Ask HN: What is a fair price to write a tech book?

[eneifert]

Dear Hacker News,

I have recently been contacted by a publishing company and have been asked to write a 150 - 180 page book covering the essentials of Zendesk (a large company that sells support request software) and I am wondering what would be fair compensation for this work. My timeline is 1.5 months for the 1st draft and here is their explanation of payment:

"We would be paying you an advance against future royalties of 16% which is worth around $1000 (depending on the estimate writing timeline) and split across the writing timeline. Shorter the timeline higher the advances. Normally the breakdown of the advance is:

50% of advance for delivery and acceptance of the first draft of all chapters. 25% of advance for delivery and acceptance of the final draft of all chapters. 25% of advance upon publication. "

If I understand this right, 1000$ with no future royalties sounds extremely low, given the time it would take to write a book, but what would a fair price be?

Thanks, Eric

[Matt_Mickiewicz]

The vast majority of tech books sell fewer than 5000 copies.

A typical advance is $4000 - $10,000 (for well known authors), split into several parts.

Royalties vary, 8-15% is standard. Programatic Programmers is much more generous.

$1000 advance is unusually low.

[eneifert]

Thanks Matt that is more what I was thinking. There are 40,000+ companies that use Zendesk so estimating less than 5000 copies seems reasonable and I also agree 1000$ advance is unusually low.

Thanks for the advice!