出版与作家生涯2009beginningruby.org
写一本 Ruby 编程书：我的收获与心得
What I've Earned (And Learned) From Writing a Ruby Programming Book
导读
这篇文章复盘作者写一本 Ruby 编程书的收入与教训：传统出版社带来的销量和版税有限，合同还可能让作者失去对书名、续写和署名的控制。评论区进一步讨论自出版 PDF 的经济账，以及把书当作推广其他产品或服务的工具。对写作者来说，值得在动笔前想清楚合同、版权、收入模式和时间成本。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
先算写作的时间账：把写作、重写、再重写都算进去，出书收入可能低于最低工资，除非它能带动其他产品、服务或个人品牌。
- 02
签出版合同前重点看续写、署名和再包装条款：作者可能失去控制，甚至出现自己没看过、没同意却挂自己名字的书。
- 03
如果目标是保留版权和控制权，可评估自出版 PDF：用更低销量达到与传统出版相当的毛收入，并始终拥有作品。
- 04
把书当成整体业务的一环而非唯一变现方式，先明确它要推广什么、带来什么长期价值。
HN 评论精选
关心作者与出版社关系破裂后，是否还愿意以更好条件继续写书。
谢谢分享，Peter——大家常听到一些数字被传来传去，但听到完整故事很有意思。听起来你和 Apress 的关系在某种程度上已经断了——你还有兴趣以更好的条件（比如和 Pragmatic Programmers）继续写书吗，还是已经完全写腻、筋疲力尽了？
rufo查看英文原文
Thanks for sharing, Peter - one always hears numbers being tossed around, but it's interesting to hear the whole story. It sounds as if you've burned your bridges with Apress to some degree - do you have any interest in continuing to write books with a better deal (e.g., with Pragmatic Programmers) or are you burnt out of the whole thing entirely?
出版社合同可能让作者失去署名和续写控制，签约前要看清再包装与续写条款。
评论引用合同说，如果你不写，出版社有权不等你、让别人续写并把别人的名字放上去。评论者想起 Laura Lemay 的访谈：出版社在她不想再写后仍用她的名字卖书，她失去控制，最后出现了一整套挂她名字的“Teach Yourself X with Laura Lemay”系列。她提到出版社反复改造、重新包装、换标题转售她的作品，有些是在既有合同下她不知情发生的；她在书店看到过自己从未看过、没同意、甚至不知道存在的书。
wallflower查看英文原文
> but the Apress contract states that if you don’t, they have the right to do it without you, have someone else’s name slapped on the book Trying to find the original interview, but I remember reading an article with Laura Lemay (of 'Teach Yourself HTML' fame) of how they basically abused her name to sell books (even after she said she didn't want to write any more books). She lost control and there ended up being a whole franchise of 'Teach yourself X with Laura Lemay' books. EDIT: Found the link. Thanks archive.org! "I wrote a lot of books from 1994 to 2000. Both my HTML and Java books did really well, and I had a series that I didn’t write that nonetheless had my name on it. It felt like I was riding this wave of popularity, I would probably never be this successful again, and I felt that I had to milk it, to push it as far as it would go. My publisher was all too happy to accommodate me in this goal. They reworked my writing over and over again, customizing it, repackaging it, reselling it under different titles and for different purposes. I cheerfully and naively agreed to a lot of this repurposing, but a lot of it happened without my knowing it under the terms of existing contracts. I would go into bookstores and find books there with my name on them that I had never seen or agreed to or had any idea they existed. With this much writing being produced not all of it had to be great. Towards the end not much of it was. By the end I didn’t feel like I had much control over my own work. even with the writing I was actually doing I was so stretched and overworked that the quality wasn’t there. Eventually I felt I didn’t even have any control over my own identity. Who is this Laura Lemay person who has her name all over all these books? Me, I think I’m an OK writer, I’m good at explaining stuff to people. Laura Lemay just produces huge numbers of not very good books. I felt really overwhelmed and disassociated from my own work and from my own name." http://web.archive.org/web/20061027193901/www.dispatchesfromblogistan.com/interview-with-laura-lemay/
自出版 PDF 可用更低销量达到传统出版收入，并保留完整版权，值得考虑绕过出版社。
我很久以来有几本想写的书。我想付费请文字编辑修正我啰嗦的文风，请设计师排版，然后以 PDF 发到网上，定价比如 15 美元。Peter Cooper 那本相当成功的 Ruby 书印刷版卖了约 8000 本、电子书 500 本，赚了 19000 美元。若 15 美元 PDF 要毛收入 19000 美元，需卖约 1260 本；相比 8000/500 的纸书/电子书，而且 PDF 是唯一格式，这听起来并非不可能。若把价格提到仍低于 Apress 电子书的水平，可把数量降到 900 本。当然不管卖多少，我始终完全拥有这本书。我想知道 Cooper 怎么看完全放弃出版社的策略。
tptacek查看英文原文
There are a couple books I've wanted to write for a long time. I'd like to pay a copyeditor to fix my long-winded prose, and pay a designer to typeset it, then post it online as a PDF that will cost, say, $15. Peter Cooper's unusually successful Ruby book sold ~8000 copies in print and 500 copies as ebooks. He made $19,000. To gross $19,000 with a $15 PDF, I'd have to sell ~1260 copies. Compare to ~8000/500 paper/print, noting that the PDF will be the only available format for the book, and this doesn't sound impossible. If I raised the prices to a place that still undercut an Apress ebook, I could get that number down to 900 copies. Of course, whatever number I hit, I own the book free and clear, at all points. I'm interested in what Cooper thinks about the strategy of foregoing publishers altogether.
写书的经济回报低，更适合作为推广整体业务的一部分；出版机会常伴随微薄版税和反复重写。
利用书的最好方式是推广其他产品或服务，因为算上写作、重写、再重写的时间，多数时候你赚得比最低工资还少。对 Cooper 先生来说，作为其出版帝国整体战略的一部分，这大概还行；但作为赚钱策略，我认为 HN 这里大多数人做几乎任何别的事都能赚更多。90 年代中期，Laura Lemay 在我只发了一封简单邮件询问后，很慷慨地把我介绍给她的出版商，结果我为一本 Web 相关书贡献了一章，正式成为出版作者。之后我又联系上一位经纪人，他开始带来机会：其中一个是一本半成功书第二/第三版的机会，但我要和原作者分享本来就微薄的版税；下一个看起来像金矿，是在一个非常知名的系列里写全新书，我提交大纲和样章，并整理电商软件清单，每次提交后都有反馈和累人的重写，但最终事情还是出了问题。
percept查看英文原文
The best way to use a book is to promote some other product or service, because for the most part when you calculate the time spent writing, rewriting, and re-rewriting you realize you're working for less than minimum wage. This probably works out okay as part of an overall strategy for Mr. Cooper, who is building a publishing empire. :) However as a money-making strategy, I believe most of the people here at HN could make more doing almost anything else. In the mid-90s Laura Lemay (graciously) introduced me to her publisher after no more than a simple e-mail query. As a result I got to contribute a chapter to a Web-related title and officially became a published author (yay!). After that I somehow connected with an agent who started bringing opportunities to my attention. One was for the second or third edition of a semi-successful title; however as part of the deal I'd have to share the (already meager) royalties with the original author. Thanks but no thanks! The next opportunity seemed golden: the chance to write a brand new title as part of a very well-known series (something like "Selling Online for the Technically-Challenged Among Us"). I started submitting outlines and sample chapters, and assembled a list of e-commerce software ranging from open source to commercial packages (mostly written in Perl). After each submission came the feedback and tiring rewrites, but I still thought it would work out. And that's when it happened. ;) Apparently the whole department at the publisher had just returned from a Microsoft conference, and had learned about the new software package that was going to set the world of e-commerce on fire: Site Server (maybe Mr. Graham will get a chuckle out of that). It was expensive, large, and proprietary, and in my opinion not a good match for most of the small-to-medium businesses I thought would most benefit from the book. But guess what (I was told) should be the focus of the new book? In the end it just wasn't worth the hassle. So that ended my publishing career, but it was sort of fun while it lasted. P.S.: IIRC some of the big guys, like the first Word and HTML authors, made seven figures.
同类还值得读
写书：值得吗？
Writing a book: is it worth it?
Martin Kleppmann（《设计数据密集型应用》作者）复盘写书到底值不值：金钱回报低、耗时极长，但带来了可见度、信任和职业机会。
出版与作家生涯2020 · 642 分 · 287 评4 条写作要点编辑精选写书并不是个好主意
Writing books is not really a good idea
这篇文章讨论靠写书谋生的现实难度，评论区从版税数学、收入预期和写作目标三个角度补充了作者视角。
出版与作家生涯2021 · 577 分 · 609 评4 条写作要点编辑精选如何自助出版一本书：实用资源清单
How to self-publish a book: A handy list of resources
这是一份关于「如何自助出版一本书」的资源清单帖，涵盖从编辑、排版到 ISBN、销售渠道的实操工具与花费。
出版与作家生涯2018 · 558 分 · 88 评4 条写作要点编辑精选我自助出版一本Ruby on Rails书，赚了7万美元
How I Made $70k Self-Publishing a Book about Ruby on Rails
这是一篇 Ruby 开发者自述：他把一套 Rails 性能课程（书＋视频＋答疑）自出版，一年毛收入约 7 万美元，并总结了选题、定价、营销等经验。
出版与作家生涯2017 · 539 分 · 175 评4 条写作要点编辑精选石黑一雄警告年轻作家因“恐惧”而自我审查
Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
石黑一雄提醒年轻作者因“恐惧”而自我审查，即这条帖子讨论的核心。
出版与作家生涯2021 · 396 分 · 641 评5 条写作要点编辑精选