review something before they buy it,
and the purchase is still not just about getting the content, but supporting
the person creating the content.

So by having it available for free online, you can easier reach both these
groups, as otherwise you mainly get the second one (and pirate copies with
varying degree of quality all over the place)

~~~
enitihas
> Same goes for Open Source software with donation jars.

But no open source software is being sustainably developed on contributions
form donation jars. There might be 1-2 exceptions, but most open source
projects make pennies from donations.

~~~
zozbot234
The Blender open source project was started entirely from voluntary donations,
and it gets very sizeable contributions to this day. The same applies to many
other major projects. Even development of the Linux kernel itself and closely-
related projects is largely funded via voluntary contributions to the Linux
Foundation.

~~~
ghaff
>Even development of the Linux kernel itself and closely-related projects is
largely funded via voluntary contributions to the Linux Foundation.

Development of the Linux kernel is largely funded by companies paying for
developers to work on it (and by paying membership fees to the Linux
Foundation to cover professional LF salaries like Linus').

------
diggan
"Clojure For The Brave and True" is also another book who's author explicitly
chose their publisher (No Starch) because they could also publish the book for
free on their website. Not only is it free but also amazing book, one of the
most enjoyable books I've read about programming overall and also made me dive
into the Clojure rabbit hole that I'm now lucky to work professionally with
during my day job. [https://www.braveclojure.com/clojure-for-the-brave-and-
true/](https://www.braveclojure.com/clojure-for-the-brave-and-true/)

~~~
asicsp
Similarly, Automate the Boring Stuff with Python [0] (No Starch) and Think
Python [1] (Green Tea Press)

[0] [https://automatetheboringstuff.com/](https://automatetheboringstuff.com/)

[1] [https://greenteapress.com/wp/think-
python-2e/](https://greenteapress.com/wp/think-python-2e/)

~~~
docPangloss
I, too, can vouch for Automate the Boring Stuff with Python -- one of the
first resources I used to learn a bit of Python since I wanted hands-on,
practical lessons. I'll check out Think Python as well.

~~~
asicsp
There's an interactive version as well, with changes

[https://runestone.academy/runestone/books/published/thinkcsp...](https://runestone.academy/runestone/books/published/thinkcspy/index.html)

------
harryf
Higher Order Perl is one of the most enjoyable books I ever read on
programming for being both a great intro to functional programming and also
highly pragmatic in application of FP.

Sadly it’s hard to recommend because prejudice against Perl

~~~
lsiebert
I like to tell people that Perl is like shell scripting but with actual
package management, proper data structures and flow control, easy testing, and
a thoughtful and supportive community.

I mean, that's like saying C is good for embedded devices, true but definitely
not the whole story. But it's been enough to get a few people to try it.

------
fullstop
I highly recommend Worm [1], available for free and it's some of the best
fiction I've read in ages. It's only available online and not in any sort of
(official) e-book format, although there are scrapers which can do that pretty
seamlessly. It's a great story and I would gladly throw money at the author
for an official e-book version.

[1] [https://parahumans.wordpress.com/](https://parahumans.wordpress.com/)

~~~
jessaustin
I think that needs a loud "WARNING: RABBIT HOLE" notation.

Wildbow is great at writing, kind of bad at monetization. If he sold any
merch, his many fans would have bought lots of it. I'd love a a hoodie that
had "Property of Parahuman Response Team ENE: Brockton Bay" on it. Or even
just some black sweatpants with "VILLAIN" printed down one leg. I've given off
and on with Patreon, but that is somehow much less compelling.

~~~
fullstop
Yep. Even something far more subtle like a hoodie with a Gold Morning symbol
on the sleeve would sell very well.

Edit: as for the rabbit hole, I spent a fair amount of my free time over the
course of three months reading this. It definitely sucked me in.

------
franze
my book[1] is

1) beautiful print book - paid and giveaway

2) paid kindle on amazon

3) DRM free epub, pdf, mobi on gumroad - paid and free

there is a reason for all three cases.

my general agenda is that I wrote the book to a) improve the status quo of the
topic (SEO) as it's a horrible b#lls#it driven discepline. and b) to reach new
clients. these were the driving factors. the money return from the book is not
a main motivator, for this it is too niche, as it targets developers who don't
want to suffer under SEO anymore.

ad 1)

so I created a print book that gets displayed in the offices, so that people
talk about it, easily share and borrow it. it is a paid product so that it
percieved to have inherent value. also I don't want to make a loss with print.
but I also give it away at workshops so that it spreads wildely. additonal I
hope that in the future I can start from a higher knowledge level and that the
knowledge stays longer in the organization.

ad 2)

the kindle store is a strong channel in its own. you can not set the price to
zero, so it costs something. even if I promore the free DRM version (see 3)
people download it via the kindle store, as it is easier.

ad 3)

DRM free on gumroad. free because DRM sucks. has a pricteag as if it's free($)
onlye people might not see it as valueable. free with vouchers, as I regularly
promote it via all kind of events.

I set it to 0 for some time in general on gumroad, there was no positive
uplift in the long term, so I use promotion vouchers.

[1] the book is [https://www.fullstackoptimization.com/b/understanding-
seo](https://www.fullstackoptimization.com/b/understanding-seo), gumroad is
[https://gumroad.com/l/understanding-seo/hacker-
news](https://gumroad.com/l/understanding-seo/hacker-news) [with 100% voucher
for hacker-news], Kindle is [https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-SEO-
Systematic-Approach...](https://www.amazon.com/Understanding-SEO-Systematic-
Approach-Optimization-ebook/dp/B07L3BSQHG) 5 stars, 16 reviews

------
djaychela
I have written a book - on music technology, specifically using Cubase, but
giving a good all-round basis to start understanding and creating music using
Cubase. It took me a long time to write (years of prep work, and then a full
year of spare time to actually properly write, typeset and proof and self-
publish), and then it languished as I'd never thought about publicity; it was
used by students of mine who found it immensely useful, but that was pretty
much that.

Only a fluke meeting of the book with someone from the software house who
create the book led to some increased popularity and sales, along with
incremental improvements in sales from my youtube channel [1].

The book is only available in print form, as I've never trusted any DRM to be
worthwhile, and nearly everyone I know who makes music does so with software
they haven't paid for. I know this is entirely counter to the article and also
everyone's experience on here, but I'm wondering if this is a little different
as there aren't consultancies etc in the music tech segment. The most you'll
get from someone who has read your book is a few hours' work (at normal rates)
either classroom teaching, or one-to-one online.

At the current time (as nearly everything I normally do is face-to-face), the
sales from the book are the only income I have; it's not a lot, but last
month's sales were about half the baseline I need to pay my bills, so I can't
complain. I know I could be completely wrong about this, but I can't imagine
that giving it away would do anything other than decimate this income.

[0] -
[http://tinyurl.com/cubasebookamazon](http://tinyurl.com/cubasebookamazon)

[1] -
[https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition](https://www.youtube.com/c/musictechtuition)

------
arkpafisto
"... the book was published in 2005, and has been available as a free download
since 2008"

Actually he didn't follow the advice.

~~~
jimhefferon
I thought he implied that the publisher agreed to a free online version after
a delay of two or three years. (Although I don't think he said so directly.)

~~~
mjd
The publisher _requested_ that I wait six months, and I agreed to that.

~~~
frandroid
That is a very fair length... Capture launch sales from the most eager
readers, then expand the reader base.

------
DrNuke
It makes sense for authors if they get an increment in status and different
leads, say: a number of sponsored appearances, a promotion at work, etc.
Generally speaking and in most cases, though, it is just free work for the
world, which is good at large and yet unsustainable as a business model?

~~~
cosmodisk
Technical writing is almost never about revenue: there are very very few
authors,who could live off writing about computer related subjects.Most of the
revenue comes from alternative sources, such as consulting, conferences,maybe
even some online courses and etc.

~~~
asicsp
I wish that weren't the case. A good book can help millions and I feel we'd
get more good books if authors were paid well. Writing a book isn't an easy
task and it can take years to write.

~~~
Swenrekcah
On the other hand, I'd much rather read a technical book written by an expert
on the topic than an professional writer.

------
svat
Related and similar: See also the blog post (“Why Textbooks Should Be Free”)
“The Case for Free Online Books”[1] by Remzi Arpaci-Dusseau, professor at
Wisconsin and (co-)author of the fantastic Operating Systems book “Operating
Systems: Three Easy Pieces” ([http://www.ostep.org/](http://www.ostep.org/))

[1]: [http://from-a-to-remzi.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-case-for-
fre...](http://from-a-to-remzi.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-case-for-free-online-
books-fobs.html)

------
mark_l_watson
I used to make my eBooks available for free download on my web site (and still
do for my older books) but in the last few years I have sold my books (on
leanpub) with a Creative Commons Share and Share Alike, No commercial
Derivatives License. I also try to "seed" my books by giving copies away. In
the prefaces, I make it clear that the eBooks can be shared.

I think this is a good compromise since I earn a little 'walking around money'
and my stuff gets fairly widely read.

The super-power advantage of writing books is getting to meet interesting
people and expand networking.

~~~
kragen
If you remove the no-derivatives clause it becomes legal for people to
translate them into other languages.

~~~
mark_l_watson
Thanks, I will look into that. Good idea!

Fun story: some guy in China emailed me about five years ago that he was
translating my old Java AI book and placing his name as the author. He said
sorry but there was nothing I could do about it. It was strange, but I
appreciated him being up front about it. My wife and I had recently returned
from a fun trip to China (very friendly people, lots of interesting things to
see) and to be honest I didn’t much care.

~~~
kragen
Awesome :D

------
roland35
This is great advice, it seems like offering the book for free is just as
good, if not better, than marketing it with traditional advertising!

The author's point that having it online keeps the book relevant is also a
great point to consider. An online book is now integrated with the rest of the
internet, instead of being firewalled away into obscurity.

------
Fragoel2
The author has a point but I also believe that it exceptional longevity also
comes from the fact not many authors are writing books for Perl. More popular
languages, like Java, JavaScript or Python have a lot more competition going
on.

------
dang
Discussed at the time:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692627](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8692627)

------
insulanian
"Free stuff sells well!"

\-- I can't remember where I've read it.

~~~
bachmeier
Mark Twain

------
ChrisMarshallNY
I am not a fan of book DRM. I have one reader app that I prefer, and want to
read everything on it.

I have absolutely no issues with paying for most books; especially if they are
about my work. I do have an issue with “price-gouging” books, though. I think
those are usually textbooks. The markup on them can be eye-watering, and I
give them a hard pass.

When I write, I like to make it public and free. I have been approached about
having my work behind a paywall, and have declined. Maybe I’ll consider it in
the future, but I’m not doing it for the money.

As the author of the post mentioned, writing a book is a fraught process. It
would have to be an Oprah’s Book Club special to make it truly worth it,
monetarily, and that ain’t happening with geek books.

I do it mainly because I love writing. I’ve been doing it since I was a child.
It also helps me to learn, and organize my own thoughts.

But that’s just me. YMMV

------
lazyant
For ebooks only, there are options to charge and make them available for free
as well.

One option is honor system: pay if you can, see for ex
[https://twitter.com/b0rk/status/1254396387703361536](https://twitter.com/b0rk/status/1254396387703361536)
.

Another option is where people can buy the book and pay for other people as
well.

------
Veera_Sivarajan
I'm a student and I always scout for books online. I promise myself that, if
the book helps me, I'll buy a copy of it in the future.

------
gorgoiler
Darn, I was hoping to see the code that formatted the beautiful final
typesetting. The author’s workflow ends with HTML, alas.

However, I’m also kind of glad to see that the typesetting was done by a real
person earning a living as a craftsman designer. While I selfishly would love
to have access to automated book-quality typesetting I’m also in favour of
craftsfolk having a place in the economy!

~~~
jfk13
Looks like it was done by an agency based in India, using a TeX-based system.
But most likely with custom in-house macro packages etc rather than just off-
the-shelf LaTeX or ConTeXt styles.

~~~
mjd
The interior design and macro packages were done by a brilliant Morgan-
Kaufmann employee named Julio Esperas. The actual typesetting was outsourced
to a firm in Bangalore that didn't have much experience with TeX and that did
a very bad job. I had to work hard to correct as many of their mistakes as
possible.

~~~
dorfsmay
In what format did you write the source?

~~~
mjd
I implemented a simple markup language, “Mod”, that was similar to the “POD”
language used to format the Perl man pages. There's a summary here:

[https://github.com/mjdominus/mod](https://github.com/mjdominus/mod)

The main desideratum was that I should be able to use the same sources to
generate TeX to send to the compositors, HTML for the web version, and a plain
text version output. (In the end I sent the HTML version to the compositors
instead.) Also I wanted inline tests, so that when the book said "function
`foo` returns 7" I could have an inline test that would check that
automatically. I added some features I needed that POD didn't have, like a
code to generate an index entry. And I fixed some things I didn't like about
POD.

Markdown hadn't been invented yet or I probably would have modified that
instead of POD. Pandoc hadn't been invented yet or I probably would have used
it.

But Mod didn't take long to make, and it worked well enough that it didn't get
in the way while I wrote a book in it.

------
maps7
Does anyone have a list of free programming books?

~~~
asicsp
[https://github.com/EbookFoundation/free-programming-
books/bl...](https://github.com/EbookFoundation/free-programming-
books/blob/master/free-programming-books.md)

[https://devfreebooks.github.io/](https://devfreebooks.github.io/)

~~~
brogrammer2018
Thank you for sharing

------
CorbenDallas
Makes sense, but it's still exclusively up to author to decide if he wants to
have his work available for free or not.

~~~
falcor84
That's a nice sentiment, but the reality is that every good book will be
scanned, OCR'd and put online by sometime almost immediately. Whether the
author may like it or not, these are just the facts of life in the digital
world. The faster one embraces it, the less heartache.

~~~
zerr
Nowadays books get leaked directly from the publisher, no need to OCR.

~~~
perpetualpatzer
More typically, broken drm on digital editions, but yes. It's pervasive and
typically doesn't require scanning.

------
IAmEveryone
There are different types of authors.

For this author, and many others, the book is somewhat of a loss-leader of
some sort: a form of marketing for a consultant, freelancer, aspiring
politician, scientist, activist, or similar. PhD theses often work like this,
too.

In that scenario, the royalty cheque is sometimes nice, but not considered
necessary. If given a choice between, say, ten people reading the book for
free versus one person buying it and never getting around to reading it, these
authors will always chose the former.

But there is, quite obviously, a different kind: the professional author. GoT
wouldn't have happened within George RR Martin's lifetime if he had to teach
English or run a really strange cult on the side to pay rent. Many non-fiction
authors fall into the same category. James Gleick might be one people here
enjoy.

This isn't necessarily a binary distinction. Noam Chomsky, Richard Feynman, or
Edward Tufte could have all lived quite comfortably on just their salary as
professors and the occasional Nobel prize. But their success as authors
drastically increased their freedom, possibly allowing them to take risks in
their work they would have avoided otherwise, like talking truth to NASA
(and/or capitalism).

As an analogy, consider the not-uncommon offer to work for free on someone's
(commercial) software project in exchange for "exposure". This is more common
among designers and musicians these days, but used to happen quite frequently
to programmers as well. It's exactly the same logic, and not always entirely
wrong. Nonetheless, it has become somewhat of a running joke/faux
pas/universally recognised sign of a person having no clue of the industry and
to be avoided.

~~~
virvar
I think you have it wrong, there are different types of audiences. It’s not
exactly hard to find a free source for learning any tech because there is just
so much material out there, and in that environment it’s often better to get
paid by people who have liked the work you offered them for free.

I would have never read, or later purchased, the testing goat book for Django
if it wasn’t freely available because I would have simply selected another
source.

People don’t really do that with fiction because there isn’t 9 million
different Harry Potters that are all almost equally good.

A further benefit of having a lot of people read your tech book is that you
get more feedback which makes it easier to improve it, and a lot of tech books
are really rather terrible until they’ve been heavily edited. And unlike
fiction there is often a correct way to do things with tech.

------
notRobot
Article is from '14.

------
munificent
In this post and most of the comments here, people assume you have a binary
choice:

1\. You can put your book online for free and sacrifice extrinsic reward
(money) for greater intrinsic reward (popularity, impact on the world).

2\. You can maximize your financial income by only selling the book.

I _thought_ I was making that choice when I decided to put "Game Programming
Patterns" online for free, but that's not actually how it turned out. I have
made much more money from the book than I would have if I'd gone with a
traditional publisher and not put the book online for free. The model I have
now is something like the classic marketing funnel. To make the most money
from a thing, you need to have as many people go through this series of steps
as possible:

1\. Know that the product exists.

2\. Decide to want it.

3\. Be _just_ willing to pay the price to acquire it. (Anything less and
you're leaving money on the table.)

4\. Keep as much of that money for yourself as possible. (In other words,
reduce costs.)

For technical books, most people don't get past step 1. Putting the book
online _dramatically_ improves that. Of the people who do, many stop at step
2. There are so many articles out there, it's easy to convince yourself you
don't need a acquire a whole book. Again, putting the book online helps: you
can try before you buy.

Step 3 is the interesting one. Putting the book online _for free_ obviously
leaves, like, _all_ money on the table. But what I have found is that there a
self-selected market segmentation seems to come into play. Many people do read
the book for free, but some choose to pay anyway.

Step 4 is the dirty secret of the big technical book publishers. They take an
embarrassingly large chunk of each sale. That could maybe be justified in the
old days of publishing when you needed to run a whole printing press and
maintain relationships with independent book publishers and all that. But,
frankly, they do not do enough to justify how much they take. Self-publishing
fixes that, at the expense of having to do more of the work and management
yourself. I had to find a freelance copy editor, and typeset and design the
cover. But I effectively "got paid" to do that work at a much better rate than
it would have cost me to "pay" a publisher to do that by giving them the
lion's share of each sale.

I don't want to generalize too much from my one single data point, but it
seemed that for me, the increased widening of the first two steps and the
greater share at step 4 more than compensated for the money left on the table
for some readers at step 3. It was a clear enough signal that I'm taking the
same approach with my second book. And, equally importantly, I really liked
the subjective experience of it being _my_ book and being able to put it out
into the world exactly the way I wanted to.

------
econcon
I never pay for any book even tho I am high net worth, I always downloaded
books from libgen.

Most of the books are not worth it

~~~
andai
Sometimes I worry if Karma exists (or may one day be implemented by the AI
that grows out of internet surveillance) and I will be forced to pay back
everything I have pirated, that it would take me many lifetimes to do so.

~~~
thulecitizen
> I will be forced to pay back everything I have pirated

There's nothing to 'pay back'. Rentier capitalism has us convinced copying is
theft, but only because the propertied classes have created artificial
scarcity and high exploitative rents. [1] After we move to Commons based peer
production, we will have a new reality, and artificial scarcity will be seen
for what it is: domination.

[1] [https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-
corru...](https://www.resilience.org/stories/2017-08-03/book-day-corruption-
capitalism-guy-standing/)

~~~
andai
That was a great read, thank you. Though, if I publish a book, and everyone
pirates it, how do I buy food?

~~~
bergstromm466
Glad you enjoyed it!

I'm convinced we've just taken the industrial age economic and banking system
and copied it into the digital age, but we haven't accounted for the near-zero
marginal cost of information creation, storage and transmission. So the actual
scarcity vs. the artificial scarcity of things is off.

I think we can get there by valuing knowledge differently: subsidizing the
cost of knowledge production and distribution - all costs from the start - so
that it doesn't need a business model once produced. I think that's the key.
To read more on this phenomenon I enjoy Yochai Benkler, who came up with the
term 'Commons based peer production'. Some examples include Linux, Github,
Open Source Ecology, Precious Plastic, Wikipedia, Sensorica, Valueflows (Holo-
REA) and Holochain.

+

"Money is just information, a way we measure what we trade, nothing of value
in itself." [1] [2]

I am closely following the work of Arthur Brock and Eric Harris-Braun of the
MetaCurrency Project. They've been working on digital age wealth
acknowledgement systems (protocol cooperativism) for over a decade:
[https://medium.com/holochain/beyond-blockchain-simple-
scalab...](https://medium.com/holochain/beyond-blockchain-simple-scalable-
cryptocurrencies-1eb7aebac6ae)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwmM5Nb6hiE](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwmM5Nb6hiE)

[2] [http://eric.harris-braun.com/blog/2007/05/14/id-53](http://eric.harris-
braun.com/blog/2007/05/14/id-53), [http://eric.harris-
braun.com/blog/2007/11/05/id-55](http://eric.harris-
braun.com/blog/2007/11/05/id-55) (if down, you can get an archived copy on
Archive.org)

------
hn_check
This is one of those articles that is self-promotion disguised as a "lesson"
of some sort, and it gets upvoted by loads of people who then want to engage
in their own self-promotion.

"Oh yes, this is true..my experiencing with my book [link]"...

Tech/software dev books make extremely little money. The #1 reason people
write such books -- knowing that they're unlikely to see much more than a
coffee or two of proceeds -- is for reputation/career development. Getting a
book "published", even through actual publishing houses, is the easiest part
of the process: Agile printing and the absence of editorial standards makes it
a close to riskless process for them.

~~~
mjd
I hope that someday you discover that people sometimes do things for reasons
other than “self-promotion”.

