技術書執筆から4年：出版社への売り込み

In 2019, I decided to write a book about software engineering. As an experienced software engineer and manager, I had the topic clear in my head, and assumed the whole project would take between six and 12 months in writing and publishing it.

In the end, this process took several times longer; 4 years, in fact! Happily, it was worth it: readers’ feedback about The Software Engineer’s Guidebook has been overwhelmingly positive, and on launch, the book became a #1 bestseller among all titles in two Amazon markets (the Netherlands and Poland), as well as a top 100-selling book in most Amazon markets. In 24 months it sold around 40,000 copies, and was translated into German, Korean, Mongolian and Traditional Chines – with the Japanese and simplified Chinese versions releasing later this month.

A lot of people ask why I chose to self publish, and it would be nice to say this was always the goal, but it wasn’t! Originally, I wanted to work with a top tech publisher, who would get the book to market fast, and give it a higher profile. This didn’t happen, but during the process I learned a lot about how publishing works, how to pitch a book, and how to choose which publishing route might be the right one.

This article shares my learnings from writing and publishing a book which has done pretty well with readers, and it includes the experience working with an established publishing house:

Tech book publishing landscape

Financials of publishing

Publishing process and the publisher’s role

Working with a publisher

Breaking up with a publisher

1. Tech book publishing landscape

Today, there are reputable book publishers whose titles are good and authoritative, and there are other publishers whom this doesn’t apply to. Each publisher also has a subject area: some are mainstream and publish titles about every software engineering area from languages to engineering management. Meanwhile, others stick to a topic of expertise they focus on.

Here’s my mental model of the book publishing industry in 2025:

Highly reputable mainstream publishers

In tech book publishing, three publishing houses really stand out, in my opinion, and form a ‘big three’ among all players in this sector:

O’Reilly: if I had to pick a #1 tech book publisher, it would be O’Reilly. They publish some of the most referenced books – like Designing Data Intensive Applications by Martin Kleppmann, Tidy First by Kent Beck, The Staff Engineer’s Path by Tanya Reilly, and more. The book covers are distinctive, using images of animals.

Manning: a broad range of titles on both specific and general tech topics, which employ historical figures on the covers.

The Pragmatic Bookshelf: also referred to as the “Prags.” Founded by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas, the authors of what might be the best-selling tech book ever; The Pragmatic Programmer. Since its founding, The Prags has refused digital rights management (DRM) on their ebooks.

High reputable “mainstream” publishers that are tough to pitch to

The publishers in this section have strong reputations, like those above. However, they are harder to pitch to, usually because they publish fewer tech books. I couldn’t find an author pitch template, or clear pitching instructions, and contributes to a sense of “don’t find us, we’ll find you” among the following publishing houses:

Addison-Wesley: one of the best-known brands in tech. It has been an imprint (a trade name within a publication) of Pearson since 1988, and is the publisher of many “classic” book titles like Clean Code by Robert C. Martin, The Pragmatic Programmer by Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas, and some recent ones like Modern Software Engineering by Dave Farley. I couldn’t find any way to pitch to this publisher, and new books they publish seem to be by established authors.

Pearson: This business owns the Addison-Wesley imprint. Recently, it started to publish tech books as “Pearson” instead, author Martin Fowler shared.

Wiley: formerly a well-known tech book publisher behind the “X for Dummies” series. It publishes lots of computer science textbooks, but I can’t find recently-published, well-known tech books for software engineers.

Springer: another massive publisher for whom tech books are a small part of the business. I couldn’t find how to pitch tech books to them.

Morgan Kaufmann: a well-known tech books publisher founded in 1984, and acquired in 2001 by Elsevier. As I understand, these days it prints far fewer technology book, and focuses on academic topics. No clear way to pitch to them.

Highly reputable “niche” publishers

The following publishers are standout in quality, covering fewer topics than those above.

No Starch Press: “The finest in geek entertainment” is the tagline, featuring fun visuals, and high-quality content on specific technologies like machine learning, Python, JavaScript, etc.

IT Revolution: titles for technology leaders: DevOps, technology delivery, workplace culture, and similar. Publisher of The Phoenix Project, Team Topologies, and Accelerate.

Artima: focuses on Scala.

CRC Press: publishes on technology, engineering, math, and medicine.

Stripe Press: “works about technological, economic, and scientific advancement.”

MIT Press: “a distinctive collection of influential books curated for scholars and libraries worldwide.”

Other mainstream book publishers

Apress is a reputable publisher with a lower profile, which publishes on a wide range of topics, from specific technologies and frameworks, to more generic topics on computing. Because they publish many books on many topics, they are usually open to pitches.

Packt. A tech book publisher with a focus on quantity over quality, it feels to me. There is limited support and feedback for authors, and titles could often use more editing. But also, Packt is likely to say “yes” to a serious proposal.

1. Financials of publishing

Financial matters really come into play when your proposal is accepted by a publisher and you receive a contract offer.

Advance: $2,000 – $5,000. An advance payment to the writer is a tried and tested way to make them deliver a completed manuscript. It’s often paid in chunks: 50% when a milestone is hit, and 50% when a full draft appears.

The “big three” publishers typically offer $5,000, usually as a flat, non-negotiable rate; at least, it’s what I was offered. Smaller publishers offer closer to $2,000 for more niche books. The advance is non-refundable; even if your book sells zero copies, you keep it. The publisher is making an investment in you, and taking a risk.

As an aside: if you are thinking of writing a book: for guest authors in The Pragmatic Engineer Newsletter guest authors I offer a $4,000 per article payment – and you can later publish your guest article in a book. Several authors working on their book have written a guest articles such as Lou Franco on Paying down tech debt or Apurva Chitnis on Thriving as a founding engineer. Writing a guest post can help refine ideas, broaden your reach, and prove helpful when publishing the article.

Paperback royalty: 7-15%

Royalties are earned on book sales, and taken from the net price of the book. Net price is what a publisher gets after the retailer (e.g. Amazon, or a bookshop) takes their cut. Let’s see how it works for a $40 book:

It matters financially where your title is purchased; be it an online shop, physical book store, or purchased directly from the publisher. Many tech books are sold on Amazon and online stores. Amazon’s 40% cut seems high, but it’s actually the lowest among book retailers. Up to 60% is a common cut for a physical bookshop.

Most publishers offer 10-12.5% royalties, is my understanding, and Packt around 15-20%. Keep in mind that brand reputation plays a role; for example, Packt’s reputation is less elevated than Manning, which can make a difference to sales.

Ebook royalties: 10-25%

For ebooks, several publishers pay 25% royalties, but not all. But even with a higher royalty rate, an author might end up making less per sale. For example, on the Kindle platform, the cut for Amazon is high at 65%. Let’s look at a $30 ebook with a 20% royalty rate:

Ebooks are almost always priced lower than physical books, and when sold on Kindle, generate much less revenue for the author, while earning more per copy than the paperback version. I was offered 10% royalties on ebook sales, which is at the low end.

When an author needs to pay back an advance before being paid anything, this is called “earning out”. If you get a $5,000 advance for a title costing $40 per hard copy and $25 for the ebook version, and most sales happen on Amazon, it means:

~2,080 paperback sales on Amazon

Or ~2,850 Kindle book sales

Or ~1,250 paperback sales on the publisher website

The author needs to sell at least 1,000 copies across various platforms to “earn out.” The good news is that a publisher sends quarterly or annual royalty payments if a book keeps generating revenue, which would effectively be passive income.

The Prags’ unique approach

One publisher that calculates rates differently is The Pragmatic Bookshelf. Instead of offering a low-digit number on revenue, they offer a 50% split on profit.

50% on profit sounds much higher than 10% on revenue, right? However, the devil is in the details, because paying on profit means that the upfront publisher costs – editors, cover design, printing, distribution, marketing – all are deducted before any profit split.

Authors who have used this approach tell me the numbers end up pretty similar to the revenue model.

Real-world case studies with actual earnings

Designing Data Intensive Applications author, Martin Kleppmann, shared the cumulative royalties he made in 6 years. The breakdown is interesting; ebook and Safari Online sales generated more revenue for the writer than the print version.

Cloud Native Infrastructure earnings: author Justin Garrison published with O’Reilly, and was offered 10% for print and 25% for ebooks (split into half, thanks to working with a coauthor). His book sold 1,337 copies in 4 months; and made about $22,000 for the two authors (and around $11,000 for Justin.) Justin concluded:

“Going into this project I had a rough estimate in my head to make about $2000–3000 so this is much better than I expected. Set your expectations accordingly.”

Don’t forget that publishers are also in this to make a positive return. This means that it is unlikely for a highly reputable publisher to invest into a book that they do not believe would sell at least a few thousand copies. I don’t have the data here: but if I was a publisher, I would reject any book that didn’t look like it could hit 1,000 copies sold in the first year of publishing.

1. The publishing process, and publisher roles

Why does a publisher take so much of the revenue? Part of this is because they do a lot of the work around publishing, and need to hire (and pay!) people for those roles. Here is my understanding of how the publishing process works, based on four months of pitching to publishers; two months of working with one of them; and researching how the rest of the process works:

Here are people I worked with, and my experience with them:

The acquisitions editor. If you write a technical blog, you might get a reachout from someone called an acquisitions editor, who will ask if you would consider publishing a book. Also, when you submit a pitch to a publisher, chances are that you will first communicate with an acquisitions editor.

A publisher’s goal is to publish books that will be profitable for them. They find authors who could write these books two ways:

Inbound pitches coming from authors – reviewed by editors or acquisitions editors

External reachouts done by acquisitions editors

These people need to have a good understanding of what kinds of books sell well at the publisher (and why); what their current catalogue is; what the gaps are; and what competitor publishers are commissioning.

When I pit