The Best and Worst Tech-Book Publishers? 271
An anonymous reader writes "I am an author working on a technical book about an open-source software package. I am looking for a publisher, and I would like to hear experiences from any Slashdot authors. Who are the best publishers to work with and why are they great? Who are the worst publishers in the tech book business, and what nightmare/horror stories can you tell us about them? Any publishing company in particular you recommend avoiding? Any gems of advice (rights reversion, etc.) you can provide for first-time tech book authors?"
Get back to work. ;) (Score:5, Funny)
Any gems of advice (rights reversion, etc.) you can provide for first-time tech book authors?
Get back to work on the BOOK - quit fooling around on Slashdot. ;)
Re:AC time (Score:0, Funny)
Worst tech publisher ever (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Why not open source your book? (Score:5, Funny)
Shockingly, I've seen books devoted to PHP, Apache, and C - books which cost money to buy. But get this - those things are free!
To add to that, I've seen books about sex for sale, and sex is occasionally free.
Re:Why not open source your book? (Score:4, Funny)
[citation needed]
Re:Why not open source your book? (Score:4, Funny)
selvespublish (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Get back to work. ;) (Score:2, Funny)
Ye, don't do as Donald Knuth did in Cliff's Notes (Score:2, Funny)
The most appauling documentation I've ever found was in the Cliff's Notes stack in Wonderbooks and Barnes'n'Noble, by some 3rd-party author known as Donald Knuth. He writes the same book over and over with only minor spelling tense and minute theory corrections, and doesn't accept any other questions to give greater brevity except if those questions were from himself. It's as if he only talks to himself. The man is neither mad or genius, and his short stories don't even match the natural law "VENOMOUS. STAY AWAY" black and yellow heraldry as the other books. It's as though the venom is meant to get in your head rather than your blood. And the guy is a crook, charging 80 iDollars for the bloody thing. And where did he learn to typset; everyone can afford a typewriter by now, and just facsimile the end-product to the customer to save money on a book Bender and middle-man.
Send that man back to an assylum, where maybe his opposition might spontaneous smack some sense and cure the mentaly ill just by the mere obviousness of their new stimulus.
Re:Why not open source your book? (Score:2, Funny)
No no, his mother has already received numerous citations for the not free kind of sex.
Re:Isn't this the age of e-books? (Score:4, Funny)
Harry Potter and the Windows 2008 Administrator?
Re:Why not open source your book? (Score:2, Funny)
To add to that, I've seen books about sex for sale, and sex is occasionally free.
as in beer or as in speech?
Re:AC time (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Isn't this the age of e-books? (Score:3, Funny)
Tech books with movie options?
"Inside SCC - the Spaceballs Compiler Collection"
"The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly - C++ and the STL"
"Gone With the Windows - switching users to linux"
"American Idol - Internet Edition Explained" (a For Dummies" book)
"Start Wars - Why you have to click on Start to shut down and other Windowisms explained"
"District 9 - The saga of Alienware"
"Enema of the State - flushing outside attacks from Turing-complete computing devices"
"I Can't Stop Dancing - The Jolt Cola - Red Bull Wars"
"Enemy Mine - Bill Gates Guide to Business Practices" subtitled "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish for fun and PROFIT!"
"Enema Mine - How Bill Gates flushed Netscape down the InnerTubes"
"Inglorious Bastards - Godwin Edition"
Re:Depends on intent (Score:1, Funny)