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?
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).
"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.
You mention that apress lets other authors release open version of their books. Did these authors release their books for free initially or have they been with apress since the beginning?
I was burned out (from writing) after almost completing the beginning Merb book, which Apress cancelled after the Rails/Merb merger. I must admit if I were to write a book again, it wouldn't be with Apress. I'd be knocking on PragProg or PeepCode's door.
There was talk of rewriting it for Rails 3, but as it was pretty much vaporware at the time and I had enough of the extremely tight deadlines by that point, the decision to stop was mutual.
My comment wasn't against Apress for canceling the book, well within their right to do so. However their processes are a bit backwards and I'm sure not all authors get the same treatment, echoing peter's comment about the git/python books being available online.
Before the apress book I started an open source Merb book, after I saw how awesome the online Django book was and I would have liked beginning merb to have going the same way with peer review.
> 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."
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).
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.
Despite having done a lot of reading and researching about self publishing - and knowing people who've done it - I don't have any hard experience with it, so there are probably 101 HN readers with better answers, but..
I think a publisher like Apress can provide a lot of value. They have dedicated copyeditors, lawyers, and editors. They have design templates and workflows, ready to go. They can take imperfect content and make it sell. If you'd need to outsource many of these functions, perhaps a publisher is the way to go. There are a lot of "not so good" or poorly presented self published books out there that just don't sell.
Self publishing can work wonders, however, in situations where you're confident about the tasks involved. From my experience, the average HN reader or the average writers of stuff that HN links to are solid enough writers to not bother with independent editors - though you'd need to build up some willpower to be good at chopping ;-)
Technical reviewers would be more important, IMHO - and you can lean on your contacts/friends for this. This is one of the greatest assets a publisher provides. Last, if you have even a slight eye for design, you can pick up half reasonable layout and typesetting skills (in something like Indesign) in weeks.
Keep in mind, too, that Beginning Ruby is a 650 page book. Publishers seem to encourage long books, but I doubt you'd need to produce something so long - so making less money might not be such an issue. I think PeepCode does okay with its PDFs even at $9 a pop because most are 100 pages or fewer and don't take several months to produce.
Lastly, you need some way to get those sales. You either need the audience already (a popular blog, say) or have your marketing skills up to scratch. There's a lot I could write on this topic but this comment is getting a bit long, and I'll just end with.. consider doing it. If your topic is good and your writing solid, selling it shouldn't be the world's biggest problem to solve ;-)
It seems to me that you're giving up far more money to a publisher than a good copywriter and a good designer will cost. It's true though that you have to pay these expenses up front (although not until you've finished with the book itself, and even with the technical review --- at which point you know pretty well whether the copyeditor is worth the expense).
I agree, but I've also been a professional editor and know the extent to which editing can improve a manuscript. I personally won't work with a so-called traditional publisher again; I find their contract terms -- especially remuneration -- one-sided and unacceptable.
I neglected to mention the value of distribution. The only way I can imagine working with a traditional publisher again is to increase the potential audience of a book through a dedicated sales and distribution channel -- but I'm not giving up 85% of gross revenue to do so.
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:
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:
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.
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.
I bookmarked the page where you announced your e-book just a few days ago! Thanks for all the info - the way you did it was quite inspirational - you clearly have a very engaged audience.
Thanks Peter! I'll consult with the marketing department to see if we can't get you a promo copy :). I really appreciate you sharing your insights with us.
BTW, I don't know if that's true. I'm not aware of the sales figures of any other Ruby books, but O'Reilly's The Ruby Programming Language has consistently had a sales rank (on Amazon) higher than my book. So has Pragmatic Bookshelf's Programming Ruby.
You outsold Resig, which is probably the best-known JS book. I'm not saying you're the most successful book ever, but you're in a hot area and you're in the top quartile of titles.
I'd argue that David Flanagan's excellent The Definitive Guide To JavaScript is better known than Resig's book.
In addition, "beginner" books tend to sell better than advanced books aimed at professionals, which might explain the relatively low sales of Resig's book.
I've been doing some copyediting for a friend on some young adult fiction of his. It's hard work! I definitely have a new appreciation for the people who do this professionally.
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.
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.
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.
I thought of books as a way to grow my web presence over the long term. Then I would use that web traffic that been building up over the years to make lot more with dead-tree formats.
I used new chapters or pages as pieces to promote on suitable social news site to create a boost in traffic, and hopefully linking side effects. It works most of the time.
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?
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 ;-)
God, is this the only thing you can comment on after reading the article? Let people use strong language in a blog post or a comment if they want to emphasize a point. We're all grown up and can talk directly to each other - no need to make yourself look like a smug.
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.
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 ;-)
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.
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 :)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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 ;-)
Possibly - however there is a difference between "gleefully accepting" a big advance and "squeezing every last dime out of the bastard publishing company"!
> I think the Pragmatic Programmers do an incredible PR job - especially as they have a PR umbilical cord with O'Reilly.
Really? I've been very dissatisfied with the latter's PR. It seems like a combination of asking authors to write more for free, tweeting once a month "Hey, here's a link to a book catalog page!", and sending free copies to people hoping they'll write reviews. It hasn't been worth the amount of money they take from gross sales.
Thanks for chiming in. Since we are somewhat comparing and contrasting big publisher vs. small/mid publisher, do you think that a bigger company (like O'Reilly for example) would have done it differently? If so, how?
I've not published through O-Reilly so I can't really speculate.
I've never had anything published through the Prags; I was talking about the bigger company you mentioned.
I get the impression that their current marketing strategy is to send Tim to conferences to talk about how great Twitter is. I'm not sure how that helps books on other subjects. Certainly it hasn't helped mine.
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.
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.
In the circumstances I'm familiar with, the advance is yours.
Who cares, though? Everyone who has ever written a technical book --- with the possible exception of Graham, who is a different kind of writer --- will tell you that finishing a book is far more difficult than they thought it would be at first, and most people allocate multiple months to their original estimate.
Against your lowest conceivable contracting rate, you will never come within radio telescope detectability of breaking even by writing a book for a major publisher. Publishers know you know that, so their entire pitch will be, "authoring a book will be excellent for your reputation and career". This is true in the same sense as getting a Microsoft MVP merit badge is good for your career; look at some of the people who write books, present company excepted.
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.
I don't believe that to be the case, unless Ruby and JS books work very differently from other technical topics. There are probably people like the late Richard Stevens who could call the shots, but big-name tech people I know who've written multiple books have gotten crappier deals than the one Cooper is describing here.
What mystifies me is, if you have a successful first book, the career argument for writing a second book is much weaker. Under no circumstances will the money ever work out in your favor. Why do people write multiple books? I guess they must just love writing; I can understand that.
I think Ruby and other techbooks now have more channels of distribution. So the author does have an option of not going with Apress. Why settle if the deal is crap ? It would be interesting to have other authors tell us about there experiences. The transparency could put pressure on publishers.
When I was still involved with writing, published technical authors were able to negotiate better royalty rates for subsequent deals, particularly if they had representation (but not exclusively--as always it depends on your negotiating skills).
It's been a while but for some reason the numbers 10, 12, and 15 came to mind.
Checking Peter's post I see 10% so I guess some things never change, including the advances (come on publishers, inflation here?).
IIRC authors with a track record could start off in the 12-15% range, and could sometimes get higher advances, possibly $10-20k.
This is my dated info from personal experience and reading the experiences of others on the HN-equivalent technical book writing mailing list (can't remember the name and it may be gone now; the listserv was run by an agency).
I don't want to seem overly pessimistic. Someone may want to write a book for the experience and someone else may figure out how to work it to their best advantage as part of a larger portfolio of offerings. As always it's up to the individual.
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 ;-)
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.
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?