I almost became an author (of a video series) for them. I signed a contract and produced a couple of chapters. I found they had pretty reasonable copy editors, at least the one I worked with was helpful and thorough.
My main problem, and the reason I didn't finish the series was their advance was very low and the royalty rate was too. After looking round it seemed the rate was probably reasonable for authors in other fields, but very bad compared to what I would earn actually programming. Plus they absolutely refused to give me any indication of how many sales I could expect. I couldn't justify spending the time to complete the series vs regular contracting. I think this low remuneration affects the quality of the authors they are able to attract, so you're right in that part.
The advance they offered me was less than a quarter of the advance I've seen quoted for other specialised tech books, and about a tenth of what an author would expect for a best-selling mainstream consumer-oriented title.
They also spam people on mailing lists looking for authors. (Not spam the mailing lists - harvest addresses and contact people more or less at random.)
I think this low remuneration affects the quality of the authors they are able to attract, so you're right in that part.
From what I've seen, not all the books are terrible. ;)
But they're certainly not in the same league as No Starch, or most of the self-pubbed titles on LeanPub.
I wrote a book for Packt and made less than $1000 from it, two years later. However, it is something to put on your resume (if you want to) and I managed to use it to leverage a book deal for a more reputable publisher later on. So it can be useful if you think you might want to write books in the future. However, yeah, the money isn't going to be worth your time by a long shot.
I did a video for them, and got a book deal with another publisher off the back of it.
I actually learned a lot through doing the video, and the guidance I got was pretty good over the technical aspects of putting a video together. The later script editing and review stage was dismal, though. I got the feeling the less experienced editors I worked with later were overworked.
Comments
I almost became an author (of a video series) for them. I signed a contract and produced a couple of chapters. I found they had pretty reasonable copy editors, at least the one I worked with was helpful and thorough.
My main problem, and the reason I didn't finish the series was their advance was very low and the royalty rate was too. After looking round it seemed the rate was probably reasonable for authors in other fields, but very bad compared to what I would earn actually programming. Plus they absolutely refused to give me any indication of how many sales I could expect. I couldn't justify spending the time to complete the series vs regular contracting. I think this low remuneration affects the quality of the authors they are able to attract, so you're right in that part.
The advance they offered me was less than a quarter of the advance I've seen quoted for other specialised tech books, and about a tenth of what an author would expect for a best-selling mainstream consumer-oriented title.
They also spam people on mailing lists looking for authors. (Not spam the mailing lists - harvest addresses and contact people more or less at random.)
From what I've seen, not all the books are terrible. ;)
But they're certainly not in the same league as No Starch, or most of the self-pubbed titles on LeanPub.
I wrote a book for Packt and made less than $1000 from it, two years later. However, it is something to put on your resume (if you want to) and I managed to use it to leverage a book deal for a more reputable publisher later on. So it can be useful if you think you might want to write books in the future. However, yeah, the money isn't going to be worth your time by a long shot.
I did a video for them, and got a book deal with another publisher off the back of it.
I actually learned a lot through doing the video, and the guidance I got was pretty good over the technical aspects of putting a video together. The later script editing and review stage was dismal, though. I got the feeling the less experienced editors I worked with later were overworked.