Comment by atlasunshrugged
1 day ago
I appreciate you sharing this! I just published my first book (nothing about programming, its about how the nation of Estonia modernized post re-independence and became a tech/e-gov hub in a single generation) and I can sympathize with a lot of this. My experience was a bit different -- I also knew the advance was going to be nothing and had a day job so I said I didn't need one (which was a relief for them as I was with a smaller publisher) and instead asked for more books to give away and some other contract terms. It took many months of negotiating to finalize the agreement and then they wanted the manuscript in ~7 months from contract signing. I guess they also assumed that I'd miss at least one deadline but instead I took a bunch of time off to get it done. I think the most important lesson for me is that book publishing, unless you're focused on trying to be the top 1% (maybe even .1%) in a popular category, is not going to be very lucrative, especially with a publisher that takes a major cut. It's easier than ever to go direct, in my case because I had a niche book and I wasn't doing it for money, I valued the prestige (or perceived prestige anyways) of having a book with a name brand publisher as I thought it'd be more helpful for my career in other ways, and candidly was mostly a passion project that I didn't feel strongly about monetizing!
If any folks want to talk about nonfiction publishing, I'm always happy to chat as many people were incredibly generous with their time for me and I'd like to try to pay it forward.
I feel 100% identified with you. I am working on a non ficton book about a niche topic and I wouldn't do it for the money at all. It's about the "prestige (or perceived prestige)". I am about to finish the first 1/3 of the book (the first draft, anyway), and I am already attempting to reach out to publishers to see if they would be interested in the book (at least the ones that don't require a literary agent!).
Some of them already replied saying the proposal seems interesting but they want to read a few chapters. I don't know if I am in the right path or not, but I'd love to read more about your experience and what can be shared!
I'll drop in from the sidelines, with the massive track record of having written one (1) book.
The prestige probably isn't what you'd expect. Having an ISBN to one's name carries ~zero weight for the people that actually matter for your career (it may mildly impress some future coworkers in a decade's time, though). The real value of having written a book is that then you have written a book.
Having a publisher carries one extra benefit that was merely implied in the post: you get assigned a professional editor. If you're lucky (I was), the editor has a really good understanding of how to wield language and the lessons you get from the editing process are going to far outweigh any direct financial benefits. When I wrote mine, I had been doing freelance writing for a large IT magazine for nearly ten years - and as a direct result had been taught how to use written language as a weapon by a good number of old-guard journalists. The year I spent on the book project taught me a LOT more still, because I was assigned an editor who herself was studying (in a university) to become a language teacher.
The skills I picked up from that process are with me to this day, and ironically have been the single most valuable asset I have as an engineer and/or engineering leader. Being able to write well to a varying audience is a superpower. You also learn to appreciate professional authors, because what they do is decidedly not easy.
In the end my book sold well enough to earn out its advance, so I guess it was a non-failure for the publisher as well. I also picked up a lesson for all aspiring authors:
Writing a book is easy. You sit down by the keyboard, slit your wrists and pour it all out.
That's awesome, can I ask what the topic is? What I did for "selling" the book was to create a proposal -- about 45 pages that has a skeleton outline of each chapter (it changed significantly during the end writing process but gave the publisher a feel for the topic), a sample chapter, and some more sales/marketing details like what are comparable books (and how well they sold if you have that data), who your audience is and how you plan to reach them (OP was in a great place having a following), why you're the right person to write the book, etc.
45 pages as a skeleton? Wow. I wasn't expecting that much! I guess your book is +120k words? Do you think having a clear vision/structure helped when sending it to publishers?
I think I lack all the last parts (that some publishers are requiring for) such as a social media platform to reach your potential readers. I find that a bit unfair because it means you first have to play the Instagram game and once you are popular there, you can write a book.
If you give me an email address I'd love to tell you more about my book!
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Did you also write "Inspire!: Inspiration for Life and Life at Work" ?
Goodreads seems to think so. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14291276.Joel_Burke
That one goodreads review for the Estonia book is amusing. One reader criticized him for providing references. I feel like that's a positive, not a negative, and if you find it uninteresting those tend to be easy to skip.
Yeah, I have to admit because this was my first work I maybe overdid it in providing references because I wanted to default to having real historical data and not just writing a lot of personal opinions with no backing (it was a nightmare writing up that reference section but I'm glad I did it in the end) and if I'm being honest, because I'm not in academia and didn't have credentials as an "Estonia expert" I wanted to play it safe.
Edit: Added some context and I'd also mention that one thing that was quite helpful is that at the start of the writing process I created a massive spreadsheet where I'd add in quotes, writing, and anything interesting I thought I might pull from (some of it manually written, like when watching documentaries). This was hugely helpful when I was going back but also during the writing process so I had a single source of truth I could keyword search. I've just checked it and its got 4787 rows, with most entries being about a paragraph long
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Ha, I didn't, I wish Goodreads would get a major update!
What’s the name of your book? That sounds super interesting
Was wondering the same and went stalking in the profile. They named it a couple of days ago[1], apparently it's called Rebooting a nation
1) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46398265
Looks like this is the book: https://www.rebootinganation.com/
Rebooting a Nation: The Incredible Rise of Estonia, E-Government and the Startup Revolution Paperback by Joel Burke
Yep, thats it, sorry for the slow replies, I'm out with family for the holidays!
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Interesting handle (atlasunshrugged) - a reference to Atlas getting back to work rather than shrugging? (I know it's a book title.)
Ha its super old now but I think I had read the Ayn Rand book and was frustrated that it felt a little simplistic (tbh I do have some libertarian tendencies but the world is a messy and complicated place) so this was my way of acknowledging the idea but disagreeing with the premise, especially because the libertarian philosophy felt so prevalent in the tech world at the time
Oh yes, the house cats. Unfortunately, those felines got close to power now.
Is Estonia a good country to immigrate to for an American?
It depends what you're looking for! I moved there when I was in my mid 20's on a one year contract to run a team for the government's e-Residency program and ended up staying a bit longer (and have gone back every year since). Parts I enjoyed -- once you find a community it's a pretty strong one (but it took about 6 months for me to make any Estonian friends), there's a good early stage tech scene, the old town in Tallinn is beautiful and city living very approachable. I probably wouldn't move back now unless there was a very good reasons or to raise kids (it seems like a great place for that, very safe, great education system, etc.) just because it's relatively small (total pop ~1.3M) and so doesn't have as much opportunity as other places, plus my parents live in the US and I like being closer to them.