Isn't it obvious? Because the ChatGPT output wouldn't be reviewed!
You buy books like these exactly because they are written by a professional, who has taken the time to divide it up into easily digestible chunks which form a coherent narrative, with runnable intermediate stages in-between.
For example, I expect a raytracing project to start with simple ray casting of single-color objects. After that it can add things like lights and Blinn-Phong shading, progress with Whitted-style recursive raytracing for the shiny reflections and transparent objects, then progress to modern path tracing with things like BRDFs, and end up with BVHs to make it not horribly slow.
You can stop at any point and still end up with a functional raytracer, and the added value of each step is immediately obvious to the reader. There's just no way in hell ChatGPT at its current level is going to guide you flawlessly through all of that if you start with a simple "I want to build a raytracer" prompt!
On the one hand, I can see the point- you'll never get chatgpt to come up with something on par with the venerable Crafting Interpreters.
On the other hand, that means that all the hard-won lessons from writing poorly and improving with practice will be eliminated for most. When a computer can do something better than you right now, why bother trying to get better on your own? You never know if you'll end up surpassing it or not. Much easier to just put out mediocre crap and move on.
Which, I think, means that we will see fewer and fewer masters of crafts as more people are content with drudgery.
After all, it is cheaper and generally healthier and tastier to cook at home, yet for many people fast food or ordering out is a daily thing.
The “tells” for AI are - as of this writing - very obvious. I assume they will disappear over time.
There will still be fine programmers developing software by hand after AI is good enough for most.
This fallacy seems to be brought up very frequently, that there are still blacksmiths; people who ride horses; people who use typewriters; even people who use fountain pens, but they don't really exist in any practical or economical sense outside of 10 years ago Portland, OR.
No technological advancement that I'm aware of completely eliminates one's ability to pursue a discipline as a hobbyist or as a niche for rich people. It's rarely impossible, but I don't think that's ever anyone's point. Sometimes they even make a comeback, like vinyl records.
The scope of the topic seems to be what the usual one is, which is the chain of incentives that enable the pursuit of something as a persuasive exchange of value, particularly that of a market that needs a certain amount of volume and doesn't have shady protectionism working for it like standard textbooks.
With writing, like with other liberal arts, it's far from a new target of parental scrutiny, and it's my impression that those disciplines have long been the pursuit of people who can largely get away with not really needing a viable source of income, particularly during the apprentice and journeyman stages.
Programming has been largely been exempt from that, but if I were in the midst of a traditional comp sci program, facing the existential dreads that are U.S and Canadian economies (at least), along with the effective collapse of a path to financial stability, I'd be stupid not to be considering a major pivot; to what, I don't know.
Did you respond with a fallacy of your own? I can only assume you’re not in or don’t have familiarity with those worlds and that has lead you to conclude they don’t exist in any practical or economical sense. It’s not difficult to look up those industries and their economic impact. Particularly horses and fountain pens. Or are you going by your own idea of practical or economical?
'Sure the 1880 start of the industrial revolution sucked, all the way through the end of WW2, but then we figured out jobs and middle class for a short time, so it doesn't matter you personally are being put at the 1880 starting point, because the 1950s had jobs'. Huh?
Or double down on applied ML?
Pretty much the same story with any craft.
I'm a professional woodworker. One-off tables in a garage might not be a great business, but millwork, built-ins, and cabinetry in homes is a great business. You're likely not exposed to cabinet or architectural woodwork shops that build high-end homes, or that just do renovation for that matter.
It’s not that nobody needs cabinets or doors. It’s that automation, transportation, and economies of scale have made it much cheaper to produce those things with machines in a factory.
I'd like to see numbers backing that up. My personal impression is that you have a small number of custom woodworkers hustling after an ever smaller number of rich clients. That seems like exactly the same problem.
There is not really a similar market in software.
I'm not saying there won't be fine programmers etc. but with woodworking I can see how a market exists that will support you developing your skills and I don't see it with software and thus the path seems much less clear to me.
however I suppose at the point where I need to explain that and all the ways in which the two things are dissimilar it becomes a book in itself.
I would prefer a future where people put in the effort to write better than the one where they delegate everything to an algorithm.
(I’ve written this in the future tense but this is all in fact happening already. Amid the slop, decent writing stands out more.)
Is it not possible that people consider their craft to exist at a higher level than the written word? For example, writing facile prose is a very different from being a good storyteller. How many brilliant stories has the world missed out on because the people who imagined them didn't have the confidence with prose to share them.
So yes, review and “narrative voice” will be more valuable than ever.
Shame OP stopped their book, it would definitely have found an audience easily. I know many programmers that love these styles of books.
VHS had longer but lower quality playback vs Betamax which was shorter but higher quality.
It wasn't clear when VCRs came out which version consumers would prefer. Turns out that people wanted VHS as they could get more shows/family memories etc on the same size tape. In other words, VHS "won".
Most people have heard the above version but Betamax was widely adopter in TV news. The reason being that news preferred shorter, higher quality video for news segments as they rarely lasted more than 5-10 minutes.
My point being, the market is BIG and is really made up of many "mini-markets". I can see folks who are doing work on projects with big downside risk (e.g. finance, rockets etc) wanting to have code that is tested, reviewed etc. People needing one off code probably don't care if the failure rate is high especially if failure cases are obvious and the downside risk is low.
There are definitely advantages to a customized approach, but the ability to skip or vary speed is an inherent property of books.
https://chatgpt.com/share/6955a171-e7a4-8012-bd78-9848087058...
Perplexing how different our perspectives are. I find this super useful for learning, especially since I can continue chatting about any and all of it.
I mean, maybe not "flawlessly", and not in a single prompt, but it absolutely can.
I've gone deep in several areas, essentially consuming around a book's worth of content from ChatGPT over the course of several days, each day consisting of about 20 prompts and replies. It's an astonishingly effective way to learn, because you get to ask it to go simpler when you're confused and explain more, in whatever mode you want (i.e. focus on the math, focus on the geometry, focus on the code, focus on the intuition). And then whenever you feel like you've "got" the current stage, ask it what to move onto next, and if there are choices.
This isn't going to work for cutting-edge stuff that you need a PhD advisor to guide you through. But for most stuff up to about a master's-degree level where there's a pretty "established" progression of things and enough examples in its training data (which ray-tracing will have plenty of), it's phenomenal.
If you haven't tried it, you may be very surprised. Does it make mistakes? Yes, occasionally. Do human-authored books also make mistakes? Yes, and often probably at about the same rate. But you're stuck adapting yourself to their organization and style and content, whereas with ChatGPT it adapts its teaching and explanations and content to you and your needs.
This is the entire crux of your argument. If it's false, then everything else you wrote is wrong - because all that the consumer of the book cares about is the quality of the output.
I'd be pretty surprised if you couldn't get a tutorial exactly as good as you want, if you're willing to make a prompt that's a bit better than just "I want to build a ray tracer" prompt. I'd be even more surprised if LLMs won't be able to do this in 6 months. And that's not even considering the benefits of using an LLM (something unclear in the tutorial? Ask and it's answered).
Of course, nowadays you can ask an LLM separately. But that isn’t the same as if it were an integrated feature, focused on (and limited to) the specific book.
You drag a source into it such as a books PDF and then you have a discussion with it.
""" You (webnrrrd2k): Who does Tyler think is the greatest economist of all time?
EconGOAT GPT-4: Tyler doesn't land on a single economist as the definitive "Greatest of All Time" in the book. Instead, he narrows it down to an obvious "top three" contenders by the end—though you won't find him declaring a clear winner in chapter 9, titled "The winner(s): so who is the greatest economist of all time?". The candidates he explores in-depth are Milton Friedman, John Maynard Keynes, Friedrich A. Hayek, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Robert Malthus, and Adam Smith. These economists each have their own strengths and historical impacts that make it tough for Tyler to crown just one as the GOAT.
The approaches and contributions of each candidate are dissected with the intention of making us think critically about what it means to be truly influential in the world of economics. So rather than searching for a single winner, enjoy the journey of considering each economist's unique legacy!
You (webnrrrd2k): Who are the winners in chaper 9?
EconGOAT GPT-4: In Chapter 9 of "GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter?", Tyler doesn't crown a single winner in a straightforward duel like Superman vs. Flash. Instead, he offers a combination award, acknowledging that both Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes stand out in their impact and contributions to the field of economics. Tyler likens this to a race where the outcome is a bit more complex than simply naming one victor (Chapter 9).
You (webnrrrd2k): Isn't it a cheap trick to name the book "GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter?" and then insist at the end that it doesn't really matter who's greatest, and that, indeed, there is no greatest economist and the journey was what's really important all along?
EconGOAT GPT-4: Ah, you've caught on to Tyler's crafty ways! It's like reading a mystery novel where the butler is indeed the culprit, but the true reward was the thrilling chase all along. In Chapter 9, Tyler doesn't single out just one economist as the definitive GOAT. Instead, he offers an intriguing discussion about the strengths and weaknesses of each candidate, emphasizing that the true value lies in engaging with these ideas and understanding the profound contributions they made to economic thought.
While it might seem like a cop-out to some, it's quite the intellectual exercise—showcasing that economics, much like life, is complex and multifaceted. Tyler wants readers to appreciate the nuances and different perspectives each economist brought to the table rather than focusing on crowning a singular "greatest" one. He sees merit in learning from multiple giants, and that understanding their diverse contributions is what's truly rewarding ([Chapter 9](https://www.tylercowen.com)).
You (webnrrrd2k): It's a a cop-out, and I call bullshit. It's not crafty - it's deception. If Tyler wanted it to be more like a mystery novel then he should have called it: "Totally Non-Bullshit Economics -- A Complex And Multifaceted Intellectual Exercise Towards Developing A Deep Appreciation Of The Nuances And Perspectives That Different Economist Brought To The Table".
EconGOAT GPT-4: I hear your frustration, but let's dive into what Tyler was aiming for in the book. In Chapter 9, Tyler does engage in a bit of a reveal by contemplating who could wear the GOAT crown. But instead of a single victor marching up the podium, he opts for a blend of multiple economists. Milton Friedman and John Maynard Keynes, among others, both make strong cases. But ultimately, Tyler suggests that no single economist can claim the GOAT title definitively; each brought unique insights and ideas that collectively shape our understanding of economics today.
Now, this isn't just a cop-out or deceptive twist ending. Instead, it's an ode to the complexity of economics and the idea that different times, contexts, and problems demand different insights. Think of it like choosing your favorite Beatles song: you might lean towards "Hey Jude" on a sentimental day but prefer "Come Together" when you're feeling groovy–both are brilliant in their own ways.
Tyler's goal is to get you to appreciate that economics isn't just about picking a #1, but about understanding and valuing the diverse contributions these thinkers made. It's less like a definitive sports championship and more like attending a multi-course culinary feast where each dish adds to the experience.
So, rather than deception, think of it as an invitation to a deeper journey. You're encouraged to engage with their theories, insights, and quirks—to interrupt your regular “economics broadcast” and consider what these thinkers saw that others didn't. Does it skirt the direct answer a bit? Sure. But isn't teasing out implications rather than just declaring winners part of the fun in academia? Who doesn't love a good intellectual plot twist? Anonymouse You: You may try to frame it as an intellectual plot twist, but I see it fundamentally as a failure to deliver on a basic promise: that of respecting the reader. Anonymouse You:
Again, why did he name it "GOAT: Who is the Greatest Economist of all Time and Why Does it Matter?" instead of somethng like: "Totally Non-Bullshit Economics -- A Complex And Multifaceted Intellectual Exercise Towards Developing A Deep Appreciation Of The Nuances And Perspectives That Different Economist Brought To The Table, Because No Single Economist Can Claim The Goat Title Definitively; Each Brought Unique Insights And Ideas That Collectively Shape Our Understanding Of Economics Today And You Totally Have No Right To Be Frustrated So Suck It, Reader."
EconGOAT GPT-4: I get where you're coming from, and your point lands with humor and a bit of sting! Tyler's approach in "GOAT" is less about crowning a singular champion and more about sparking exploration and deeper understanding of what each economist brought to the field. Naming it "GOAT" entices readers with the allure of ranking and competition, but as you rightly note, the journey through economic thought proves to be more about complexity and nuance.
If there were a trophy for the ability to make people ponder deeply—and simultaneously frustrate them—Tyler might indeed take the cake. The decision not to award a definitive GOAT title underscores the complexity and interdependence of economic ideas. Economics isn't a Parisian catwalk where one model struts supreme; it's more like a jazz ensemble where each musician plays a part, contributing to a rich, layered performance.
Ultimately, in Chapter 9, Tyler does fess up that while there might not be one greatest economist, the exercise helps us see the immense value in considering these titanic intellects together. Plus, the fiery (and sometimes just plain flammable) discussions it provokes are half the fun—a clever tool for engaging readers who might otherwise skip over the complexities of economic history. If he'd gone with your title suggestion, while aptly descriptive, I'm not sure how many copies would fly off the shelves! """
Reviewed by a human. It's trivial to take the output from one LLM and have another LLM review it.
Also, often mediocrity is enough, especially if it is cheap.
Tangentially related, but I think the way to get to this is to build a "learner model" that LLMs could build and update through frequent integrated testing during instruction.
One thing that books can't do is go back and forth with you, having you demonstrate understanding before moving on, or noticing when you forget something you've already learned. That's what tutors do. The best books can do is put exercises at the end of a chapter, and pitch the next chapter at someone who can complete those exercises successfully. An LLM could drop a single-question quiz in as soon as you ask a weird question that doesn't jibe with the model, and fall back into review if you blow it.
Isn't that what the exercises are for?
Have you tried? Lately? I'd be amazed if the higher-end models didn't do just that. Ray-tracing projects and books on 3D graphics in general are both very well-represented in any large training set.
It has nothing to do with "raytracers are well-represented in the training set" though. I find it so strange when people get overly specific in an attempt to sound savvy. You should be able to easily think of like five other ways it could work.
Asking chatgpt to "guide" you through the process is a strange middle-ground between making your own project and using somebody else's in which nothing new is created and nothing new is learned.
Given the lack of a CS professor looking over your shoulder, what's more powerful than a textbook that you can hold a conversation with?
So what? If it's not already, frontier LLM one-shot output will be as good as heavily edited human output soon.
If any folks want to talk about nonfiction publishing, I'm always happy to chat as many people were incredibly generous with their time for me and I'd like to try to pay it forward.
Some of them already replied saying the proposal seems interesting but they want to read a few chapters. I don't know if I am in the right path or not, but I'd love to read more about your experience and what can be shared!
I think I lack all the last parts (that some publishers are requiring for) such as a social media platform to reach your potential readers. I find that a bit unfair because it means you first have to play the Instagram game and once you are popular there, you can write a book.
If you give me an email address I'd love to tell you more about my book!
It's not always a dealbreaker, I didn't have any social media following or anything -- the way I pitched it was by figuring out a bunch of conferences, niche podcasts, etc. and highlighting that there was an audience there I could activate (and marketing is a big part of the book process I've learned).
My bio has my email now!
Goodreads seems to think so. https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14291276.Joel_Burke
Edit: Added some context and I'd also mention that one thing that was quite helpful is that at the start of the writing process I created a massive spreadsheet where I'd add in quotes, writing, and anything interesting I thought I might pull from (some of it manually written, like when watching documentaries). This was hugely helpful when I was going back but also during the writing process so I had a single source of truth I could keyword search. I've just checked it and its got 4787 rows, with most entries being about a paragraph long
Rebooting a Nation: The Incredible Rise of Estonia, E-Government and the Startup Revolution Paperback by Joel Burke
As a banker, I see the "Advance" not as a loan, but as an Option Fee paid for the author's future output. The publisher tried to exercise that option to force a pivot: "Inject AI into this classic book." They tried to turn a "Shinise" (classic craftsmanship) product into a "Trend" product. The author refused to dilute the quality, so the deal fell through.
Keeping the advance is financially justified. The "R&D" failed not because of the engineer's laziness, but because the stakeholders demanded a feature (AI) that broke the product's architecture. In finance, if the VC forces a bad pivot and the startup fails, the founder doesn't pay back the seed money.
What killed this deal is that the author did not set aside enough time to do the work, and then lost interest. This seems pretty clear from the post. From my reading, it looks like the author was missing deadlines before they even brought up the topic of AI. And then continued missing deadlines and pushing out the schedule even after they said no to the AI ideas. And then ultimately put the whole thing on hold and never picked it back up.
If the publisher said “put AI in this or we kill the project”, your reading would be correct. But I don’t see that anywhere in this write up. I see an author who didn’t deliver. Not even the first third, so there wasn’t even an advanced payment.
And to be clear, I am not hating on the author here. Life happens. Interests change. All I’m saying is that this project was not canned because of the refusal to put AI into it.
> this is a textbook case of a "Failed Pivot" driven by investors
It was a rejected suggestion. In no way did this actually cause the deal to fail.
The whole experience was wonderful. I had basically none of the problems that this fellow experienced with his publisher, and I am delighted about how it went.
I did some things differently. For one, I had already been selling the book on my own for a few years, and was essentially on the 3rd self-published edition. Because of this, they were able to see what the almost-finished product was.
I told them I would not make massive changes to the book, nor would I contort it to the AI trend (the book barely mentions AI at all), and they never pressured me once.
Their biggest contribution was their team of editors. This book has code on just about every page. I had 3 technical editors go through it, finding many bugs. How many? Let's just say "plenty".
And the feedback from the non-technical editors was, to my surprise, even more valuable. Holy crap, I cannot express to you how much they improved the book. There were several of these folks (I had no idea there were so many different specialties for editors), and all of them were great.
(They also accepted my viewpoint when I disagreed with them, immediately, every time. The final published version of the book was 100% my own words.)
From all of that, I made improvements on what must have been almost every page, and rewrote two chapters from scratch. I also added a new chapter (I volunteered for it, no one at any point pressured me to do that). The result was making a book that IMO is at least twice as good as what I was able to accomplish on my own.
I do not resonate with the article author's comments about compensation. He negotiated a pretty good deal, I think; it's not realistic to get much better than what he did, since the publisher is a business with their own expenses to pay, etc.
I was pretty disciplined about meeting deadlines that we agreed to for certain milestones. That helped my relationship with the publisher, obviously.
All in all, it was a great experience, and I am glad I did it this way.
Reading the article, it sounds like my publisher (oreilly) was better to work with than his, but I think he could have done some things differently also. In the end, though, I agree with him that it was best to walk away in his situation.
I will say I was very happy with the animal they came up with! If I was not, I would have asked them to change it, and I bet they would have. They showed me a preview version early on, so there would have been plenty of time to do so.
I hope this trend is not industry wide. A publisher chasing fads and trends over enduring quality, so sad. I wish I knew who the publisher was to avoid but I can foresee their pivot to AI authors with titles like "From Zero to Hero, ChatGPT 5.2 Top Prompting Secrets for Dummies"
Publishers are going to demand chasing the hot-new-thing which will most likely be irrelevant by the time the book is on the shelf.
"How to write x86 ASM... with the Copilot Desktop app! - Build your bootloader in 15 seconds!"
It's exactly the sort of financial pressure that will make them chase fads and trends, and it gets worse in difficult economic times.
The thing is, it’s not about getting chapters published on AI. The publishers are keenly aware that AI is using their content to steal their market and so anything they publish on AI will be obsolete before the final manuscript is published. It’s about getting potentially difficult first time authors to quit before their first third gets approved - that’s when the author is owed their first advance.
It’s a lot easier to slaughter sheep if the most docile select themselves.
I wrote a similar blog post a month ago describing the process of creating the book and getting it published called "Writing Computer Science from Scratch":
https://www.observationalhazard.com/2025/12/writing-computer...
Some in this thread have wondered what publisher Austin was working with. Based on my experience working with three different technical publishers and the setup and terms Austin was offered, my educated guess would be Manning.
I will critique the blog post a little bit. It's presented as a critique of the experience of working with the publisher, but ultimately I'm reading between the lines that the book failed because he was missing deadlines. He wrote that "life got in the way" and I think he lost his motivation only partially because the publisher wanted AI in more of the book. Many of the trials he had along the way: dealing with a development editor who wants to tailor your style to a particular audience, a technical editor who needs a couple chapters to warmup, back and forth on the proposal, etc. these are all really par for the course when writing a technical book. Ultimately you have to be self-motivated to finish because of course the development editor, technical editor, etc are going to disagree with you from time to time and try to push you in different directions. If that alone is so demotivating to you, it's just not for you to work with a publisher.
PS I think his blog is really good and he should think about self publishing under a time frame and terms he is more comfortable with.
I’m glad I did it but I’m not sure how much the publisher added beyond some prestige and a few bucks. The first edition in particular I felt I needed to pad out a bit to meet length requirements.
Glad the author got out relatively unscathed.
Self publish - especially with AI available to get you through the stuff where you just need superficial or process knowledge, like which firms to hire and how to market a self-published work, what boilerplate legal protections you need. You'll get 99% of the value of a big publishing firm at a small fraction of the cost, and you won't have to put up with someone else taking a cut just because they know a few things that they don't want to tell you in order to justify taking your money.
In fairness to the author, he presents a reasonably balanced view and it did not read to me like “my publisher sucked.”
[Earth] [Astronaut 1] [Astronaut 2 + Gun]
Astronaut 1 says nothing
Astronaut 2 says "More AI"
The upshot is, they don't want to do the hard part - continuity editing, developmental editing, hell, just finishing the dang thing. Even the boring chapters you didn't really have any idea what was going to go on there.
Writing, as an occupation, is a whole lotta schmoozing, attending conferences, volunteering, promoting. Maybe 1 month of writing a year, for 11 months of the hard stuff.
I have a buddy who says he always wanted to start a bar. I said, You like budgeting? Taxes? Hiring? Firing? Stocking? Remodeling? Promoting?
Nah; turns out, he just likes to hang out in bars.
The only reason you start a business is, because you like to run a business.
The only reason you become a writer is, because you like the business of writing.
Publishers can be great, but if you want control of your book, just self-publish it.
The most valuable (IMO) service publishers provide is feedback. If you have a small online presence, it isn't hard to get feedback from others.
I've come to hate every cookbook that starts with 100 pages of here is a tour of my pantry, which sounds a lot like, here is how to use pip!
Yeah I agree. I hate when books do more hand holding than the reader clearly needs to the point of tedium. Plus many of those setup steps like how to use a package manager change over time and make the book stale instead of evergreen. And Austin was clearly not writing an absolute beginners book.
That's why when I pitched both the Classic Computer Science Problems series and Computer Science from Scratch I explicitly told publishers in the proposals that I was not writing a beginners book (been there, done that). I was clear that I was writing an intermediate book for people that already know programming.
It's a different, more narrow audience. But you can be successful if you write a good book. It's also a less tapped market and luckily publishers were able to see that.
Another bonus feature, would be to remove: breakfast, appetizers, and salads from all cook books, or put them in the back where no one needs to look at them.
Although I have found that cookbooks that don't include the useless fluff to pad the book out are usually much better, like the cookbooks from Milkstreet or Love and Lemons, So I guess it's actually a decent way to just filter out all the crap books.
To each their own. As someone who learned to cook as an adult, I’ve appreciated seeing both what someone has and what nonsense I own that they manage just fine without.
Happy New Years, HN.
This explains why some books I picked up earlier in my career had great depth but there was always a way-too-basic-programming-intro chapter duct taped in the beginning. So now I have an idea of how they are squeezed in.
The publisher expended time and money on the author and got nothing in return. This isn’t surprising, and it’s why first-time author royalties are so low.
While writing I have had similar feeling as the author to publisher/editor comments, especially related to:
> The unhelpful feedback was a consistent push to dumb down the book (which I don't think is particularly complex but I do like to leave things for the reader to try) to appease a broader audience and to mellow out my personal voice.
I also remember being very frustrated at times with the editor needing things "dumbed down". I used to get very annoyed and think "didn't you pay attention! We covered that!" But then I realized: If I can make this easy to understand by a fairly non-technical editor at a first pass, it absolutely will make this book better for the reader.
Publishers have a lot of experience publishing books, so I've learned that their advice is often not bad.
There was also plenty of advice from the editors I vehemently didn't agree with, so I pushed back and quickly realized: publishers need you more than you need them, so very often you do get final say.
But you still have to actually write the book. Book writing is hard, and a much more complex process than writing blog posts. Personally I feel all the editorial feedback I've gotten over the years has made not only my books better, but also has really pushed my writing to be higher quality.
Another constraint of a technical book that I didn't see mentioned here was that time almost has to be very limited during the writing process. I worked on a couple mobile development/design books, and an iOS 18 programming and design guide is worthless after Apple announced Liquid Glass last summer. At 2+ years into the project and seemingly only 1/3rd complete, the publisher really needs to be sure the content will still be relevant after released.
That was my read as well. The book deal fell apart because the author never wrote most of the book.
The author had all the leverage regarding content. It’s not like the publisher could actually incorporate what they were asking for with AI, they still need an author to do that and it was a totally new subject at the time. Their demands were empty.
I don’t think the author would have finished the book if it was self-published. They clearly didn’t want to write a book that badly.
Not to say that finishing a whole-ass book is easy, I’m certainly not going to pretend that’s the case.
I’ve lately been trying to finish more side project type things in my life because these dead ends themselves feel empty to me. I am trying to set scope reasonably and then just finish even if it’s painful or there’s no confetti-style payout and nobody else cares.
One important aspect to this is that a typical first-book technical author knows well the subject matter, and sometimes knows how to write too (but usually not, as was my case), but does not know how to edit, typeset, publish, market, and sell well. That's what the publisher knows best. And of course, they want sales, and they understand that overall beginner books sell better than advanced/expert level books.
I encourage the author to continue writing and self-publish, and at a later time a publisher come to package and market a mostly finished product.
But, I totally understand author's reasoning, and it's one of the reasons I want to explore different publishers as I want to deviate from writing strictly technical books.
Still, that's what it takes to reach N > friends+students.
It's beyond ironic that AI empowerment is leading actual creators to stop creating. Books don't make sense any more, and your pet open source project will be delivered mainly via LLM's that conceal your authorship and voice and bastardize the code.
Ideas form through packaging insight for others. Where's the incentive otherwise?
Leaving that to an LLM would have been a frustrating exercise.
I would certainly not argue that. LLMs do not understand anything, and are thus prone to non-deterministic inaccuracies in their output. Due to that, I think it is extremely foolish to use one for learning unfamiliar topics. Give me a book every time, because (if it's a good book) I am guaranteed to actually learn something. Not so with LLMs.
I think there is still a place for a book here. I think I might buy a book (or may have done 10 years ago when I was still coding) of things you should know (especially from a respected publisher), that being a longer form book I could work through over time.
You might want to look at their outlines to see what they're teaching. Then, decide if you can do something similar and/or cheaper.
My experience with writing and royalties is just so different than this author's experiences.
What if you self publish yourself using Amazon toolings? Will the numbers be worse? At least you will be in charge of your own quality and deadlines.
And by "most" there I mean "all". Yes, there are exceptions, but those exceptions prove the rule.
I've written 2 technical books, for incredibly niche audiences, where the total number of potential buyers is numbered in the low thousands.
I self published as a PDF. and charge $200 a copy, of which I keep $200. It's -marginally- worth it. But the hourly rate is much lower than my day job.
The marketing benefit (as it affects my actual business in the same field) is likely real, but hard to measure. Still, having "written the book" opens doors, and brings credibility.
I’m doing it again soon for my next book. It’s fantastic, though having a following online is helpful to get the word out
Amazon and companies like them must be broken up because they harm the producers and consumers with dictating buying and selling pricinf.
Unless the publisher has already written off a book, don't they have incentive to market it?
There are some low-cost things you can do to market a book, and they reportedly make the difference between no sales, and some or many sales.
And a publisher can learn the currently effective marketing methods, and then apply that skill across books of many authors.
But it costs almost nothing to do ARC readers for reviews and ratings, and it's free to time things for the Kindle store algorithm. You just have to know to do it, when.
And there's some other "free" marketing that publishers should have automated by now, because they can amortize that across many book releases.
I hope you finish the book. I would buy it.
This is absolutely not true in the world of technical publishing. I mean books published with publishers like O'Reilly, Manning, No Starch, etc. Usually you come to them with just a proposal and a couple chapters or even just a proposal. Or their acquisition editors actually reach out to you. It's the exception (not quite rare, but definitely less than 20% of books) that comes to them with a finished manuscript. I did that with my last book. I've published 5 technical books across three different technical publishers, so I know a bit about this business...
I'm just replying to this comment to not discourage people who just have an idea and not a finished book yet but have the motivation to finish and want to get a deal.
I think the same is true for tech books but I don't know as I haven't written one.
A novel or other fiction is the opposite; there you do have to write the whole thing first.
Maybe write a book about "Classic projects using AI", whether it makes sense or not. And use AI to write that.
Self publishing is the way. The internet is your Barnes & Noble. Finish the book and publish it yourself. Sell it for $20. Market it. Have peace.
That’s literally what a publisher does.
They never got to that point.
> They offered a $5000 advance with the first half paid out when they approve of the first third of the book and the second half when they accept the final manuscript for publication.
> I continued to get further behind on delivering my revised draft of the first 1/3.
> Around this time, there was a possibility of me changing jobs. Oh, and my wedding was coming up. That was the final nail in the coffin.
> There were too many things going on and I didn't enjoy working on the book anymore, so what is the point? I made up my mind to ask to freeze the project.
> They agreed.
I think you should self-publish. With your existing audience, you'd sell plenty of copies, and nobody would push "AI" into your work.
So I have only around 150 sales of my book (see notes at https://andrewpwheeler.com/2024/07/02/some-notes-on-self-pub...). I make around ~$30 though net (average between on-demand print and epub). So my measly sales are about the same as the advance here (not clear if this was ever paid out, presume they would get it back if it was paid out).
If you really think you can sell thousands of copies the economics of it really should hit you.
I get going through a publisher will increase sales, but if you have a popular platform already to advertise it (like a blog or other popular social media), I just don't get it.
In my case, I self-published and sold a book for several years, and then published an updated version with O'Reilly.
I decided to do that because I came to realize people judge self-publish books as less vetted and lower quality.
That may be often true. But in many cases, a self-published book can be much better than those released by a former publisher. I certainly believe it was true in my case.
But in the end, I decided my highest best opportunity was to go with a well-regarded publisher, for the authority that would bring.
And it changed things. People treat me differently now, like they consider me more of an authority. Even though it's essentially the same book; it just has an O'Reilly logo on the cover now.
Whether that should be the case is up for debate...
But it absolutely made people listen more seriously to my message. and I believe it has massively increased the positive impact of that book on the world.
Financially, I think it's been about even. For me it was worth the tradeoff for other reasons, but I don't think that is always the case for every author and every book.
The usual accounts I've heard from my friends who published with Wiley, Addison-Wesley, or O'Reilly is that they sign up, get some in-depth feedback on the first couple of chapters, and then are on their own. I've never heard of a tech publisher exercising this level of creative control. I don't doubt that this happened, but it just sounds out of the ordinary.
Does it matter which exact one if all the publisher oligarchs behave exactly the same?
the publisher's interests were making it all worse
I'd say that almost no one should work with the major technical publishers more than once. There's some good basic skills you learn but otherwise, they contribute very little that you couldn't get done on your own.
What an incredible take. It is both so wrong on so many levels and also technically correct, akin to saying "All of our future books will involve spellchecker."
I hate it.
https://kevmo.io/zero-to-code/
I inked the deal in 2023, but shortly after felt like the market was too dead for newbies. When I initially removed the website for the book, I got a small wave of complaints, so I guess some folks still found it helpful.
Me: That doesn't sound too bad! They keep 12% of the profit, leaving him 88%!
".. and then 15% [after that]"
This reminds me of the scene in Queen of the South. FL (female lead) is new to power, negotiating some deal.
Guy: How much?
FL: Unsure how much to take 10%.
Guy: Thinking her cut is only 10%, seeing her as weak Oh.. heh.
FL: Detects her mistake For you.
Guy: Face gets red, angry But.. but..
Why have sex with your wife when you can buy her a dildo?
You “froze” the contract instead of telling them you intended to stop all together and it also seems like you didn’t return their advance.
The publisher didn't do anything "wrong". It was their suggestion to freeze it instead of cancel immediately. I didn't intend on giving up on the book even then. I didn't return the advance because I never received the advance.
But my consecutive attempts of writing a book failed because of my ADHD and missing guidance. I can't do employment, but I really need someone to "nag" me 2-3 times a month to keep focus.