Self-Publish, don't write for a Publisher
Like others have said, there are pros and cons to both. From my experience, working with a publisher was <i>exactly</i> what I needed, and it&#x27;s worked out very well. I published a moderately successful technical book (my second book, the first one was awful and sold poorly, the publisher was terrible, but the experience was good to have) a little over a year ago, and, not only has it made me well over $40k in royalties, but it&#x27;s been bought by foreign publishers and has been released in several other languages as well, and royalties have actually increased in recent months because of foreign releases.<p>Sort of a point-by-point take on my perspective of the author&#x27;s main points in his blog post:<p>I own the copyright to both my books. Didn&#x27;t have to ask for it, didn&#x27;t really care, but it seems to be pretty standard among publishers (although I could be very wrong about that, and just lucky). Honestly, I didn&#x27;t really care about owning the copyright. It doesn&#x27;t affect my day-to-day life. I&#x27;ve heard of sketchy publishers taking an author&#x27;s content, re-writing it, publishing under someone else&#x27;s name, or re-using it in weird ways, but that&#x27;s not really an issue with my contract, and shouldn&#x27;t be an issue with any reputable publisher.<p>Writing for fun? It was fun! Sort of. It was a lot of really intense work, and late nights. But I enjoy the subject immensely. If you write a technical book, money should be a very very low priority -- it&#x27;s a nice surprise at the end, the icing on the cake. So <i>who</i> the money is going to, or in what percentage, shouldn&#x27;t affect your motivations or the &quot;fun&quot; you have doing it either way. It really didn&#x27;t feel like &quot;working for someone else&quot; at all, it felt like it was entirely my project, but I had an excellent support team to help me out if I needed it.<p>The ability to update whenever you want? Sounds like a bunch of maintenance work pressure. The book was analyzed by technical editors, copy editors, layout people, illustrators, and god-knows-what-else to death before its release. It was stamped with the ISBN number, preserved in the Library of Congress, and it&#x27;s done. Although I did some additional (optional) editing when foreign translators gave some feedback, I don&#x27;t have to do anything else until (if) I decide to write a second edition. It&#x27;s not a constant side project, I don&#x27;t have to track sales, I don&#x27;t have to advertise, it&#x27;s not something I think about much, I just watch my bank account get a big boost once in a while, and send the IRS money every quarter. The publisher sets up book signings and talks once in a while, but those are totally optional, and it&#x27;s kind of a nice tax write off weekend vacation for me, and I turn them down as often as I go to them. &quot;San Francisco for a week?&quot; Ehh. &quot;Las Vegas for the weekend?&quot; Yes please.<p>Advanced sales analytics? Sweet summer child, I have a publisher to worry about stuff like that. If I cared (which I only did in the first month or two of sales, before I realized there were more important things in life, like drinking and watching Netflix), I can call them up and get as many gory details and spreadsheets as I want. So really, I feel like I have the best of both worlds.<p>Money: Yes, it&#x27;s sometimes a little nuts to see that my publisher has made 6 figures off this book and I&#x27;m sitting around saying &quot;Sweet! Another $3k in my bank account!&quot; But I make 25% off of online sales (and licensing, and a few other things) and 10% off of hard copy revenue, so life isn&#x27;t really that bad. The last time I had to do anything with the book was a year ago, the publisher&#x27;s probably put more work into it than I have at this point, and they have an amazing network of resources to promote it. My book is in libraries, bookstores, sold at conferences -- and I don&#x27;t have to do a damn thing to get it there. Colleges that wouldn&#x27;t even admit me have my book in their library! Sometimes I google &quot;&lt;name of book&gt; syllabus &lt;year&gt;&quot; to see what kind of professors are using it for required reading this semester.<p>I might seem a little aloof, but don&#x27;t get me wrong, I LOVE my book, and am extremely attached to it. But, sometimes, you children have to grow up and leave the home, and I&#x27;m happy to pay my publisher to allow it to do that. So, if you like ongoing projects, and are an entrepreneurial self-promoting type, definitely self-publish. But I&#x27;m not an entrepreneur. I&#x27;m have some writing experience, professional teaching experience, and am a full-time software engineer, but not all of us have to want to start our own business to get a book out there.