技术写作与文档2018medium.com编辑精选
写一本技术书的经济账
The Economics of Writing a Technical Book
导读
一位技术书作者拆解写书的真实经济账：版税收入往往远低于投入的时间成本。几位有出书经验的 HN 读者用自己的数据印证了这一点，并指出真正的难点在写完之后——建读者、做营销、持续更新。对写作者来说，这篇值得读，因为它把"写作"放回了它真实的位置：写作本身不难，难的是让它被读到，以及它能为你的专业信誉带来什么。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把写作当成一个需要经营的项目：手稿只是起点，建读者群、做推广、持续更新往往和写作本身一样费时，却决定最终收益。
- 02
为了讲清楚一个知识点，调研深度要拉到日常工作的数倍——"你以为你懂了，直到你要教别人"，这是提升写作质量最直接的方法。
- 03
别把版税当回报预期，写书真正的收益在信誉、咨询机会和面试资本；选题时先问它能证明你哪方面的专业度。
- 04
技术书同样需要文案能力：标题、简介、邮件推广的写法直接影响销量，学点 copywriting 是划算的投资。
HN 评论精选
写手稿最容易，建读者和做营销才是真正的活，而且回报可以远高于版税。
我们出版过几本书，最新一本 Vue 书的作者在开售第一个周末就赚了 2 万美元。如果自出版，或者与有营销能力、版税率更高的小出版社合作，经济账就完全不同。自出版的好处是钱全归自己，但要花几年积累读者。说实话，写手稿是最容易的部分；建立读者群、做营销、让书保持更新，难度不亚于当初写手稿，但回报可能很可观。可以说了：我们那本 Angular 2 的书头两年每年营收 40 万美元——前提是我们有一个庞大且信任我们的读者群。邮件营销在这个领域比你想象的更有威力，今天依然如此。如果只给一条建议：订阅 Ramit Sethi 的邮件，看他怎么做营销；然后把你找得到的文案写作书都读一遍，学会写文案。
jashmenn查看英文原文
We've published several books, and the author for our latest Vue book earned $20k on the opening weekend. The economics change completely if you self-publish or publish with a smaller firm that has marketing abilities (and better royalty rates). Self publishing is awesome because you keep all the money, but it takes years to build an audience. Honestly, writing the manuscript is the easy part. Building an audience, marketing it, keeping the book up-to-date is just as hard as the original manuscript. But it can really pay off. I'm ready to share this now: our book on Angular 2 did $400k a revenue, per year, the first two years. BUT the reason this was possible was we had a huge audience that trusted us. Email marketing is more powerful in this space than you might believe. Even today. If I could give you one piece of advice, it would be to sign up for Ramit Sethi's emails and watch how he markets. After that, get every book on copywriting you can and learn how to write copy. (Also, if you're interested in writing books with me for 50% royalties, my email is in my profile. I want to do books on Python and Node this year.)
写书经济上不划算，但教研式的深挖和随之而来的信誉会改变职业轨迹。
我是几年前在 Packt 出过一本技术书的作者。我占了先机，因为那是当时唯一一本系统讲某个被广泛使用的 Java 库的书。全书约 350-400 页，我花了大约 600-800 小时做调研、写作、编辑和定稿；因为有全职工作，只能靠晚上和周末，前后 6-9 个月。版税我没细算，几千册销量大概 1.5-2 万美元。当时我没能借势去做咨询或演讲，现在回想会提前布局。但这段经历值得：简历加分（书是面试时很好的谈资），也带来声誉。另外，真要写出一本高质量的技术书，所需的调研和知识深度至少是我日常工作的 5 倍——"你以为你懂，直到你要教别人"，在我身上完全应验。总结：经济上不划算，但整体上让我的职业生涯变好了。
xx_alpha_xx查看英文原文
Author here of a technical book published with Packt several years ago. I had the first mover advantage as the only book of significance covering a Java library that was (and is) very widely used. Total page count was ~350-400. It took me approximately 600-800 hours of research, authoring, editing, and final to complete the book. I had a full-time job and so spent about 6-9 months of nights and weekends. I actually haven't added up the total of royalties but it was probably somewhere over $15-20k on sales of several thousand copies. I wasn't in a position at the time to capitalize on the consulting / speaking gigs that folks have mentioned, and had I thought more about it I would have put myself in that position. It definitely has been worth the experience as folks mentioned both in terms of resume-building (a book is a great thing to bring to interviews) as well as general reputation. Also, if you are truly building a quality technical book, the level of research and knowledge required to do a good job was (for me) at least 5x the depth of my day-to-day work. As goes the old adage, you think you know something well until you try to teach it -- this was definitely true of my research efforts. Summary - not worth it financially, but it definitely changed my career overall for the better. If anyone wants to know more details, please reply here or PM me and I'm happy to answer as best I can.
版税之外还有间接收益，但书带来的信誉红利正被自出版的泛滥稀释。
我 8 年前写技术书的经历一模一样。我通过亚马逊联盟链接卖自己的书赚到的钱，比书本身的版税多得多。如果你想短期赚钱，写书评比写书更划算。话虽如此，那本书在我刚开始做咨询的头几年给了客户信任：客户问"你有数据库性能调优的经验吗"，我可以指着书回答。如今自出版书如此普遍，亚马逊上挂个书名已经不如当年有影响力了。
BrentOzar查看英文原文
My experience in writing a technical book 8 years ago was the same: https://www.brentozar.com/archive/2010/01/the-economics-of-writing-a-book/ I made more money from Amazon affiliate fees linking to our book than I did the actual book. Way more. If you’re out to make money short term, you’re better off writing book reviews then books. Having said that, the book gave me some credibility with clients for a couple of years when I was starting a consulting practice. When clients asked, “have you got experience with performance tuning databases?” I was able to point to the book. Today, with self published books being so prevalent, I don’t think having a listing in Amazon is as influential as it was.
出版社自己都承认预付款赚不回来，写书的回报本质上是声誉而非金钱。
有几次知名技术出版社的编辑找我写书（HN 读者都认识那些出版社的名字）。其中一位事先就直说：预付款 8000 美元，写书要 3-6 个月，而且别指望能把预付款赚回来。她很明确地说，作者身份的好处是声誉。（价格不是我拒绝这些邀约的原因——写书不是我一醒来就急着想做的事。如果我是当作者的料，我想我早该知道了。）
osteele查看英文原文
I've been pitched to write books a few times, by editors at reputable technical publishers. (HN readers would recognize the names of the publishers.) One of them told me up front that I would be offered an advance of $8K, that it would take 3-6 months to write the book, and that I shouldn't count on earning back the advance. She was clear that the benefits of authorship were reputational. (The price wasn't why I turned down that and the other offers. Working on a book just isn't the thing I wake up eager to do. If I were an author I think I'd know by now…)
同类还值得读
编写更好文档的框架
A Framework for Writing Better Documentation
这是 Divio 的文档写作框架，把技术文档按「读者的目标」分成四类：教程（学习导向）、操作指南（问题导向）、参考（信息导向）、解释（理解导向）。
技术写作与文档2021 · 637 分 · 76 评4 条写作要点编辑精选写好一份设计文档
Writing a good design document
这篇 HN 帖子标题为《Writing a good design document》，主题是如何写好一份设计文档；对写作者来说，它值得作为技术写作和结构化说明文的参照。
技术写作与文档2025 · 581 分 · 147 评3 条写作要点编辑精选技术写作课程
Technical Writing Courses
这是 Google 官方免费技术写作课程（两门），讲受众定义、主动语态、短句、文档结构等基础方法。
技术写作与文档2020 · 571 分 · 73 评4 条写作要点编辑精选写出更好的错误信息
Write better error messages
这篇帖子讨论如何写出更好的错误信息，评论补充了开发者场景下的具体做法和真实反面案例。
技术写作与文档2022 · 566 分 · 253 评4 条写作要点编辑精选Diátaxis——技术文档编写的系统化方法
Diátaxis – A systematic approach to technical documentation authoring
Diátaxis 是一套把技术文档按「教程、操作指南、参考、解释」四类拆分的写作框架，核心是让每一篇文档只服务一种读者需求、只承担一种写作任务。
技术写作与文档2024 · 514 分 · 113 评4 条写作要点编辑精选