Comments on: What is it like to write a technical book? http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/ Stay curious! Wed, 10 Mar 2010 17:56:32 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: The "Invent with Python" Blog — Lessons Learned from Writing a Technical Book to Teach Programming http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/#comment-17209 The "Invent with Python" Blog — Lessons Learned from Writing a Technical Book to Teach Programming Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:56:12 +0000 http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/#comment-17209 [...] What is it like to write a technical book? (Xaprb blog) http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/ [...] [...] What is it like to write a technical book? (Xaprb blog) http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/ [...]

]]> By: What it is like to write a technical book « Linux and Friends http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/#comment-16758 What it is like to write a technical book « Linux and Friends Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:36:01 +0000 http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/#comment-16758 [...] detailed overview of what it is to write a book. The following  is a small portion of his thoughts from the article. If you’re thinking about writing a book, I’d suggest you spend some time visualizing how much [...] [...] detailed overview of what it is to write a book. The following  is a small portion of his thoughts from the article. If you’re thinking about writing a book, I’d suggest you spend some time visualizing how much [...]

]]> By: Paul http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/#comment-16144 Paul Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:01:08 +0000 http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/#comment-16144 A major problem that you nonfiction authors face is that most interested consumers will not even discover that your book exists before making a purchasing decision. And they can't buy your book if they don't know it exists! This is because Amazon search results are so garbled and unfocused. For example, if you search on "mysql" at Amazon you will get 416 results, scattered over a zillion pages. Let's say you have just authored the greatest book ever written on the general topic of MySQL (competing with Paul DuBois' tome). The chances are your book will end up on the nether pages of the Amazon results, making it virtually impossible for interested consumers to discover it (hell, hardly anyone looks at page 2 of search results, let alone pages 3, 4, 5, ..., infinity). So you went to all the trouble and pain of writing a great book, but nobody knows it exists, and thus sales are dismal. Result: it goes out of print before you can blink. All of that effort and sweat down the drain. That's why I went to the trouble of creating www.zercle.com, to solve this problem. Basically, all of you nonfiction authors should go on Zercle and create groups for your books (if one doesn't already exist), and put your book in the group. And put competing books in the groups too. And then tell everyone about it. Result: Consumers will (for the first time ever) have a simple way to discover your book, and you will have a way to guarantee that your book is discoverable. Once everyone does this, then Amazon or Google will want to incorporate the Zercle book groups into their search results, making your book even more discoverable. In short, the Stone Age for nonfiction authors and book consumers will be over. A new era of Light will begin. A major problem that you nonfiction authors face is that most interested consumers will not even discover that your book exists before making a purchasing decision. And they can’t buy your book if they don’t know it exists! This is because Amazon search results are so garbled and unfocused. For example, if you search on “mysql” at Amazon you will get 416 results, scattered over a zillion pages.

Let’s say you have just authored the greatest book ever written on the general topic of MySQL (competing with Paul DuBois’ tome). The chances are your book will end up on the nether pages of the Amazon results, making it virtually impossible for interested consumers to discover it (hell, hardly anyone looks at page 2 of search results, let alone pages 3, 4, 5, …, infinity).

So you went to all the trouble and pain of writing a great book, but nobody knows it exists, and thus sales are dismal. Result: it goes out of print before you can blink. All of that effort and sweat down the drain.

That’s why I went to the trouble of creating http://www.zercle.com, to solve this problem. Basically, all of you nonfiction authors should go on Zercle and create groups for your books (if one doesn’t already exist), and put your book in the group. And put competing books in the groups too. And then tell everyone about it. Result: Consumers will (for the first time ever) have a simple way to discover your book, and you will have a way to guarantee that your book is discoverable.

Once everyone does this, then Amazon or Google will want to incorporate the Zercle book groups into their search results, making your book even more discoverable.

In short, the Stone Age for nonfiction authors and book consumers will be over. A new era of Light will begin.

]]> By: Xaprb http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/#comment-16038 Xaprb Tue, 17 Mar 2009 22:15:01 +0000 http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/#comment-16038 A friend and fellow open-source author wrote about his experience writing a book on PostgreSQL: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/books/awbook/bookoneyear A friend and fellow open-source author wrote about his experience writing a book on PostgreSQL:

http://www.postgresql.org/docs/books/awbook/bookoneyear

]]> By: dimebrain « Books vs. blogs: the value of technical books and ideas to improve them http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/#comment-15585 dimebrain « Books vs. blogs: the value of technical books and ideas to improve them Tue, 23 Dec 2008 13:31:10 +0000 http://www.xaprb.com/blog/2008/06/15/what-is-it-like-to-write-a-technical-book/#comment-15585 [...] simply don’t need to write a successful technical blog (though it helps). Here is a good blog post on one author’s [...] [...] simply don’t need to write a successful technical blog (though it helps). Here is a good blog post on one author’s [...]

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