
All Packt ebooks are $5 - angrymouse
https://www.packtpub.com/ebookbonanza
======
dons
These are $5 for a reason.

[http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1rj2jq/book_haskell...](http://www.reddit.com/r/haskell/comments/1rj2jq/book_haskell_financial_data_modeling_and/)

~~~
jamesbritt
I got a similar request to write a book for Packt. They offered almost zero
money upfront, and when asked could offer zero reasons as to why they thought
there was a market for this book.

It really seemed their plan was "James takes almost all the risk and does
almost all of the work but James does not get almost all the money."

~~~
1wheel
I get an ~monthly email asking about producing d3 content for them. For what
they're offering it really doesn't make any sense lock what I have time to
write or make in a book only a few people will read.

------
fridek
I was supposed to write a book for them. Even though they refer to people as
experts, table of contents and page count is given up front and is hardly
negotiable, so I decided to not proceed. Instead I reviewed the book written
by someone else and I'm confident they are not a publisher worth working with.
Even though I tried my best as a reviewer the outcome was at best mediocre.
Language review is done after the book is done, so it's hard to focus on the
content. Half of my comments were ignored because they would cause major
rewrites (as a reviewer I was contacted after initial drafts of multiple
chapters were completed). And the only payment is a copy of reviewed book.

I don't think these books are worth even $5.

~~~
tkellogg
Yes, I had a similar experience. I was asked to review a book that was
terribly written. The language problems were so bad that I had a hard time
reviewing the content. That said, even the content didn't deserve to be put in
writing. Definitely not worth even $1.

------
incision
You can get a preview of Packt books over on Safari [0].

Personally, I've found the quality of content and editing in Packt books to be
consistently terrible. I won't click on a Packt book in my all you can read
Safari Library subscription, I certainly wouldn't pay $5 for any of them.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, I can't recommend No Starch Press [1][2]
enough.

0:
[http://my.safaribooksonline.com/browse?publisher=83&publishe...](http://my.safaribooksonline.com/browse?publisher=83&publishername=Packt%20Publishing)

1: [http://shop.oreilly.com/category/publishers/no-starch-
press....](http://shop.oreilly.com/category/publishers/no-starch-press.do)

2:
[http://my.safaribooksonline.com/browse?publisher=59&publishe...](http://my.safaribooksonline.com/browse?publisher=59&publishername=No%20Starch%20Press)

~~~
jamesbritt
_I can 't recommend No Starch Press enough._

Still, some of their offerings have been pretty poor (there was at least one
Ruby book that was ill-informed) so the best bet is to check reviews for any
given book.

Same for O'Reilly. Used to be I would just assume a book from O'Reilly was
properly vetted and worth getting, but after buying a few clunkers I learned
to do some homework before shelling out or trusting the content.

~~~
sunnybythesea
"The Linux Programming Interface" is a top-notch book
[http://nostarch.com/tlpi](http://nostarch.com/tlpi)

------
tlongren
I wrote WordPress Multisite Administration for Packt.
[http://www.packtpub.com/wordpress-multisite-
administration/b...](http://www.packtpub.com/wordpress-multisite-
administration/book)

It was an overall pleasant experience, but I do agree they care more about
quantity than quality. Their entire editing process was really sloppy. And
review process is crap, at best.

I'm writing my next book through Leanpub.com, that way I will actually make
money and can have waaay more control over the final product.

------
moondowner
There are some comments about the quality of the books, let me share my
opinion.

When a book is written for Packt (this is my experience):

1) The author submits his draft chapters to reviewers (there are two or three
reviewers per book) - and they provide feedback. The author then has to
address all comments from the reviewers, either to correct something (or to
make it clearer and understandable) or to reply why it was not corrected. And
this goes back and forth until everything is sorted out.

2) After that, technical editors review all chapters and if they feel that
something may not be clear enough to the reader or it may have to be double-
checked by the author, they will contact him and he'll have to update his
drafts again.

3) Then, when the technical editors finish their thing and provide pre-final
copies of the chapters, the author has to proofread everything, in order to
make sure that everything is as it should be. If the author finds that
something is not right he sends feedback to the editors.

You can see that there are many people involved on Packt's side, and (in my
case) every one of them cares about quality. At the end of the book the author
is even contacted to give an opinion on the quality of the technical editors
he was working with.

I know this because I recently authored a book for Packt, named "OAuth 2.0
Identity and Access Management Patterns". It was released few weeks ago.

About the book, I posted an announcement on my blog:
[http://blog.thisismartin.com/book-oauth-2-dot-0-identity-
and...](http://blog.thisismartin.com/book-oauth-2-dot-0-identity-and-access-
management-patterns-is-available-for-purchase)

It is really sad if someone who doesn't know English well accepts an offer
from Packt, as I can see in the comments here - there are some cases like
that. I hope that they will improve in their selection of authors.

~~~
gkwelding
Can I just ask, as somebody who is currently reviewing a book for Packt on the
FuelPHP framework, I've found the actual technical content to be quite good.
But the foreword and a bit of background info about FuelPHP at the front
seemed like it had been written by another author entirely. Do Packt add in
non-technical chapters such as this?

~~~
moondowner
In my case all the chapters were authored by me, there were no extra chapters
added. Maybe the author didn't did his research properly? I'd advise him to
take your review comments in consideration and to re-work the foreword after
finishing the first drafts for all chapters.

------
justmissedit
I was asked to be a technical reviewer for a Packt book on a topic in which I
had some expertise; the chapters I was sent were so bad that providing the
correct feedback would have taken more time than writing them from scratch, so
I gave feedback on the first and bowed out -- I just didn't have the time for
that.

I was then asked to be a technical reviewer for something I know nothing
about. I declined.

Given those two experiences, I'd never spend money for a Packt product.

------
jackgolding
There are some real gems in here for data guys at least - here is two to
recommend:

Building Machine Learning Systems with Python

Data Visualization: a successful design process

Disclaimer: They gave me a book for free to write an article on once, other
than that I am not affiliated.

EDIT: I see many posts about the quality of books published by Packt, the data
vis book I recommended is written by an leader in the field of it (Andy Kirk.)

~~~
moondowner
Another gem I'd like to point out is the book "Infinispan Data Grid Platform".
It was my first purchase at Packt, thorough and well written.

------
davidjgraph
I fell for a promotion a while back, the quality of the books I got was simply
awful (based on 3 books). None of them were worth paying for, just deleted
them.

There may be decent stuff in there, but my experience leaves me unwilling to
ever try and find them.

~~~
thu
I was once contacted to write a Haskell book about "Data Analysis". I said it
was not really my field and asked for sample chapters of some Haskell book
they had, if any.

I received back an answer with how to proceed, just as if I had accepted to
write the book for them, without any specific answer to what I told them.

This didn't seem very encouraging and I didn't try to have additional
information.

------
davemaclean
Hi everyone.

As the founder and CEO of Packt I want to say thanks to everyone for this
feedback. It's really crunchy and specific. We can work on it. We will, and we
are.

We'll publish almost over titles in 2013.

We're trying to bring the benefit of structured, organised and reliable
content to as many new tools and technologies as we can. We have tended to
prioritize quantity, and we have dropped the ball more often than we should.
I'm really ashamed about the times we've released content that isn't up to
scratch, or we've come across as aggressive or internally focused. I'm
accountable for that, and I apologize.

However without being too defensive, I do need to recognize everyone we have
worked with on a _lot_ of projects where together we've brought devs a quicker
and easier way to share knowledge, quietly, systematically, and reliably.
We've also donated over $200k to open source projects as part of our ongoing
support.

In terms of specifics, we are working on improving in-house testing and tech
editing, the whole tech reviewing process [including who, how and why], how to
improve our offer and process with authors to deliver better content and a
better experience, how to release updates and corrections faster, improved CRM
and discriminating contact. I'll be honest..that's a lot to do while at the
same time we keep the titles flowing and the knowledge being shared.

If we're letting you down, or you want us change, let me know. It's my
problem. We'll get together and try and work it out.

Happy Christmas to everyone

Dave Maclean

davem@packtpub.com

~~~
davemaclean
*I meant to say we published over 800 titles in 2013!

------
shubb
Can anyone recommend a particular book?

So far we have:

+Object-Oriented JavaScript - Second Edition

+Building Machine Learning Systems with Python

+Data Visualization: a successful design process

+Infinispan Data Grid Platform

~~~
ludwigvan
PostgreSQL 9 Admin Cookbook and PostgreSQL 9.0 High Performance

~~~
monksy
The high performance book is great. But it is a rather dense book.

------
ludwigvan
Too much negativity here. Some of their books are good.

I have both PostgreSQL 9 Admin Cookbook and PostgreSQL 9.0 High Performance
and they are pretty good books.

~~~
jamesbritt
I bought a Packt book (or go it free on some discount thing) and it wasn't too
bad.

I got the impression that the quality of any given Packt book would be up to
the author, that Packt was OK with releasing sub-par technical works.

Caveat emptor.

------
jorma75
I just bought Mastering Web Application Development with AngularJS which is
also for sale on Amazon and has pretty decent reviews there:
[http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Web-Application-
Development-...](http://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Web-Application-Development-
AngularJS/dp/1782161821)

Turns out, you get a discount for print books if you own the e-book, I got 50%
off after going back to the site once I bought the e-book: €17,50 instead of
€34,99

So... €21,88 for both instead of €34,99 (you always get the e-book free if you
buy the print version it seems).

~~~
myth_drannon
Yeah, I just came here to post the same! The problem is I don't want to buy
print right after I bought the ebook.... I want to read it a bit first . I
hope they keep the sale at least for a week.

------
monksy
Some of the books I liked from Packt:

1\. Apache Wicket Cookbook [DO NOT BUY THE INSTANT TITLE.. THAT IS A WASTE OF
MONEY FOR PRINTED SOURCE] [Also if you want a starter book for Wicket go with
Wicket in Action/Depth]

2\. High performance PostgresSQL 9

3\. Google Guava - I absolutely loved this book and how it presented the
material. I know that the doc is out there .. but this presented the
information in an easier to consume way. [Its worth the $25+ cost of the
ebook]

4\. Jasperreports for Java Developers - That was the tutorial I needed. I
believe it contained a few minor errors but eh.

------
judah
I was contacted by Packt yesterday to write a book on KnockoutJS. I am an
expert in the subject matter, however, I'm currently working a full time dev
job, a part time dev job at nights, and my startup on the weekends. So, I
declined.

Now that I see some of the comments here about quantity over quality, I'm
feeling better about my decision to turn it down.

~~~
sown
"...I'm currently working a full time dev job, a part time dev job at nights,
and my startup on the weekends."

That sounds neat. How did you get a part-time dev job?

~~~
vinceguidry
I imagine the company that hired him would have preferred a full-time dev, but
settled on letting him work part-time for lack of better options. Which is a
great option for developers who are getting tired of the 9-5 and want a more
flexible schedule. Wait until you're crazy busy then turn in your two weeks.
The same company that told you they can't do remote work and the like when
they hired you will suddenly get a lot more flexible when reminded of how much
they need you.

------
akramh
I just purchased Machine learning with R: [http://www.packtpub.com/machine-
learning-with-r/book](http://www.packtpub.com/machine-learning-with-r/book)

Just the book i was looking for!

$5 worth the risk?... well can't really go wrong!

------
adrianlmm
I jumped in and adquired "Application development with Qt creator", I can't
stress enough my disappointment, poor content, poor explanations, no word
about deployment, it doesn't even worth the $5 I've spend.

------
jwblackwell
I was a technical reviewer for their recent Laravel book. I've only just
received a copy so haven't had a chance to properly review what went into
publication.

All was OK (although the level of English was bad, but I was told not to focus
on this) until I got to the REST API section which was atrocious. The author
clearly didn't understand REST principals.

I essentially suggested a full rewrite or at least a change of title to
something like "simple web api" but I can't comment as to whether that
happened yet. I expect not.

------
dj-wonk
Any experience with their Storm, Kafka, and D3.js books?

For the first two, the communities and versions move so fast that I'd be
surprised if a book could be kept up to date. (Storm just hit 0.9; Kafka is
now at 0.8. I wouldn't recommend that anyone use older versions at this
point.) Following the mailing lists seems to be the way to go in those cases.
Anyone disagree?

With regards to D3, it seems like the online examples are prolific; it is hard
to imagine a book being needed. Besides, it is more fun to tweak D3 directly.

~~~
jackgolding
I haven't seen what I think is a good d3 book yet - they all are too simple
(ie you don't need a chapter on how to do a simple plot)

------
ankitml
I have been asked to become reviewing editor for moodle related books
repeatedly. Every time I have to back out after reading couple of chapters.
Their books are practically worthless. When i communicated this to one of
their team, I never received a reply. So it seems they are aware of their low
quality content.

------
mjmsmith
Learning jQuery ([http://www.packtpub.com/learning-jquery-with-simple-
javascri...](http://www.packtpub.com/learning-jquery-with-simple-javascript-
techniques-fourth-edition/book)) seems to be generally well reviewed.

------
thinkersilver
I took oppurtunity of the deal and bought books on machine learning and
visualization and realized that I unwittingly bought the same book twice:

* Data Visualization with D3.js * Data Visualization with d3.js

There's no way of reveresing this now but I do feel a bit silly.

~~~
call_me_cookie
Hey, you still only spent $10! They're DRM free to, so you could send one copy
to a friend and pretend you intended to.

------
ing33k
after reading a packtpub book, I realized even I could write a book.

------
akramh
Anyone got any recommendations for machine learning or R titles?

~~~
dj-wonk
To degree do you (a) want code examples (b) want to get intuition? (c) want to
dig into the underlying math?

------
benmarks
Anyone know how this shakes out for the authors from a profit standpoint?

~~~
jonathant_packt
Hi benmarks, authors continue to retain royalties and payments as per our
agreement at the time of writing. Hopefully with the added benefit of seeing
more happy members of the community with copies of their book :)

------
poobrains
Still too much for their "Mastering NGINX" book.

------
donretag
I purchased one merely to show support for the author.

------
kyrre
expert python programming is the only good packt book i have come across

------
berntb
There has been quite a few offers from Packt and O'Reilly this autumn. A pity
I filled up my reading buffer before. (I mostly read literature on the iPad,
paper for work stuff so I can lend it to people.)

