Only 10% royalties? Seriously? Seriously?!
That is insanely low. Like, "why would anyone even remotely consider publishing with O'Reilly" low. Even if they have a large audience reach, 10% should be rejected out of principle.
That is insanely low. Like, "why would anyone even remotely consider publishing with O'Reilly" low. Even if they have a large audience reach, 10% should be rejected out of principle.
It's a reason I take self-published technical books more seriously than "major" publisher books; the incentives are better lined up. 20 years ago, you could make an argument that working with a publisher would get your book on shelves at brick and mortar stores. But it's 2022 and to a first approximation 0% of technical book readers shop at Barnes and Noble.
The other reason you can imagine someone writing a "major" publisher book is that they lead a project they want to generate attention for. An O'Reilly book about your web framework has the benefit of implicitly endorsing the framework as something mainstream. That's a valid reason to do it --- for the author. But the incentives aren't lined up well for the reader!
Are there any platforms that allow for discovery of such works?
https://www.bookdepository.com/search/advanced
Enter "Independently Published" for publisher, then whatever keyword you want. Using "network" turns up a really good one I'm currently working through:
"Beej's Guide to Network Programming: Using Internet Sockets"
Editorial effort and quality control also plays into the purchase decision: I have a sense of what "an O'Reilly book" will be today, just like I have a sense of what "a Packt book" will be. With a self-published book, I might know what the author is like but I can't be so sure what the writing and structure are like.
O'Reilly books today may not be the automatic promise of high-quality texts they used to be when I was writing (last millennium!), but I know that there's a reasonable amount of effort that goes into selecting titles and improving the quality of the book.
You can always find a self-published book that's awesome and an O'Reilly book that's crap, but my experience is that the median O'R book is higher quality than the median self-published tech book.
(I'm not saying you should only buy O'R books -- my library has plenty of non-O'R books)
I'll overlook a bad structure and even bad writing if the content is good and will give me value. I'm way more likely to buy the book at 25% of the price with no editor than at 100% of the price with an editor.
Here are model terms from the Author's Guild: https://go.authorsguild.org/contract_sections/5
Musicians are paid around 10% by labels as well.
No Starch Press maybe?
Lost Art Press specializes in fairly niche woodworking content. All authors get the same 50/50 profit split deal. Their books are printed with great care and quality, and the content is some of the best woodworking content available.
(I liked it so much that I ended up buying physical copies of all 3 books in the Anarcist's series)
Bookstores pay 60% of the cover price to the distributor who typically pays around 50% to the publisher.
Then there’s the cost of actually producing the book. And presumably things like editing, etc. are considered costs and not part of the publisher’s split. In the end, that 50/50 split probably comes out pretty close to 10% for the author.
Leanpub is a much better option these days in my opinion.
The film industry is notorious for this, so much so that such sharp practices are named for them¹.
To be clear, I'm not accusing PragProg of anything of the sort, but on general principle I'd be super wary of any such deal.
Whatever the motivation, you want to best product you can deliver, right? That's where a professional publisher comes in. O'Reilly is best of the three publishers I've worked with. My editors were great, they tighten the prose so much and I learned a lot about writing along the way.
You will be doing pretty well if you still have 10% left after that.
As for the others, you also shouldn't be expecting the publisher to mail out review copies, arrange book signings, etc. Or other promotion that goes beyond just being part of the publisher's stable of books. That's going to be on you.
As for the others, with print on demand someone can order a book through Amazon. No involvement on your part.
However, in my case, I give away an eBook. The book is mostly on Amazon so physical books can be ordered for a book signing at an event. I have it priced just a bit above cost.
One key with editing is that you need someone willing to put in the time to do a careful job. In my experience, asking a co-worker tends not to work well. About the only time I get carefully edited (mostly copyediting) is when I'm actually working with an editor.
If finance is your only motivation for how you spend your time, do not write a book. It's a very long tail business. Good sales, whether you self-publish or have a publisher, come from great marketing -- the right topic and a high-profile author who is very visible and gets the book noticed by many people. The odds of that being you are very small indeed.
Why would anyone write a book? To spread the knowledge, to gain some mana for the author, to gain some mana for the product, to support a consulting business. ("Author of ...")
All those motivations are more strongly rewarded when you're published by "A Real Publisher" (doesn't have to be O'Reilly). Real publishers have distribution, and have a brand you and the product and the consulting business can benefit from.
If you think you have the reputation and the visibility that will sell your book, definitely think about self-publishing. If you're prepared to invest the time in things that aren't coding and aren't writing (managing reviews, hiring a copyeditor, getting figures, having a professional index built, designing or managing a designer of a cover, etc.) then self-publishing might let you have a commercial success of a book.
But books are like startups: most die in the dark. Self-publishing or going with a name publisher is just arguing about 10% vs 90% of bugger all.
Did anyone ever get rich by writing a technical book?
You have to remember that a lot of these books are written as groundwork for future plans - far easier to establish credentials saying "yeah I've written that book, you may have heard of it".
It also depends on what's your goal. In my case, I was just looking for a way to pay my bills and not having to go back to a job again. My monthly expenses where I live is around $150 and I'm earning about $200 per month as a self-published author. That's more than I need and I'm grateful for that.