[x0x0]

Well, there's a line. Given landlords/banks still refuse to convert moral rewards to cash, it can become prohibitively expensive to write a book. At 5 hours per page for 400 pages, you've traded your book for a year's worth of wages. If you can afford that, great; if not, you can't write a book.

[munificent]

> If you can afford that, great; if not, you can't write a book.

Sure, there's a reason I scoped this to technical people. Most of us are able to pay our bills and don't have to work much more than 40 hours a week.

Given that, we all have free time. Much of that is filled with friends and family, but many have room left for a hobby or two. Writing a book can fill that slot. I wrote this book while working full time and raising a family. It takes longer, of course, but since I'm not in it for the money, I'm not rushed either.

[x0x0]

There's something unhealthy about an industry's educational materials requiring essentially large financial donations. If it has to be a work of passion, I just find it... unhealthy. afaik most industries don't require what's essentially volunteer work to build training material.

[barry-cotter]

Most industry's training materials are written by academics. Those academics who take the time to write textbooks probably do it because they want to use a good textbook that teaches what they want taught, the way they want it taught. In most cases there isn't really any other very good reason to write the book. Writing textbooks takes time away from something your tenure committee cares about, articles. And most textbooks sink into obscurity, pretty much without trace. It's lucrative if you get a blockbuster but that's not something to be terribly confident about.

Training materials for less academically demanding occupations are correspondingly less demanding to write. Step by step instructions aren't that hard. Instructional videos are expensive to make but YouTube has shown that people are even willing to do those for (next to) nothing. People really enjoy sharing their expertise on things they're passionate about.

[SupremumLimit]

It also makes things difficult for those of us who are trying to make a living out of education/training.

I get that people do it for passion, I enjoy sharing knowledge too, and in an ideal world where I didn't have to earn money, I'd be doing it along with everyone else as part of a great virtuous cycle.

However, the current situation is mostly at odds with making a career out of education. I really can't invest as much time as I'd like into educational work because I have a family to support, and I barely break even on the hours invested.

It means that trying any new interesting approaches is out of the question, and advanced topics with a smaller audience are unlikely to see the light of day, which is a pity.

But I guess as long as there is a supply of people willing to do this kind of work on top of a regular job, the situation will only become more entrenched.

[munificent]

> However, the current situation is mostly at odds with making a career out of education.

Yes, this is the part that really bothers me. I'm fine with people doing creative work like writing and music without much financial reward.

The shitty part is that they still have to spend so much of their precious time doing other stuff to get the financial reward needed to pay their bills.

It's not a tragedy in my mind that writing doesn't pay, it's that we require something that does pay.