self-publishing technical books: process, pitfalls, rewards rick miller

Self-Publishing Technical Books:Process, Pitfalls, Rewards

Rick Millerwww.pulpfreepress.com

What to talk about? As with most writing projects I start with an idea diagram. This usually lights the way...

Thinking of a good name for a book can be quite a challenge...

The same holds true for the name of this presentation. Here’s one title I rejected:

“How To Torture Yourself in the Pursuit of a Little More Bling-Bling”

If you’re like me, your mind tends to wander during meetings, especially requirements analysis meetings.

What’s revealing about this page is that my doodles haven’t changed much since 4th grade!

A little background information about me...

• Masters in Computer Science from Cal State Long Beach

• Retired U.S. Navy Officer

• Senior Software Engineer, SAIC

• I have also worked for Booz | Allen | Hamilton...

• ...and Boeing

• Assistant Professor, Northern Virginia Community College

• Member IEEE and ACM since 1986

• I enjoy writing

I am prepared to talk about all aspects of the self-publishing trade, but the time limit, and your patience, demand I show some self-restraint.

My approach will be:

• Discuss what it means to be a publisher and the reasons why you would want to self-publish

•Present the overall self-publishing process and focus on key process points

•Discuss one writer’s approach to the craft of writing

•Then I will open the floor to questions

I started by reading Dan Poynter’s excellent book on self-publishing. But some of the material is dated and doesn’t apply to technical books.

• What It Means To Be Publisher

• Motivation To Self-Publish

• Self-Publishing Macro Processes - Early-Cycle Activities

• Requesting a Standard Address Number (SAN)

• Getting an ISBN Publisher Prefix

• Requesting a Library Of Congress Preassigned Control Number

• Subject Outline

• Pedagogy

• Approach

• Marketing Plan

• Self-Publishing Macro Processes - Mid - Cycle Activities

• Content Creation

• Self-Publishing Macro Processes - Late-Cycle Activities

• Preparing Cataloging-In-Publication Data

• Printing

• Distribution

• Marketing

Self-Publishing - Discussion Points

Self-Publishing - Discussion Points

• Dealing with Your Personal Emotions

• Is It Worth The Effort?

• Final Words

• Questions and Open Discussion

• The Creative Process

Self-Publishing - What It Means To Be Publisher

Return To Discussion Points

The publisher assumes the risk…

- Financial

- Legal

- Reputation

A publisher puts forth information for public view…

- Books

- Newspapers

- Electronic content, etc.

Self-Publishing - What It Means To Be Publisher


The publisher stands to gain (or lose) the most by taking a risk.

Potential rewards as a technical book author:

- $$$$

Potential rewards as the author/publisher:

- $$$$$$

But as the old adage goes, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained!”

The dollar signs represent various forms of compensation.

Self-Publishing - Motivation To Self-Publish


There are a lot of good reasons to self-publish:

You’ll reap the rewards of success

You have something unique to say

You just want to…

You are in complete control

You can flex your creativity

Can you think of others?

- Increase your knowledge in a subject…- Feed your ego...- Build your resume...



My reasons included the following:

• I was teaching C++ and Java and found the textbooks lacking in rigor. Some were (and still are) wrong and incomplete

- I learned later why this is possible. It has to do with how the textbook acquisition process works. (More on this in a few minutes.)

• Code examples from the books would not compile or were incomplete and out of context.

- I believed I could do better.



My reasons (continued):

• I also wanted my book to be different.

- More code examples- Less of those “quotes” at the beginning of each chapter that made me feel somehow less intelligent than the author! (What secret meaning were they trying to convey?)- More pictures!- Don’t assume a student knows how to create separate header (.h) files and implementation (.cpp) files. - And a good explanation of pointers thank you!



My reasons (continued):

• I wanted to spend more time at the beginning empathizing with the student and discussing why, when learning a programming language like C++, they would feel overwhelmed, and offer a list of things they could do to overcome this feeling.

• Lastly, I wanted to approach the topic from the standpoint that programming is a creative process, and that when you are really into the code you enter the “flow”!

- As it turns out, this last one made it difficult to sell the book to big-name publishers.



In summary:

• Just because you have a great idea for a book doesn’t mean others will agree with you.

- In fact, if you self-publish, you should grow a thick skin.

• Your book may be superior (in your opinion) to what’s out there. And in fact, before a publisher accepts the risk of publishing your book, you must convince them it is worthy.

- I will talk more on this later...

Self-Publishing - Self-Publishing Macro Processes


Early-Cycle Activities

Start

Book Idea

Reserve ISBN Prefixwww.bowker.com

Request SANwww.bowker.com

Formulate Marketing Plan

Create Subject Outline Formulate Pedagogy Formulate Approach

Self-Publishing - Requesting A Standard Address Number (SAN)


• Maintained by R. R. Bowker, the United States ISBN Agency

•The Standard Address Number provides a reference to an address.

• Assigned to publisher offices and warehouse spaces, or any address where books or correspondence may be shipped.

• Interested parties look up shipping details by SAN

•Publisher updates SAN data when necessary

Return To Macro-Processes

Self-Publishing - Getting An ISBN Publisher Prefix


• ISBN stands for International Standard Book Number

•An ISBN has four parts:

- Group or country identifier which identifies a national or geographic grouping of publishers

- Publisher identifier which identifies a particular publisher within a group

- Title identifier which identifies a particular title or edition of a title

- Check digit is the single digit at the end of the ISBN which validates the ISBN

• This is the ISBN for Java For Artists: 1-932504-02-8




http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/us/application.asp

http://www.bowker.com

10 ISBNs: $ 249.95 100 ISBNs: $ 859.95 1000 ISBNs: $1374.95 10,000 ISBNs: $3399.95*




Bowker also provides Bowker-Link: www.bokerlink.com



Return To Discussion Points Return To Macro-Processes



ISBN Format Is Changing...


Self-Publishing - Subject Outline

The subject outline is an important planning tool...

General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander of the Normandy Invasion, summed it up best when he said:

“In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.”

It is generally written at a high-level and answers the question: “What am I going to write about?”


Self-Publishing - Subject Outline


This is the subject outline for C# For Artists

My outliner tool of choice is Microsoft Word

But to get to this stage I’ve put lots of thought into what to say and in what order to say it.

Self-Publishing - Formulate Pedagogy


The literal definition tends to be - the "science" of teaching children but it is a term which has being commonly accepted to mean the study of teaching and learning in all contexts. Adult educators have been uncomfortable with this term for a number of years as they feel it is value loaded and presenting an ideology of teaching and learning which is related to children, ie a more directed approach, teacher controlled, content orientated etc. ...

https://cwis.livjm.ac.uk/lid/ltweb/glossary/Source:

In the publishing industry, the term pedagogy is used to refer to how you are going to arrange the material in the book to enable the learning process.


Self-Publishing - Formulate Pedagogy

Pedagogy

• Chapter Learning Objectives

• Introduction

• Content

Text, source code examples, diagrams, etc.

• Summary

•Skill-Building Exercises

•Suggested Projects

•Self-Test Questions

•References

This is the pedagogy I chose for the For Artists series...

This arrangement is appropriate for a textbook but overkill for a trade book where only the first four items are usually included plus references...


Self-Publishing - Formulate Approach

Your approach is that angle you take explain the concepts in your book.

Typical approaches you may have heard of or seen used in books:

- Humorous- Rigorous- Formal- Unique

The one-word approach in my opinion is now cliché, as it’s difficult, at best, to successfully explain difficult concepts in one particular way.


Self-Publishing - Formulate Approach

These are the many approaches taken in Java For Artists to help readers grasp difficult concepts...

Treating programmers as creative people is also part of the approach...

So you see, it’s hard to convey in one or two words how your approach differs from that of another author...


Self-Publishing - Marketing Plan

The marketing plan is a critical tool that comes in handy both in the early publishing phases and later on as well...

It forces you to address the following topics:

- Target Market- Advertising & Promotion Strategy- Distribution Strategy

Let’s say for a moment you wanted to change your mind about self-publishing and pitch your book idea to a big-publisher. They’d ask you for a marketing plan…!



Create Content

Mid-Cycle Activities

Research Topics:Printing Processes, Book Layout, Typography

Self-Publishing - Content Creation


You will spend most of your time here...

Content creation includes the following activities:

• Research

• Writing text

• Creating illustrations

• Writing code (if you’re writing a programming book!)

• Creating test questions, projects (for textbooks)

• etc.

These activities are iterativeIt’s my favorite phase...

Self-Publishing - Research Topics


During the content creation activity you will find if helpful to get smart about several important topics.

Some of these include:

• Printing processes

• Book layout terms

• Typography

Armed with this knowledge will make you sound like you’re serious when you talk to printers later on...



This is a great book!

Topics include:

• Bookmaking

• Style

• Production & Printing



Request LOC PCN(Preassigned Control Number)

pcn.loc.gov

Late-Cycle Activities

Identify Printer

Edit Content

Review Process

Identify Distributor

Generate CIP Data

Create Cover Art

Execute Marketing Plan

PrintBookFinalEdits

Layout

Self-Publishing - Requesting a Library of Congress Number


login


Self-Publishing - Requesting a Library of Congress Number


When the PCN is ready, you receive an email:

Number

Where to ship the book when published


Self-Publishing - Preparing Cataloging-In-Publication Data


• With ISBN and PCN in hand you can generate a book’s Cataloging-In-Publication (CIP) data, but you’ll need one more piece of the puzzle…

• The CIP data is used to help librarians classify and properly shelve your book

• It looks cryptic at first but after you study a few examples it begins to make sense.

• That is, all except one part. How do they come up with the library shelf code? (A.K.A. LOC Call Number)




Java For Artists’ CIP Data

LOC PCNLOC Call Number




You’ll need the Cutter Table...




#

Call Number Name: Main Author, Creator, etc. Full Title Date [ 1 ] QA76.73.J38 M58 1997 Mitchell, Michael, 1970- Developing enterprise apps with Visual J+ 1997 [ 2 ] QA76.73.J38 M586 2000 Mitchell, Will David. Debugging Java : troubleshooting for programm 2000 [ 3 ] QA76.73.J38 M586 2000 Mitchell, Will David. Debugging Java : troubleshooting for programmers 2000 [ 4 ] QA76.73.J38 M63 2002 Mogha, Rashim. Java Web services programming / Rashim Mogha, V.

2002 [ 5 ] QA76.73.J38 M63 2002 Mogha, Rashim. Java Web services programming / Rashim Mogha, V.

2002 [ 6 ] QA76.73.J38 M635 2002 Mogha, Rashim. Sun ONE Studio programming / Rashim Mogha and Ruchi

2002 [ 7 ] QA76.73.J38 M635 2002 Mogha, Rashim. Sun ONE Studio programming / Rashim Mogha and

2002 [ 8 ] QA76.73.J38 M64 1997 Mohseni, Piroz, 1972- JavaBeans developer's guide / Piroz Mohseni and 1997 [ 9 ] QA76.73.J38 M647 2001 Monday, Paul. Jiro Technology programmer's guide and Fed 2001 [ 10 ] QA76.73.J38 M6475 2005 Monnox, Alan. Rapid J2EE development : an adaptive foundation fo 2005 [ 11 ] QA76.73.J38 M6475 2005 Monnox, Alan. Rapid J2EE development : an adaptive foundation fo 2005 [ 12 ] QA76.73.J38 M65 2000 Monson-Haefel, Richard. Enterprise JavaBeans / Richard Monson-Haefel. 2000 [ 13 ] QA76.73.J38 M65 2000 Monson-Haefel, Richard. Enterprise JavaBeans / Richard Monson-Haefel. 2000

Java For Artists Call Number: QA76.73.J38M555

…will appear at the top of this list.

Source: Library Of Congress Online Basic Call Number Search


Self-Publishing - Identify Printer


There are many issues to consider when searching for a suitable printer...

• Patience level

They usually don’t want to talk to newbies so you need to educate yourself before submitting a Request For Quote

• Printing Process- Many exist only to print large print runs

offset printing

- A few specialize in small to medium print runs

on demand printing powered by Adobe

• CD Reproduction and Insertion


Self-Publishing - Identify Printer - The Adobe Process


Self-Publishing - Identify Printer - The Adobe Process


Publisher

GeneratesPress-Ready

PDF File withAdobe Acrobat Professional

(Text and Cover)

SubmitsPDF FilesTo Printer

Printer

PDF Settings File

Press-ReadyPDFFiles

1 2

Content

3

CreatesGalley Proofs

(Text & Cover)

GalleyProofs

Hard Copy

Submitto Publisherfor Review

4

Print&

Ship

5

Approved?

No

Yes

Publisher edits, regenerates PDFs, and resubmits


Self-Publishing - Distribution - Physical Books


Distributors provide a valuable service but at a cost…

Services include:

• Warehouse your books (for a storage fee per book)

• Ship and handle returns

• Present and sell your title to large book retailers

Large book chains will not deal with small publishers for several reasons:

• Systems impedance

• They’d be overwhelmed




Distributors are a necessary evil:

• Distributors demand that you sell them your titles at 40% off retail

• They in turn sell your titles with markup to the large book stores

• The large retailers (Amazon, Barnes and Noble, etc) make money on volume sales so they will usually discount your book

• See how books, especially technical books, become so expensive…!

C++ For Artists is a relative bargain for a textbook at $59.95!




I use Biblio Distribution. (www.bibliodistribution.com)




The distributor needs a “Tip-Sheet” to help them sell your book...

The tip sheet:

• describes your book

• lists some competing titles

• provides sales handles

• and gives a marketing plan overview...


Self-Publishing - Distribution - Electronic Content


You could go two different ways here:

• Sell PDFs direct to public (E-Books)

• Sign up with an online content provider and let the royalties roll in...

The problem with the first approach is that nobody really wants to buy a PDF file.

The book retail industry tried selling e-books with little success.

At first they thought the demand for e-books would outpace that for physical books…but they were wrong.




The book, as an invention, is so unique and easy to work with, that finding a suitable replacement is proving to be quite a challenging engineering problem to solve from both a social and technical aspect.

I can only speak for programmers when I say that giving them more than one computer monitor to work with increases their inclination to reference electronic content. (Like the online Java API documentation or other references.)




Ebooks Vs. Pure Online Content

Books24x7.com converts books into their proprietary XML mark-up format and sells subscriptions...

The catch 22 ---

• Your book must exist in physical form to get considered for inclusion...




But once in the collection you compete head-to-head with the big publishers.

Good books find their way to the top...




Books24x7.com is building quite an impressive online collection...

But it’s only the tip of the iceberg...




Publishers, Number of

6 large publishers (in New York)3-400 medium-sized publishers86,000 small/self-publishers

The six U.S. conglomerate publishers are

1. Random House, Inc.2. Penguin Putnam Inc.3. HarperCollins4. Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings5. Time Warner6. Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Four are foreign owned

Publishers with 10 active ISBN identifiers: 73,000Publishers with 11-199 active ISBN identifiers: 11,837Publishers with 200 or more active ISBN identifiers: 1,804--PMA Newsletter, September 2003 http://www.PMA-online.org

Total: 86,641 ISBN blocks issued it the U.S

Some publishers have more than one ISBN block. So, there are probably more than 80,000 publishers.

There are more than 10,000 non-profit publishers. --Jack McHugh, 15 July 98. [email protected]

8,000-11,000 new publishing companies are established each year. See http://www.ISBN.org

2002: 10,000 new publishing companies were established. An increase of 15%. --Publishers weekly, June 2, 2003. http://www.PublishersWeekly.com


Self-Publishing - Execute Marketing Plan


Marketing is the most difficult aspect of the self-publishing business...

The reasons:

• It takes money, time, and energy

• None of which you have much left after writing, editing, and paying to print your books!

• You can use direct email but I don’t want to be a spammer!

• Advertising in publications is expensive and of little real value.

Marketing - Creating awareness and demand for your product




However, all is not lost. There are inexpensive ways to promote your books. Here are a few:

• Website with sample content

- The web crawlers will find you and so will people

• Google Books

- Direct submission of PDF files

• Amazon Search-Inside Program

• Word of mouth

• But remember what I said about having a thick skin...




Website




Google Books




AmazonSearch-Inside

You must submit a physical book so it’s not free




The best form of marketing is on the shelf of a major book retailer.

• I know, I’m a big consumer of programming books.

• I want a book that solves my problems.

• And I can’t make that determination until I hold the book in my hand, flip through the index and table of contents, and read bits here and there...

So I did the reverse shoplift and put several books on local store shelves. They sold and more were ordered as a result.




I don’t think I am exploiting the potential of the web as much as I could be...

I still have much to learn about effective marketing of technical books in the internet age...

It’s a huge ocean and the self-publisher is at the bottom of the food chain. But the web does provide equalization, and so long as your product is good, the positive word will spread and things start to happen...


Self-Publishing - Edit Content


Creating content is pure joy! But the devil is in the editing.

Careless editing can break an otherwise good book.

When it gets right down to it, spelling and grammar checkers are of limited value.

Your best defense is a good offense. By this I mean you must do everything in your power from preventing the error from creeping into your work in the first place.

The mind plays tricks on your eyes. You really do read what you expect to read, especially when you write the words...




There are several types of errors:

• Technical blunders

• Grammatical

• Spelling

• Layout faux-pas

If you can avoid the first, and minimize the other three, you will produce a fine book.

Even big-name publishers turn out books that have typos. One had over sixty typos that I counted. But a book with this many problems is nothing but annoying.




I approach editing from multiple fronts:

• Spell check as a first line of defense

• Print a hard copy and read it several times

• Make necessary changes

• Read it backwards…!

• Repeat the process until I don’t have to make any more changes. Why? Because editing can introduce mistakes.

• Then, when you think you have it licked, give the material to someone else, preferably someone who doesn’t care about your feelings, and have them read it and give you feedback. This is called the review process.


Self-Publishing - Layout


Microsoft Word is a great word processor, but it stinks at page layout.

• Like I said earlier, I love its outlining capabilities and believe it to be the best tool in that regard.

For page layout I use FrameMaker from Adobe.

It runs on the following platforms:

• Macintosh

• Windows

• Solaris



FrameMaker places no restrictions on where you want to place text or graphics.

FrameMaker is by far the most powerful book manipulation program on the planet…that I’m aware of anyway!



I combine content creation with layout by entering text directly into FrameMaker. This has many advantages, several of which are listed below:

• I layout the book as I go.

• Images are imported into frames at the moment I need them.

• I can judge immediately the aesthetics of one page element’s placement against another’s. It’s all about feng-shui, you know!

• When I edit, I’m editing not only the text, but the entire book from many different aspects...

Self-Publishing - Image Creation


Images find their way into the book from many different sources:

• Photographs

• Screen Shots

• Line Art

• UML Design Tools

I use several tools to help in this regard: Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Freehand, Mac OS X Grab, various cameras, a scanner, and a good graphics tablet from Wacom

Self-Publishing - Cover Art


The most important image you will create is the book’s cover!

Self-Publishing - Review Process


It’s a great idea to have as many people review drafts of your work before you send it to the printers.

Some should be paid for their work and indeed, you could employ professional copy editors to edit your book. But a good friend, if properly motivated, will do a good job of spotting typos and blunders.

Most will be happy to do it for free but you can’t expect this level of good-will from everyone, so you’ll have to compensate them somehow.

Compensation for such service is called an honorarium.



It also helps to draft a Reviewer Guidance document to help direct their energies...

I listed several “Focus Areas” and described what I wanted them to be on the lookout for...

I also gave them a deadline and most submitted their inputs before the clock ran out...



When all comments are collected, you will find that some people just have a different opinion of what should be in a book.

As it turns out, it was due in large part to review comments that I added several chapters to Java For Artists. But for the most part, I stuck with my original subject outline.

After all, it is my book, right?

I settled the matter this way. I weighed all suggestions. If more than one person had a similar suggestion then I gave it greater weight...

This is when you must put ego aside...

Self-Publishing - Final Edits


When you think you’re done, check and recheck...

I use checklists to help keep track of what I ’ve checked..

Self-Publishing - Final Edits


At the point you feel you have done everything in your power to produce a high-quality book you generate the PDF file and, guess what?

You must edit it, because errors can creep into the PDF generation process like missing fonts, or fonts whose special symbols don’t translate well when generated into PDF files...

The printer will create galley proofs. You must review these thoroughly as well. The pressure can be intense as you begin to worry if you’ve thought of everything.

But when you give the final approval to print…

Self-Publishing - Print Book


…and several weeks later you hold your first book in your hand. You can be proud because you published a book.

OK..now, you must send one to the Library of Congress.

…another to Books24x7.com

…and one to Amazon Search Inside...

…and build your website, and submit the PDF to Google Books, and a million other things…

Self-Publishing - Dealing With Your Personal Emotions


Self-publishing a book is a long journey and you will experience many and varied emotions along the way...

ContentCreation

EditingReview

Printing

Nobodynoticed!

Normal LinePlan

ning

FirstRoyaltyCheck

I ’m notgetting rich!

Self-Publishing - Is It Worth The Effort?


In my opinion, YES!

Every quarter I can potentially receive a check from two sources:

• Book sales

• Royalties from online content access

The first source ebbs and flows, and I do a poor job at marketing

The second source, on the other hand, produces fairly steady income. One technical book, online with Books24x7.com that hovers in the upper 50th percentile of hot titles, generates between $200 - $700 per quarter.

Self-Publishing - Is It Worth The Effort?


One the other hand, the investment required to produce this amount of income is significant:

It took me two years working almost every weekend (8 - 9 hours average), and weeknights when I felt the urge...

Startup costs and printing costs have yet to be recouped...

But the charge I got from publishing my own book and seeing students and other readers find value in my labor is beyond words. I wouldn’t change a thing, except of course to sharpen my marketing skills.

Self-Publishing - Final Words


Self-publishing is a rewarding endeavor on many levels.

Engineers will find it particularly interesting because of all the neat problems that must be solved along the way.

You must find the right balance between writing and business.

The only limits to your success are those you place on yourself...

Self-Publishing - One Writer’s Approach To The Creative Process


I always write from a plan...

• The subject outline specifies the topic of each chapter

• The pedagogy specifies the structure of each chapter

• Learning objectives ensure focus

• I usually combine the subject outline and learning objectives into one document (subject outline) since the two share synergy

Writing a book is akin to writing a software application...

• You need a good architecture diagram to guide the way



I then create a directory structure that reflects the book’s organization...

Each chapter folder contains two sub-folders...

Each content folder contains the FrameMaker chapter file



The individual chapter files are added to a FrameMaker book file.

Generated files are then created:

• Table of Contents

• List of Tables

• List of Figures



I then layout the first page of each chapter file.

And then put them on a wall in my room...



The images used on each chapter first page comes from my image collection. Here are a few that may appear in the my next book:

There is no correlation between an image I choose for a particular chapter and the chapter contents…unless by pure coincidence there emerges a connection.



I then create a writing schedule complete with milestone completion dates...

This concludes my overall planning phase.

From here I begin work sequentially starting with chapter 1.



The learning objectives guide the creation of each chapter outline• But they only serve as a guide• Everything is fluid until the bitter end

I then identify necessary illustrations and code examples

• I then create the illustrations

• And write the code



One good UML

diagram is worth a

thousand words!



I then pursue a set of writing programs

• Major Program

- consists of writing on a regular schedule

- Weekends, from 5 or 6 am until 12 or 1pm

If especially motivated I will work evenings

- In the afternoons I get out of the house…or take a nap!

- There’s a reason my books are dedicated to my wife Coralie

• Minor Program

- When tired of writing I do research for future chapters

- Or create illustrations and write code for examples

• It’s not all work and no play!



At this point I must clarify...

Eight hours of writing sounds like work, but I am usually in the “flow” and time flies. Eight hours of writing seems to me like 1 hour at “work”!

This is how it feels to do something you do with a passion.

The only chore is editing and final preparations for printing.

Self-Publishing - Questions?


Questions?

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