I just recently submitted the final draft of my upcoming book to the editor, and I came across this page from Scott Meyers that has some good advice: Scott Meyers: Advice to Prospective Book Authors.
It’s long, but if you are thinking about writing a book, then it’s worth a read. It has some great advice.
I decide to try leanpub.com, as a way to pre-release drafts of my book. It is available now at https://leanpub.com/applied_electronics_for_bioengineers
Thanks for the suggestion—I’ll try t let you know in a few months whether leanpub works.
Thanks, I am working on a book, so that pointer to advice was useful.
Cool! What kind of book?
A textbook on applied electronics for bioengineering majors. I couldn’t find a usable one for my course, so I wrote my own. I used it in Spring 2015, and am rewriting big chunks of it this summer.
That’s cool. Are you going with a publisher or doing it yourself?
I ask, because I recently discovered https://leanpub.com/. It strikes me as a really good option for some kinds of publishing – especially if it is something you plan to update regularly.
Haven’t decided yet. I’d like to keep the cost down for students (tradebook or self-publish), but I’d like to get it into a lot of students’ hands (textbook publisher). I’ve not see a solution yet that says “That’s the way to do it!”
I’m developing the book using LaTeX, which seems to be incompatible with many publishers’ workflows.
Thanks for the pointer to leanpub. I might try them for pre-releases of my book.