Way back when, I wrote ten books for traditional publishers like Springer-Verlag, McGraw-Hill, etc. I switched over years ago to self publishing on leanpub.com, using a Creative Commons non commercial share license, with free updates. I don’t earn quite what I used to but the freedom to write exactly what I want with no pushback from publishers on what they predict will sell, and the ability to effortlessly push book updates to readers makes the switch very worthwhile.

Writing is also a great way to meet interesting people and expand a personal network. Whenever I meet someone who has an interesting job and/or interests, I almost always suggest that they write at least one book.