How To Geta Publishing Deal

Several WikiZens have had books or magazine articles published, or are in the process of doing so.

Would any of you be willing to share your experiences regarding how you got your deal, or any other important or interesting information about the process?

I'll offer some interim advice. I'm sure others can say more, so you may DeleteMe at your leisure. The point is that if I could do it, anyone can do it. This is part of my general theory that ComputerScience is not cool. No rock stars work in computers. If someone is "famous", it's likely they spend their evenings on the Internet just like you. Just look at the punters on Wiki. Consequently, the barrier to entry in the computer book/magazine publishing industry, which is considerably less cool, is very low. So low, even a HighSchool student could weasel himself in on occasion.

Books.

I was authoring a book deal on ArtificialIntelligence in games at Wrox when I was in high school. Ironically, JavaLanguage killed it. Maybe that's why I hate Java so much. If a pimply-faced sixteen-year-old could avoid working for a few years (I got paid in American dollars), a professional should have no problem. All you need to do is know something most other people do not know, and then be able to prove you know something about books. The first work I did for Wrox was as a spec reviewer. This will teach you enough about how the computer book publishing industry works to show you what you need to do. It also helped that at the time I was busy with TheProgrammersBooklist, so I had a nudge on the inside, and that I was active on UseNet with some friends. Don't expect the same thing to happen to you. I was lucky, and I'm very grateful for that.

The computer publishing industry is not difficult to enter. All you need to know is that you will not make any money writing a book, so you had better love what you are writing about or desire the notoriety. Royalties work in terms of "runs". The first run, the royalties are very low, around 2-7%. Since (at the time I was involved in the Industry) it costs ~$30USD per page to publish the first 10 000 prints of a medium quality book, the publisher is going to ask for a bigger cut on the first print. Your only hope is that you write such an amazing book that it enters multiple runs; hence writing books on the latest fad technology is not a good idea unless you want to win consultancy contracts.

After the first run, the publisher should be profitable, so royalties are higher. You might even get 10% if you are hot enough before signing the contract. You will be lucky to get 7%.

If you ask for an advance, the royalties are going to be very low. That's the tradeoff. Finally, the more copies of the book you ask for free or at a discount, the lower your advance or royalties will be, as each book costs physically half as much as the sticker price to print usually.

Those authors on this site who are more famous might have been offered better. My pitch was that I was a pimply-faced dork in HighSchool who knew very little, but was very excited and very dedicated, so I was to build a team of authors. That dragged on for over a year before the department was killed. And thus I learnt that writing computer books is yet another thing where PeopleSkills matter more than typing skills.

Oh, and type less. $30USD/page means fewer pages are better.

Magazines.

Writing articles for computer magazines is even easier than writing books. The first step is to know your audience. There's a magazine for every audience, no matter how bizarre. [WhatComputerMagazinesDoYouLike?] The more bizarre, the better, because the editors are likely to be more accessible. Just e-mail them with your article idea. You'll have to sell it; show how it will benefit their magazine. But I discovered that getting articles into DrDobbsJournal isn't as nerve-wracking as I thought it would be. I think that's when I ended my subscription. As GrouchoMarx said, "I wouldn't want to join a club that would have me as its member."

-- SunirShah

That's funny...about the time my publishing career took off is when I stopped reading computer magazines, too... :) -- KyleBrown

OK, I've published three books and been a manuscript reviewer for most of the big publishing companies (AWL, Academic Press, John Wiley & Sons, etc...) so I've seen the business. Anyway here's my advice:

(1) It's not what you do, it's who you know. Unsolicited proposal submissions are going to be much less well-received than if you meet a publisher in person and discuss the proposal face-to-face. Conferences (OopsLa, PlopConference, JavaOne, etc.) are by far the best place to do this. Just walk by the publisher booth and you'll probably find an acquisitions editor on the show floor. Pique their interest and make them remember your name before you hand them or email them a manuscript.

(2) The proposal is everything. Unless you've already got a significant industry reputation, your proposal is your only foot in the door. Make it the best it can be. Make sure your business case is well-written and talks about specifics of your target market. Make sure your outline is DETAILED. The sample chapter MUST be good. By the way it is FAR better to write a chapter from somewhere in the middle of your book (where things start getting interesting) than to write the first or "overview" chapter. Those usually don't say much to begin with, and it's hard to get a good sense of what the book is like from them. I've marked more than one proposal for the recycle bin because they sent out only a generic, vanilla "introduction" chapter with no good, solid information about what they are writing about in it with their proposal...

(3) Negotiate! The initial offer you will get from the publisher will stink. Everything is up for negotiation. That includes royalty rates, advances (yes, you can ask for them), deadlines, formats (MicrosoftWord, ExtensibleMarkupLanguage or FrameMaker), EVERYTHING. Also, make D*MN sure that you really own the rights to your own work. Check with the legal department for your employer about anything you might have signed in your employment contract before you sign on the dotted line...

-- KyleBrown

PhilipGreenspun has an interesting tale of writing a tech book at http://philip.greenspun.com/wtr/dead-trees/story.html

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