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Why I Write Books Even Though I’ve Lost Money on Every Book I’ve Written
- stevejohnson 16y ago"...I eeked out my $40,000 a month..." OH NOOOOOOOOO (I write insightful comments so that I may also write cathartic ones like this. Vote however you like.) Edit: This comment was ill-conceived in every way possible.
- seiji 16y agoThere is indeed a balance. If one of my two word comments results in 50 upvotes, I feel the need to balance it out with some trite anti-HN-hero comment that'll restore order. The Internet: You aren't interacting with people. You're interacting with a model of the average personality on sites you frequent. People end up falling into manipulation bundles. "If I do X, bucket P will do Z. If I do K, bucket M will do A, ..." Want to try it out? "DHH sucks!" -> bucket A: "Yeah, he kinda does." bucket B: "NO! He's our HERO!" bucket C: "Well, he's good at what he does, but he panders." bucket D: "What? It's nice outside. I wasn't paying attention."
- stevejohnson 16y agoHere's some more twisted internet reasoning for you: maybe if all of the comments on this article suck as much as the article itself does, it will fall off the front page like it deserves to. It's a meaningless story about a guy who, by his own admission, has written several books just for the attention. Then he meets, dates, and marries a girl in the space of a single paragraph, which somehow justifies the entire experience. Now here I am, reading it on Hacker News, just wishing it would go away. We can debate internet philosophy (interacting with a System vs a Community) all day, but I'll just go ahead and concede the entire battle to you right now, because you're right, it was a bad comment made for unsound reasons. However, I am not a rational agent and will not delete it.
- jaltucher 16y agofunny, for a guy who hates it you sure spent a lot of time on it.
- stevejohnson 16y agoOthers have said the same about Richard Dawkins, a man whose company I would be proud to be in. That's not to say that I think I come anywhere near him in terms of contributing to the discussion. This is the first time in a while I have seen an article I disliked so much get up so high on the front page, so I feel obligated to explain my position to others so that they will think more carefully about what they vote up.
- jaltucher 16y agoA) not sure what dawkins has to do with anything. B) i thought there's value in providing advances / sales numbers, etc. As a writer I can say there's nothing like that out there. It helps to understand the reality of the publishing business.
- il 16y agoI think the numbers are the best part of the article, refreshingly candid. When a startup posts its revenue/traffic numbers it is lauded for honesty. The same should apply to this post. It seems that books are like startups- unless you hit a huge home run, you really shouldn't be doing it for the money.
- stevejohnson 16y ago> A) not sure what dawkins has to do with anything. Simple, he hates religion but spends a lot of time on it.
- il 16y agoI'm probably going to get downvoted for saying this, but putting "vote however you like" or "I expect downvotes for this" or "I know this isn't going to get upvotes" in a comment almost guarantees your comment lots of upvotes. It's almost as if when you say you expect people to downvote you their instinctive reaction is "Don't tell me what to think!" and they do the opposite. EDIT: Apparently implying a parent comment is pandering for karma is an equally rapid way to get it downvoted. Please don't downvote the parent comment because of this one- I actually found it quite witty.
- stevejohnson 16y agoThis comes up almost every time someone does what I just did. You're right about the Voting-Based Social Media Site Psychology of it, but I think we've covered it enough that it doesn't need to be said. I do regret adding that to the end. I really didn't mean to influence the votes. Now, of course, I can't remove it without eliminating the context for our discussion. Edit for more meta: Apparently I am now That Guy In The Thread Whose Comments Are All Downvoted Regardless of Contribution to the Discussion. I am also That Guy Who Left A Stupid Reddit-Style Comment, That Guy Who Is Spending To Much Time in the Thread, and That Guy Who Thinks Hacker News is Going Downhill. Time for a sandwich.
- il 16y agoI don't mean to come across as criticizing you for that comment in any way! Seriously, I think it's a fine and well placed comment! (Plus HN is always more mellow on Sundays). I'm just incredibly interested in crowd psychology and mass control, and pointing this out as an effective tactic.
- GiraffeNecktie 16y agoI'm not surprised noone bought his books. Trade Like a Hedge Fund is $35.08 on Kindle. People will always opt for the $9 book (even if they think the book that's $25 more expensive will make them more money)
- jaltucher 16y agoYou know, thats just not true for finance books. Trade Like a hedge fund was $70 when it first came out and sold more than all of my other books combined.
- GiraffeNecktie 16y agoOh really? Look at the best-selling investing books on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/Investing-Business-Books/b/ref=bw_ab_3_8?ie=UTF8&node=2665&pf_rd_p=236877501&pf_rd_s=browse&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_i=3&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1DKJKB467RJ1VZGDPART http://www.amazon.com/Investing-Business-Books/b/ref=bw_ab_3...
- jaltucher 16y agoI'm just telling you the facts on my books. My most expensive one was the one that sold the best. For high-end finance books price-point doesn't matter as much (one successful trade makes up for it, 100x).
- pamelafox 16y agoMake sure you read that article until the very last paragraph. It has a heart-warming ending. I awwww'ed. :)
- glaucon 16y agoBetter still read the last paragraph first .... you may save yourself five minutes of reading. I'm at a complete loss as to why this artice is on the front page - to say that I didn't learn much from it is an understatement of some magnitude.
- foljs 16y ago> I'm at a complete loss as to why this artice is on the front page - to say that I didn't learn much from it is an understatement of some magnitude. I don't learn much --and often discover plain bad information-- in 50% of the articles of the top page or more. Should I be at a loss too?
- electromagnetic 16y ago> Better still read the last paragraph first .... you may save yourself five minutes of reading. Started reading, realized it wasn't worth my bacon, check the comments, found yours and read the only meaningful thing I could deduce from the article.
- tygorius 16y agoYeah, it's nice, but it's also a total non sequitur. At the beginning of the piece he says his first book was a success and he wrote the follow-ups trying to recapture the good feelings -- apparently without success. Books take a lot of effort and may not make you any significant money. So I guess the real moral of his story is that -- if you're like him -- you shouldn't bother writing books if you're already in a good relationship.
- Charuru 16y agoI feel like you could've made yourself sound a lot more sympathetic than you actually did. You come across as an asshole?
- stevejohnson 16y agoI think you mean "worthy of sympathy." And while I agree with you, I wish you would provide examples to back up your assertion. I came to my opinion by observing that he spent most of the article cataloguing his unsuccessful writing career, and then brings in a one-paragraph love story out of absolutely nowhere.
- apotheon 16y agoContemplating suicide plus insurance fraud in a single act without talking about the background for why he would have thought this was a good idea is not well-calculated to induce sympathy. Foisting books he thought sucked onto editors while scamming them for ever-larger advances by bushwhacking them with out-of-nowhere agents is not well-calculated to induce sympathy. Talking about how he lies to people about his career -- especially when casting the reader directly in the hypothetical role of wronged target of these lies -- is not well-calculated to induce sympathy. Writing a book about how to claw your way to riches as a means to make money off credulous readers to forestall your own bankruptcy (and/or suicide) is not well-calculated to induce sympathy. Acts of desperation redolent of co-dependent personal issues, such as writing strident appeals to the most vulnerable people on the insides of one's books in the hopes of essentially tricking people into buying them, is not well-calculated to induce sympathy. He paints himself as an asshole and a fuck-up who lucked out despite his best efforts to make a lot of money (off and on) and uses that to get people to listen to him. It's certainly not the most sympathetic picture he could have painted of himself. Also . . . whether the previous person meant "sympathetic" or "worthy of sympathy", it is entirely reasonable -- and in the context of literary criticism (formal or otherwise), quite common -- to refer to a "sympathetic character", which is exactly what Altucher is not by his own presentation other than once probably by accident, and another time at the end quite surprisingly. This is because "sympathy" is not the same thing as "empathy", though many think it is. From the American Heritage Dictionary, third definition of "sympathetic": > Agreeably suited to one's disposition or mood; congenial: sympathetic surroundings. Other definitions hint at the idea as well. That idea is, simply put, that there is a sense of connection and sameness between subject and object. Even those who are not much different from Altucher in all the myriad ways he presents himself poorly are likely to feel his is an unsympathetic character, if only because they would not want to admit to themselves the same depths two which they have descended. If it were not for the engaging style with which he beats the crap out of his own image, I suspect almost nobody would read all the way through such a painful litany of character flaws as he presents. It helps that he ended it when he did. If it went on for another half-dozen paragraphs, I might have gotten sick of it, engaging style or otherwise.
- andrewtbham 16y agothe new book seems likely to be another case of bad timing... the apocalypse seems to be over, at least on wall street.
- gwern 16y ago> He called me back one time. We had known each other forever but had never had an issue where someone didn’t want one of my books. So now I saw what happened when someone didn’t want one of my books. “If you are going to tell me how to do my job,” he said, “this relationship is over.” I mumbled an apology and he hung up. When I first read this, it seemed to me that the agent is at fault. If every editor rejected the proposal, shouldn't he find out why? > So I wrote an email to Hollis and explained why the book would be good for her. She agreed to meet me. She said to me, “this proposal seems like it was written by wikipedia. You need to give us a real methodology for what to do when the end of the world hits.” So our author had to do the agent's work for him?
- apotheon 16y agoYeah -- that moment and the moment at the very end where he found his happy ending were the only two moments in the whole thing where I felt any sympathy for the author at all. The rest of the time, where he wrote crappy books he knew were crappy, alienated editors, and contemplated insurance fraud plus suicide in one swell foop, all whilst capitalizing on others' credulity to sell them financial advice when his own finances have run like a yo-yo, he came off like a complete ass. Congratulations to Altucher for writing in such an engaging, and hypnotically, brutally honest style that I felt compelled to read all the way through, despite the fact he induced me to distantly hate him through about 98% of the tale.
- jaltucher 16y agoWell, the feeling is mutual!
- apotheon 16y agoOh? Do you really think my writing here was engaging and brutally honest? Thank you. I strive to achieve that tone in my writing -- which you appeared to achieve so naturally and with such ease in your self-deprecating tale. I appreciate the compliment, even if what you meant was insult.
- 16y ago
- ShabbyDoo 16y agoAs James is participating on this thread, I will simply ask this question rather than speculate: How many good things have come as a result of the credibility being a "published author" has given you?
- jaltucher 16y agoGreat question. There's definitely been some good thats come of it. Let me think for a bit and respond. Probably in a blog post.
- littledanehren 16y agoI don't get it. He was spending $40,000/month on his living expenses while being afraid that he wouldn't be able to afford diapers and food for his baby? How was this guy running his life so wrong? Did it somehow cost him that much to maintain his unsellable house in the financial district of New York? Are we supposed to feel sympathy for him?
- panacea 16y agoEDIT: I've deleted my comment and my other replies to this discussion. As irrational as it is, my silly e-psyche recognizes it's easy to hit the delete button rather than watch my opinion down-arrowed.
- apotheon 16y agoMaybe he should. I write for a publisher whose offices are more than a thousand miles away from me. We have this nifty thing called the Internet now, and postal mail works even when you don't live in the same city anyway (postal mail being how most book proposals and manuscripts are delivered when they are not sent digitally). Even if you have to fly halfway across the country twice a year for meetings, which is more often than many people would have to actually meet face-to-face with editors at publishers (judging by my limited experience at least), it costs less than sweet digs in the financial district of one of the most expensive cities in the world.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- panacea 16y ago"We have this nifty thing called the Internet now" I accept your criticism of my comment (in support of living in areas beyond your means), but that's unnecessarily snarky, sir.
- apotheon 16y agoNothing personal. It was meant to be merely "flippant", and not so much "snarky".
- sriramk 16y agoWriting a book (my O'Reilly book) was the hardest thing I've ever done. It took me a year and I can't count the number of days I just sat in front of a blank screen just willing myself to write something (and usually failing). All that was worth it when I first got to walk into a bookstore and see my book on the bookshelves. :)
- apotheon 16y agoOn that subject . . . Have you worked with any competing platforms, or is Azure pretty much the platform you know? I'm just curious about your thoughts on Azure from a comparative, rather than strictly technical in-a-vacuum, perspective.
- sriramk 16y agoIt is impossible to be good at any technical niche if you don't know the nitty gritties of every other option out there. I just happen to talk about Windows Azure a lot because that's what I work on :).
- apotheon 16y agoWould you mind giving me a quick, thousand-foot view of your thoughts on the various options, relative to each other, then? I must admit to knowing little more about Azure than the simple fact of its existence (in part by having seen your book on the shelf at Barnes & Noble), and I am afflicted by idle curiosity.
- sriramk 16y agoThat really depends on what your application is, what your constraints and priorities are and what your appetite for risk is. The discussion I have with a large NY financial services company is very different from the one I have with a 2 person YC startup. There are many, many ways to slice up your options. I'll be happy to help (my email address is in my profile) but remember that I'm not unbiased - I work on one of those options :)
- araneae 16y agoIf you're losing money on your books you're doing it wrong. With self-publishing companies like lulu.com and the negligible costs of selling e-books on the Nook there's no reason to have negative costs ... unless you're so caught up in image that you're willing pay money for the fake "prestige" of having a "real" publisher.
- apotheon 16y agoAs a throw-away statement, he referred to the fact that losing money on his books factors in the time he spent (and, presumably, the money he could have made doing other things). I'm not sure I buy that means of estimation, given the way he also informed his readers of his tendency to get himself into crushing debt and nigh-homelessness even when he wasn't writing, but if you accept his premise that his time could have been more (directly) lucratively spent, he does in fact kinda-sorta "lose" money through the writing process itself, regardless of what it costs to publish.
- coryl 16y agoJust an observation on the first bit: Wow, kind of concerning how money centric some people are. He would rather kill himself to leave his family money, than try to raise his family poor? I don't have kids so I don't know. Is this a realistic thought for any of you? Would you commit suicide in lieu of being a failure, to try and leave something for your kids? Is that making the best out of a bad situation?
- allwein 16y agoYou know, I started investing heavily in the stock market around the time that "Forever Portfolio" came out in late 2008. By not being frightened about the current economic turmoil and actually investing with a long-term outlook, I'm sitting pretty damn good now 2.5 years later.