Back in 2018, I published a technical book with Packt. Last quarter, I finally “earned out”. and made money over and above my advance. It opened a lot of doors.
Do you want to know how write for Packt/OReilly, etc? ✍️
What I learned
I’ve only published one book, but I did go to all the big publishers while shopping the idea around. I learned a lot from that process.
First: do not write a tech book to make money. I’ve made more money from my blog on medium than I ever did from the book. But a book has “prestige”. Anybody can write a blog.
With a technical book, is looks like there are two general ways to get the deal:
Option 1
Write about something totally new when it’s hot. This is the easiest. If a tech gets hot (like blockchain), dive in as deep as you can as fast as you can. Most authors are not techncial, so you can quickly beat them to market. Since time is critical, get co-authors to get it shipped faster. Just like a startup, time to market matters. I had two co-authors, Packt helped me find one of them.
Option 2
Be seen as a great expert in the field already. If the industry already sees you as a world-class expert, then there is a ready market for the book on name…
