
What I've Earned (And Learned) From Writing a Ruby Programming Book - petercooper
http://beginningruby.org/what-ive-earned-and-learned/
======
rufo
Thanks for sharing, Peter - one always hears numbers being tossed around, but
it's interesting to hear the whole story.

It sounds as if you've burned your bridges with Apress to some degree - do you
have any interest in continuing to write books with a better deal (e.g., with
Pragmatic Programmers) or are you burnt out of the whole thing entirely?

~~~
petercooper
I don't _think_ I've burned my bridges - though they might disagree! I've
mostly appreciated the experience with them; it's just some of the
institutional policies I take umbrage with. I bet many writers feel the same
way about publishers they work with time and time again :) I don't think that
being OK with people pirating my book is detrimental to Apress either. They
already let other authors "open" their books (e.g. Scott Chacon, Mark Pilgrim)
and I want to _boost print sales_ which benefits them far more than me.

On the second question, I definitely want to write more books. I didn't think
this after completing the first edition of _Beginning Ruby_ but the reviews I
got just blew me away.

I suspect I've sorta prematurely burned any bridge I had to the Pragmatics (as
cool as they are) with a slightly hasty negative reference to one of their
books a while back (I've been nice since, honest - sorry!) but if I were
sticking to the Ruby theme, I have a big enough audience with my own Ruby
sites to self publish (and maybe avoid print entirely).

~~~
mattmaroon
"I bet many writers feel the same way about publishers they work with time and
time again."

Almost every time in my experience. It sounds like the deal they give you is
good though, better than I would have expected really.

Self-pub is definitely the way to go if you can pull it off. It's not hard to
get 5x profit per volume if you have any volume at all, and programmers are
extremely easy to make aware of your product, especially once you've
established your name.

------
wallflower
> but the Apress contract states that if you don’t, they have the right to do
> it without you, have someone else’s name slapped on the book

Trying to find the original interview, but I remember reading an article with
Laura Lemay (of 'Teach Yourself HTML' fame) of how they basically abused her
name to sell books (even after she said she didn't want to write any more
books). She lost control and there ended up being a whole franchise of 'Teach
yourself X with Laura Lemay' books.

EDIT: Found the link. Thanks archive.org!

"I wrote a lot of books from 1994 to 2000. Both my HTML and Java books did
really well, and I had a series that I didn’t write that nonetheless had my
name on it. It felt like I was riding this wave of popularity, I would
probably never be this successful again, and I felt that I had to milk it, to
push it as far as it would go. My publisher was all too happy to accommodate
me in this goal. They reworked my writing over and over again, customizing it,
repackaging it, reselling it under different titles and for different
purposes. I cheerfully and naively agreed to a lot of this repurposing, but a
lot of it happened without my knowing it under the terms of existing
contracts. I would go into bookstores and find books there with my name on
them that I had never seen or agreed to or had any idea they existed.

With this much writing being produced not all of it had to be great. Towards
the end not much of it was. By the end I didn’t feel like I had much control
over my own work. even with the writing I was actually doing I was so
stretched and overworked that the quality wasn’t there. Eventually I felt I
didn’t even have any control over my own identity.

Who is this Laura Lemay person who has her name all over all these books? Me,
I think I’m an OK writer, I’m good at explaining stuff to people. Laura Lemay
just produces huge numbers of not very good books. I felt really overwhelmed
and disassociated from my own work and from my own name."

[http://web.archive.org/web/20061027193901/www.dispatchesfrom...](http://web.archive.org/web/20061027193901/www.dispatchesfromblogistan.com/interview-
with-laura-lemay/)

~~~
SwellJoe
I was solicited by APress to write a book a few years ago, based on another
book I'd written, and after having such a good experience with No Starch
Press, I was somewhat keen to do it again (though the pay for tech writing
sucks, it's still satisfying to see your book on the shelf at a book store,
and it's good for most other aspects of business to have a book)...but the
APress contract was not pretty. It granted them rather incredible rights to
second editions with no involvement by the original author, several routes to
making future versions of the book worth less or nothing for the original
author, and a somewhat disappointing royalty rate and advance payment. I
wasn't finding them very flexible on those terms, either, and frankly, I
didn't really want to work with anyone that, by default, considered me a cog
in their machine. Needless to say, I passed on that opportunity.

I can recommend No Starch Press, however. Nice folks all around. And, when I
moved to California, they went to rather impressive lengths to track me down
so they could send me my royalty checks (tiny at this point, six years after
publication, but still coming).

------
tptacek
There are a couple books I've wanted to write for a long time. I'd like to pay
a copyeditor to fix my long-winded prose, and pay a designer to typeset it,
then post it online as a PDF that will cost, say, $15.

Peter Cooper's unusually successful Ruby book sold ~8000 copies in print and
500 copies as ebooks. He made $19,000.

To gross $19,000 with a $15 PDF, I'd have to sell ~1260 copies. Compare to
~8000/500 paper/print, noting that the PDF will be the only available format
for the book, and this doesn't sound impossible. If I raised the prices to a
place that still undercut an Apress ebook, I could get that number down to 900
copies.

Of course, whatever number I hit, I own the book free and clear, at all
points.

I'm interested in what Cooper thinks about the strategy of foregoing
publishers altogether.

~~~
kalid
I just got into the process of self-publishing so I thought I could give you
some numbers.

Background: I run a blog (betterexplained.com) which has built up a solid base
of traffic over the years. I've had some requests to make the content into a
readable, printable, ebook-able format which I've just taken:

[http://betterexplained.com/articles/betterexplained-math-
ebo...](http://betterexplained.com/articles/betterexplained-math-ebook-get-
the-beta/)

Editing: The oft-unspoken benefit of blogging is that it can really improve
your writing. Over time I've learned how to cut down my writing and take in
feedback from readers. You get direct feedback on what works and doesn't, so I
used my best-performing posts to make a book.

Also, my mom is a really good writer so I run my posts by her :).

Layout/Design: I originally hired a designer (~$500) to layout and typeset
some of the HTML in InDesign. Ultimately, I decided to go with LaTeX (I kept
the cover design he made) since the book is math-heavy and I wanted the text
to look as good as possible (with InDesign I had to use images for the
equations, which is a pain, especially for inline).

LaTeX is very powerful, but finnicky, and if used you _must_ (must! must!)
customize the layout lest you look like the other 99% of research papers out
there. I recommend the "memoir" package. Take a look at a sample page here:

[http://betterexplained.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/09/chapte...](http://betterexplained.com/wp-
content/uploads/2009/09/chapter.png)

Marketing/Pricing: Amy Hoy had a great post highlighting some lessons learned
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=632104>). The biggest tip for me was to
have a paid (vs free) beta. Beta users get a free upgrade... it's just a good
way to validate your market and give a deal to your early-adopters.

Use e-junkie to sell/manage your lists (it made the process very simple, and
it's only $5/month for the basic plan). I haven't determined the final price,
but I'm planning $19 or $24. I'll probably do a printed version (with
Lulu/Blurb) and some combo deal.

Overall: So far, the book has been out for 3 weeks and sold pretty well
(hundreds), mostly to long-time readers who wanted to support the site (thank
you!). I haven't advertised it elsewhere on my site except for that post,
which I'll do once the final version is ready -- the primary target will be
search traffic who came for a specific article.

Technically speaking, I paid for the cover design since I did the
editing/typesetting myself. Of course this involved a lot of learning over
several years (LaTeX) so it's free if your time has no value :).

Hope this helps! Feel free to email me (kalid.azad at that well known gmail
address) if you have any specific questions.

~~~
tptacek
Buying immediately. I've always loved your blog. Thanks for this comment.

~~~
kalid
Thanks -- and you're more than welcome. I'm always happy to share what I've
managed to learn... what Amy, Peter & others have said has made the process so
much less daunting.

------
percept
The best way to use a book is to promote some other product or service,
because for the most part when you calculate the time spent writing,
rewriting, and re-rewriting you realize you're working for less than minimum
wage.

This probably works out okay as part of an overall strategy for Mr. Cooper,
who is building a publishing empire. :)

However as a money-making strategy, I believe most of the people here at HN
could make more doing almost anything else.

In the mid-90s Laura Lemay (graciously) introduced me to her publisher after
no more than a simple e-mail query. As a result I got to contribute a chapter
to a Web-related title and officially became a published author (yay!).

After that I somehow connected with an agent who started bringing
opportunities to my attention. One was for the second or third edition of a
semi-successful title; however as part of the deal I'd have to share the
(already meager) royalties with the original author. Thanks but no thanks!

The next opportunity seemed golden: the chance to write a brand new title as
part of a very well-known series (something like "Selling Online for the
Technically-Challenged Among Us").

I started submitting outlines and sample chapters, and assembled a list of
e-commerce software ranging from open source to commercial packages (mostly
written in Perl). After each submission came the feedback and tiring rewrites,
but I still thought it would work out. And that's when it happened. ;)

Apparently the whole department at the publisher had just returned from a
Microsoft conference, and had learned about the new software package that was
going to set the world of e-commerce on fire: Site Server (maybe Mr. Graham
will get a chuckle out of that).

It was expensive, large, and proprietary, and in my opinion not a good match
for most of the small-to-medium businesses I thought would most benefit from
the book. But guess what (I was told) should be the focus of the new book?

In the end it just wasn't worth the hassle. So that ended my publishing
career, but it was sort of fun while it lasted.

P.S.: IIRC some of the big guys, like the first Word and HTML authors, made
seven figures.

~~~
petercooper
_This probably works out okay as part of an overall strategy for Mr. Cooper,
who is building a publishing empire. :)_

A little, perhaps, but it's not been a big part of it. I was working on a RSS
related startup (which I later sold) when I wrote Beginning Ruby and Ruby
Inside was created solely to promote the book. It turns out, though, Ruby
Inside has now become my main gig after selling all my other sites.. :) So, a
serendipity, rather than a plan.

 _As a result I got to contribute a chapter to a Web-related title and
officially became a published author (yay!). After that I somehow connected
with an agent who started bringing opportunities to my attention._

Wow. That sort of thing hasn't happened to me. I've written a chapter for
another book and done some technical reviewing on a couple of others, but I
haven't had any book related leads come my way. A shame really!

 _The next opportunity seemed golden: the chance to write a brand new title as
part of a very well-known series (something like "Selling Online for the
Technically-Challenged Among Us")._

If it's the "For Dummies" series - which it sounds like - I've heard a lot of
negative things from other authors about the line but.. just because of how
famous it is, I'd consider it "golden" fame-wise and probably do it too ;-)
There's only so much "noble" work I can do.

Anyway, awesome post - thanks for sharing your story, I enjoyed it.

~~~
percept
Well I was going to call you a "media mogul." [I'm a regular Ruby Inside
reader.]

I forgot to mention that I too was a technical reviewer for one book prior to
getting the first writing gig. So that's another "in."

It's been a while but I think you could get an agent if you wanted one. Due to
the technical nature of the material I think it's always difficult for
publishers to find authors who are both willing _and_ able to do the work.
Because of that technical authors still have opportunities authors in other
markets can only wish for.

------
kscaldef
Can I suggest that you remove or change the blowjob analogy? It's needlessly
sexual, somewhat jarringly out of place in the rest of the article, and also
carries an implication that all of the readers of your book are male. We've
seen far worse recently, and I don't think there's anything demeaning in what
you said, but still I wonder: why go there?

~~~
petercooper
Thanks - I've made it more gender neutral. I think a sexual reference makes
the point stronger though, because I wouldn't find getting 10% of anything
else at a time to be so frustrating (though ideas are welcomed!). Even 10% of
a Big Mac wouldn't be _that_ bad ;-)

~~~
_pius
Maybe a tenth of an orgasm?

------
edw519
_See the 30% withholding in taxes at the bottom right?...the US tax man will
still steal 30% of your royalties_

The good news for US citizens: you pay no FICA (Social Security & Medicare,
currently about 16%) on royalties, which are not considered regular income.

~~~
mosburger
What about self-employment tax?

~~~
petercooper
I can't answer the US question, but for any UK potential (or existing) authors
who are reading.. you have two options:

1) Treat the after-tax "net" amounts you receive as regular income - which are
then taxed in the usual way - and "forget" the US taxes paid.

2) Treat the pre-tax "gross" amount as income, then fill out a separate
"Foreign Income" form on your self assessment. On this, fill in the gross US-
earned amount, the amount of US taxes paid, and calculate the UK tax
deduction. This is a mega pain in the butt, but if you earned over, say, $10k,
you can get a nice savings. About £600 worth in my case - it's not worth it
for much lower though..

The HMRC is okay with either, but you can't do both ;-)

~~~
cstross
Alternatively: get an ITIN (individual taxpayer ID number) from the US IRS,
and jump through the hoops under the UK-USA double taxation treaty to declare
yourself as a UK taxpayer. Double taxation treaties are bilateral arrangements
between countries so that taxpayers can declare one of the signatory countries
to be their country of residence and pay income tax earned in the other place
in their home country. Result: you get back the US withholding tax money,
although you have a larger income and consequently pay more tax to HMRC.

~~~
petercooper
Minus the ITIN part, that's what I'm going to be doing for 2008-09 (and what I
outlined in option 2 above). It's not necessary to have an ITIN and to declare
anything to fill out the "Foreign" portion of the tax return and use the
treaty's benefits to deduct the withheld US tax locally. Though if you know
any more, I'd love to learn more :)

------
_pius
Great writeup and thanks for sharing! All of the numbers and specifics were
great, but I really think this bit of imagery made the piece:

 _The only compromise that was reached was that a couple of chapters could be
released per month, separately – which is about as appealing to readers as
getting a tenth of a blowjob at a time._

------
dkarl
About Apress refusing to make the eBook free, I think you're too hard on them:

 _What really flipped my lid, though, was seeing other Apress books like Dive
Into Python and Pro Git getting the treatment I wanted. You can read both of
these awesome titles online, in full, for free. Offering electronic content
for free to promote print book sales isn’t an alien concept to Apress so
someone’s playing favorites over there._

More likely, the idea sounds crazy and/or scary to them, but they decided to
try it out with a few of their books to see how well it works. You're in the
control group. Maybe that's the result of "playing favorites," but a less
whiny way to put it would be that other authors had more influence or did a
better job of advocacy. Or you were just unlucky.

But you can take comfort in the possibility that your campaign to make the
_Beginning Ruby_ PDF free helped convince Apress to make some of their other
PDFs free.

~~~
petercooper
While Pro Git is a newish book, I believe Dive Into Python had that licensing
long before my suggestions. There might be some history there though, as I
think that book might have been developed online initially.

------
ScottWhigham
Peter - loved the writeup. After being in the technical education industry for
so long, I know that no one writes "just one book" and makes money but it's
good to show people in such an easy to understand way (like you did).

There were a few things that I had questions on - since you are answering here
at HN, I'll try you here!

You mentioned, "I’d argue that unless you’re writing a very niche book (that’s
unlikely to earn back its advance) ..., you should avoid the major publishers
and instead find a mid-sized publisher that can offer more attractive
royalties..." It has been my experience that, "the bigger the publisher, the
bigger the advance" and/or "the smaller the royalty, the bigger the advance".
When I think of this conundrum, I always think back to, "Why is this author
writing this 'very niche book' - what is their motivation?" If it is money,
then I would suggest they perhaps follow your advice and go with whoever gives
them the biggest advance (and just forget about negotiating royalties since
they are 'unlikely to earn back' in your words). However money is often not
the major motivator as you mentioned.

For example, if the motivator was, "I want to increase my profile so that I
can speak at big events and raise my consulting rates", they are probably
better off going with a bigger company who can flood the market with marketing
instead of a small/mid-sized company. Sure they'll give up royalties but they
will receive what they want. Small and medium-sized publishers will generally
not have the resources and expertise to perform those same functions at the
scale a big publishing house can do them.

Also, I would ask the author, "What is success to you for this book?" Some
will say, "I want it to sell a bunch of copies because of x, y, and z" then
they won't be as likely to do that with most small/mid publishers. Your case
of selling 8500 copies through Apress vs. 2000 through Pragmatic Programmer is
important since some might perceive that the book was a failure because it
"only" sold 2,000 copies. And those "some people" might include potential
employers, industry colleagues or the author. It also does not take into
account the perceived prestige someone might feel with being accepted to be an
Apress author vs. a PP author (again "some people" might have never heard of
PP books and so it might not have the same weight).

The final bit I'd say is that negotiating the best possible advance + royalty
rate for yourself may not always be the wisest thing to do long term. Example:
Let's say that you went with PP and had written "Beginning Ruby" and it was a
moderate success selling 2,000 copies over at PP. Apress starts to take notice
and they hire someone to write the Beginning Ruby book for them and they
market the shit out of it. What do you do now? You l-o-s-e, that's what. PP
can't afford to market your book - they don't have any budget left after your
50% royalty and paying their staff - so you are SOL. Your "greed" (and I don't
mean "you" as in Peter Cooper; I mean the collective "you") let you miss out
on an opportunity: the opportunity to write a beginner-level non-time-specific
book (which generally outsell more advanced titles or, as you say, time-
specific titles) for a major publisher that will sell for 10-20 years (or as
long as (a) the language is popular, and (b) you create new editions). You
opted for a small, short-term payday with instead of the potential longer-term
success which, yes will have certain confines that aren't ideal, but would be
more predictable and more stable. Trust me: although major publishers may not
be cutting edge with their titles/technologies, they are paying attention to
the small/mid-sized markets. Once something becomes popular, the big guys will
emulate it.

Full disclosure: I am the founder of a small publisher
(<http://www.learnitfirst.com/>) albeit in the ebook and video markets
exclusively. I know that it sounds like I'm arguing for Apress but I'm not -
just a different point of view, I suppose.

~~~
petercooper
Thanks for some interesting insights!

 _If it is money, then I would suggest they perhaps follow your advice and go
with whoever gives them the biggest advance (and just forget about negotiating
royalties since they are 'unlikely to earn back' in your words). However money
is often not the major motivator as you mentioned._

I might have explained myself poorly, but I disagree here. I'm saying that if
money (long term) is the motivator they should go for whoever offers the
biggest royalty rate. As I showed, if PragProg published my book, I'd have
earned the same with 2000 copies as I did at Apress with 8500 copies (or
thereabouts) :)

 _Sure they'll give up royalties but they will receive what they want. Small
and medium-sized publishers will generally not have the resources and
expertise to perform those same functions at the scale a big publishing house
can do them._

Not always. I think the Pragmatic Programmers do an incredible PR job -
especially as they have a PR umbilical cord with O'Reilly. Apress, on the
other hand, shut down their entire Berkeley marketing department recently (and
lost some great people).

 _Your case of selling 8500 copies through Apress vs. 2000 through Pragmatic
Programmer is important since some might perceive that the book was a failure
because it "only" sold 2,000 copies. And those "some people" might include
potential employers, industry colleagues or the author._

But.. most authors don't publicly disclose their sales. There are quite a few
other Ruby books published at Apress and I'd be interested to know how they've
sold.. ;-) There are ways to get rough figures but they're as accurate as
using Compete for Web stats (IME).

 _It also does not take into account the perceived prestige someone might feel
with being accepted to be an Apress author vs. a PP author (again "some
people" might have never heard of PP books and so it might not have the same
weight)._

In my limited experience, and especially amongst the Ruby world, I'd argue
being a PP author has more prestige than being an Apress author - perhaps only
trumped by being an O'Reilly author.. I know this isn't your point though ;-)

 _Apress starts to take notice and they hire someone to write the Beginning
Ruby book for them and they market the shit out of it. What do you do now? You
l-o-s-e, that's what. PP can't afford to market your book - they don't have
any budget left after your 50% royalty and paying their staff - so you are
SOL._

You make some good points in this paragraph but I don't think they apply for
_me_ or my market - though they might in other situations. There are other
introductory Ruby books from more popular publishers out there but mine still
outsells them - and this isn't because Apress is doing a great marketing job.

~~~
ScottWhigham
Thanks for taking the time to give such a detailed response.

 _"I'm saying that if money (long term) is the motivator they should go for
whoever offers the biggest royalty rate."_

If you re-read what I wrote, I was specifically talking about the "very niche
book" that would not likely earn back the advance (hence the royalty rate is
not something to worry about). For other situations (i.e. the book you expect
will be very popular) then of course I agree with you. If money is the primary
motivator and you still want to write books then do what you said: get ready
to write several books.

All together, a fun diversion for my day. Thanks, Peter!

~~~
petercooper
_If you re-read what I wrote, I was specifically talking about the "very niche
book" that would not likely earn back the advance (hence the royalty rate is
not something to worry about)._

Good point. Sorry, I missed that reference. In that case yes, I agree on the
math, though gleefully accepting a (relatively) big advance for a book you
believe won't sell too well could burn some bridges ;-)

~~~
ScottWhigham
Possibly - however there is a difference between "gleefully accepting" a big
advance and "squeezing every last dime out of the bastard publishing company"!

------
datums
Peter I've always been curious about how these sort of agreements worked.
After publishing a few books, you hope negotiating gets easier. $170,000 in 2
years is a nice return.

Thanks.

~~~
tptacek
Just to be clear: $170k is what Apress made off of him. He himself made
$19,000. His book was an unusually strong seller (it outsold Resig's book).
For most books, the advance is calibrated to cover all the expected royalties.

Authorship contracts are a ripoff.

~~~
dschobel
I'm almost afraid to ask, but what happens if the sales don't cover the
advance?

~~~
petercooper
With most publishing contracts I'm aware of, nothing. From what I understand,
this is in stark contrast to the music industry where artists can need to pay
back certain expenses.

In terms of Apress (and, I believe most non-fiction publishers), the money you
get in advance is, I believe, non returnable. That's why the advances aren't
that generous.

~~~
percept
IIRC most of the authors used to view the advance as the only real money. Any
royalties that might appear were like manna from heaven.

I hope everybody doesn't mind me brain-dumping in this thread--it's the only
place this stuff can go.

------
redorb
\- "That’s why most tech books seem to either be by authors who’ve written one
book or many books."

All books are written by people who have written (1) book or many books.

~~~
petercooper
An interesting semantic snafu! I've changed it to "a single book" rather than
"one book." Since, yes, anyone who's written, say 10 books has written "1
book," "2 books," and so on - _technically_ speaking ;-)

~~~
percept
Made sense to me. I got that "previously" was implied. You meant those who
weren't first-time authors.

------
tomjen2
Nice find, but sadly it only demonstrate how insane the system abuses authors
- I though pragmatic programmers 50% was way too high, but this just seems an
industry that badly needs to be shaken up.

