[gigamonkey]

Interesting. I've written two books for Apress and got essentially zero editorial help from them. A handful of writers I've talked to published by other tech publishers reported similar experiences to mine. Glad to hear they're doing something for somebody. But would-be authors should be aware that going with a traditional publisher isn't necessarily going to mean working with an experienced editor to craft your book.

[mark_l_watson]

That is surprising - sorry your experience was not good.

I have written a lot of books for publishers and I have some advice that might be useful in the future: always either meet deadlines or give a heads up if you expect delays; thank editors whenever they catch an error and make good suggestions; don't ignore editorial advice if you dont agree, always respond with a reason you are ignoring advice; as much as possible make some personal connection with editors even if it is just a few minute talk about family, career, interests, etc.

I always view publishers as my customers and treat them as I do people who pay me to do consulting work.

[lsc]

no-starch press, for me, was very good. Not only did they provide a good editor, they also got us an incredible technical editor.

It was worth the money, mostly because "the book of xen" doesn't have an incredibly large audience. We've sold less than our initial print run of 4000 copies, though we are approaching that number, so even if I got twenty bucks a copy it would have been a drop in the bucket compared to the six man-years it took to write the thing. It's possible I'd have gotten more sales if I self-published an ebook and sold it for three bucks (or whatever our cut of the book was) but I find that somewhat unlikely.

The biggest thing the publisher brings, though, is credibility. If you mention you wrote a book at a party (okay, some other guy, in another thread called me arrogant and crass. maybe he has a point? but let's be honest here. One of my primary motivations that kept me going during those three long years was to look like slightly less of an uneducated hick when I hang out with my largely highly educated friends.) the first thing people ask, when they are weighing this information, is "who is the publisher?"

Of course, the other day I was at a party with a guy who self-published a rather popular book on RoR. He mentioned how much money he was making off the thing, and I imagine most people there were rather impressed. I know I was. (when people ask me how much money my book made me, and they usually don't, I say something to the effect of "It paid for the pizza we ate while we wrote the thing.")

[lukev]

This was my experience with Apress as well. The editing support was fairly minimal, and usually amounted to "this chapter needs to be longer."