Posted by azhenley 12/31/2025
My experience with writing and royalties is just so different than this author's experiences.
I think you should self-publish. With your existing audience, you'd sell plenty of copies, and nobody would push "AI" into your work.
You can self publish your print edition on stck.
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?
I don't get why he went with a publisher despite the serious cons he listed up front.
IMO, it's analogous to the VC-backed startup lottery, where the few bosses (VCs) take on less risk and win big (think "ten-bagger", etc.), and the slaves, aka noobs (startup employees, except, rarely, for founders) take on more risk and lose bigger.
And still the gullible ones keep on coming, like lemmings, due to the brainwashing that goes inexorably on.
Been in both scenarios.
Another good analogy is the gold rushes like California and Klondike, you know, "picks and shovels".
(1) Pun intended.
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.