Consider not doing it.
I've always wanted to walk into a book store and see a self-authored book. In the same sense that some strive to complete a marathon in their life, I've always considered authorship one of my life goals. Unfortunately, I vastly underestimated the amount and work it would take to do so. Technical books, on average, take a year to write. During that time you and your co-authors are essentially rearing a child together. I can say with very high confidence that I will likely never write another book, simply because of this time drain.If you're considering writing a technical book for the money, forget about it. Unless you are the sole author and are writing to a large high level audience, you'll make more in far less time babysitting for your neighbors kids.
The publisher is more flexible than you think.
Depending on your publisher there may be a variety of rules you are supposed to follow. What word processor to use, special formatting tags, what file format your screen shots have to be in, etc... We easily spent 10 to 15 percent of our time formatting and reformatting for the publisher. If I had to do the process again, I'd forget all rules and regulations and focus on writing. At the end of the day, the author is responsible for the content and the publisher for everything else. Give the publisher a complete work organized in some simple logical fashion and let them do the rest. Period.Agree on stock language with your co-authors up front.
Basic terminology, definitions, we versus I, he versus she, etc... You'll save a lot of time and frustration if you and your co-authors decide what to homogeneously use up front. Researchers tend to use different voices and different terms which can cause great confusion for the reader.
Meet with your co-authors as often as possible.
Hands down the most work we got done is when the three of us were sitting in a coffee shop together. If you can't meet physically, at least have regular phone meetings to ensure that milestones are being met. To ensure a single voice and instill pressure on meeting deadlines all three of us would complete chapters on set dates and review one anothers work prior to moving on to the next set of chapters.Find your own technical editors.
Though you may get lucky, chances are the technical editors your publisher is going to find are not going to be as good as those you can cherry pick yourself. Pick your technical editors early and give them open access to your manuscript throughout the process. Treat your technical editors with great respect as they are an invaluable resource especially in adding interesting anecdotal notes and letting you know what areas need further explanation.Lock in your forward and book quote contacts early.
Because all the cool people are busy!Flip flop between writing and coding.
Most technical books contain a mix of words and code, be it custom or annotations on someone elses work. Between the two, I imagine writing will be considered the more boring option. Though it is tempting to do all your coding and technical research up front, I think it's a mistake to do so. The way I approached it is to write as much as I could bear then switch to coding when I got burned out. It's also nice when you're stuck in a frustrating debugging session to switch to writing.Research your publisher.
Ask your published friends for their honest opinion on their author-publisher relationship. I was overall happy with Addison-Wesley and impressed with the amount of marketing effort they put into our book. I've heard good things and enjoyed many books published by both Wiley, McGraw-Hill and No Starch. One publisher I constantly hear negative things about is Syngress, which isn't shocking considering the quality of most of their books.If anyone cares to share their authoring tips or experiences with publishers, please feel free to comment.
