Posted by azhenley 12/31/2025
I have done some of the projects you were writing about and understand that learning to program is very different from doing vibe coding, but knowing how to use the OpenAI API should be valuable to the same audience, as integrating AI into everyday programs is a useful skill in itself.
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.
Why have sex with your wife when you can buy her a dildo?
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.
Is it just me who took offence to the title?
But the bigger issue to me is that after failing to write a book, they have now started accepting pre-orders and promising to deliver chapters as they are written. Because first, if they were capable of writing the book, they probably should have honored their original contract. And second, if they are not capable of finishing the book, they probably shouldn't be taking peoples' money in pre-orders for a book that they may not ever be able to deliver.
To be fair, it does sound like they were mistreated and/or mismanaged a bit by the publisher, which may well have hindered the writing process and helped prevent the book from getting written. So I'm not going to lose any sleep worrying about the poor publisher - who I am sure deals with this pretty frequently. It's mostly just the concern about not being able to follow through with their obligations to pre-order customers that concerns me.