For a lot of the authors of technical books, credibility is the whole point.
The goal is not to write a book that directly makes money. The goal is to write a book that gets the author hired or promoted, or to land consulting gigs, or to get VC backing.
So, yes, credibility does pay the rent.
I have heard authors making as little as $500 and very rarely someone making more than $5000 from technical/programming books (outside of top 1% books). Given you easily put 500 hours of work in a book, the best possible outcome for vast majority of authors is literally minimum wage payment. Most authors are competent enough to make 5X more on their regular jobs so they are certainly not writing book for money.
Re:Tips for Writing a Technical Book
by zwischenzug on Sunday June 02, 2019 @08:22AM
(#20075014)
I've made more than $5000 (each) from three books (two self-published, one '1st tier'). I don't think it's that rare, or maybe I"m lucky.
Agree on the minimum wage comment, though. I did it for career progression, personal life goals, and passive income.
Re:Tips for Writing a Technical Book
by cerberusss on Monday June 03, 2019 @01:21AM
(#20080585)
For passive income? What is "passive" about writing a book? Or do you mean, passive as in "paid later"?
Perhaps, but as they say, credibility doesn't pay the rent. What matters in commercial terms of how much money the book ends up putting in your pocket.
If a publisher is keeping 90% of the revenue, the services they offer had better generate at least an order of magnitude more sales to break even, less anything it would have cost you to obtain any other relevant services they provided directly instead. Does anyone here believe that this is in fact the case with the level of marketing that a typical tech publisher will do for a new work from a previously unknown author?