Comments on: What is it like to write a technical book?

By: Xaprb

Xaprb — Tue, 18 May 2010 02:45:49 +0000

Gigi: good luck! But I suspect luck won’t matter as much as elbow grease!

By: Gigi's Blog

Gigi's Blog — Tue, 18 May 2010 00:45:09 +0000

I have always wanted to write a technical book, but very intimidated by the technical language. Afraid of leading someone astray or giving bad data. After reading your post and the comments of others, I think I will give it a try!

Wish me luck!!

By: The "Invent with Python" Blog — Lessons Learned from Writing a Technical Book to Teach Programming

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:56:12 +0000

[...] 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

What it is like to write a technical book « Linux and Friends — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 00:36:01 +0000

[...] 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

Paul — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:01:08 +0000

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.