

Ask HN: Have you ever written for Packt? - aaronsnoswell


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stuntmachine
I have reviewed for Packt (for free). It was not a bad experience, and the
book is now available and getting great reviews ([http://www.amazon.com/Git-
Version-everyone-Ravishankar-Somas...](http://www.amazon.com/Git-Version-
everyone-Ravishankar-Somasundaram/dp/1849517525)). After this book was
released and doing well, I was asked to write for Packt as well, but let's
just say I would have to have done it for virtually no payment. From what I
understand however, this is common with most publishers. I had to opt out
after doing a cost/benefit analysis on the project. I figured, if I really
wanted to write about the things that interest me, I could do so on my blog.

Some of the work I had to do was non-technical. I would often find myself
translating and rewording awkwardly written passages so that they sounded
better (the author is a non-English speaker).

That said, Packt is pretty hands off and don't micromanage (which I actually
really enjoyed). Most communications that I had with them were initiated by me
when I felt things needed to be pushed along during the review process. That
said, in the end, a book was published, so I suppose even if the process
leading up to that moment was not completely optimized on their end, the end
result was a successful book.

------
zzzzz_
Was in a similar position to you actually - I got an offer from Packt to write
a book on ElasticSearch. I've learnt that if you write a blog piece about some
obscure/hot tech and articulate yourself well enough; you'll get an offer from
an author head-hunter from Packt shortly enough as several of my friends had
similar offers!

I decided not to go ahead because I'm a perfectionist - I'd want to write a
damn good book and the opportunity cost loss of earnings whilst I was writing
the book didn't compare to the relative prestige of saying I was a "published"
author.

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aaronsnoswell
I've just received (another) cold-call email from Packt Publishing asking me
if I'm interested in writing a tech book. I'm actually considering doing this,
but want to get some more information first. Has anyone ever worked with them
as an author before? What was it like?

------
ScottWhigham
Another guy just posted an article - he's just written a book for Packt. Why
not ask him?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6373775](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6373775)

------
pmiller2
I can't speak from personal experience, but the one piece of advice every
single person I know who's written a book has given me is don't do it for the
money.

