Write Useful Books
by Rob Fitzpatrick, Adam Rosen · first published 2021
10mentions
9recommended by
10HN commenters
2022–2024first – last mentioned
90% recommend10% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Treats writing a nonfiction book as product design, testing ideas and drafts with readers before polishing. Its practical, pragmatic approach suits authors of technical and educational books.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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I'd highly recommend reading "Write Useful Books: A modern approach to designing and refining recommendable nonfiction" by Rob Fitzpatrick. Its a super pragmatic tutorial on writing non fiction that folks will actually use
on “Ask HN: I'm thinking of writing a book – Why would you want a book?” ↗"Write Useful Books" by Rob Fitzpatrick is an amazing guide for how to write, test, edit, and polish technical nonfiction.
on “Ask HN: Any great books about technical writing?” ↗As I’m about to write a technical book (my first was pretty bad, but sold reasonably well), I found “Write useful books” by Rob Fitzpatrick which approaches writing a “useful” book (i.e., something that really teaches you something) as product design, by basically product-designing your book through multiple beta-reader…
on “Markov chain Monte Carlo without the bullshit (2015)” ↗Ambitious and cool project! Over my head as I’m not a coder but I think one bullet you should emphasize is the impostor syndrome part. I think that would resonate strongly. You might like Rob fitzpatrick’s write useful books: http://writeusefulbooks.com/ He takes a very product development focused approach to book writing (he wrote the mom test book) and discusses how to find beta readers and such. Best of luck!
on “I don't like making the best things” ↗For people in this thread, I strongly recommend Rob Fitzpatrick's book on how to write a book as a business, "Write Useful Books: A modern approach to designing and refining recommendable nonfiction": https://www.amazon.com/Write-Useful-Books-recommendable-nonf... Even though I'm not an author I found the advice very useful,…
on “Writing books remains a tough way to make a living” ↗For anyone else interested, I highly recommend reading through Rob Fitzpatrick's "Write Useful Books": https://www.amazon.com/Write-Useful-Books-recommendable-nonf... It isn't about technical books exactly but it does speak mostly on how to write recommendable non-fiction, some of which can obviously…
on “The economics of writing technical books” ↗Hahaha I'm already half-way through "Write Useful Books", and "The Mom Test" is one of my favorites. Great minds think alike. > Best of luck! Thanks, same to you.
on “I don't like making the best things” ↗…more impactful than your toolchain. If you're working on a book that educates (rather than, say, entertains), I'd like to share the writing framework that my longtime collaborator, robfitz, describes in Write Useful Books (https://www.usefulbooks.com/). Basically, treat your book like a product, find your audience, and test your subject matter with them as your craft your prose. * Disclaimer: Rob and I run Useful Books,…
on “Ask HN: Best tools for self-authoring books in 2023?” ↗…https://swizec.com/blog/5-years-of-books-and-courses-or-how-... Sharing this to encourage, not to brag. We need more insightful and useful books out there. If you’re gonna do this, I strongly recommend picking up a copy of Write Useful Books first. Wish it existed when I started. http://writeusefulbooks.com/
on “The economics of writing technical books” ↗There are a few books on it like 'Writing for Software Developers' and 'Write Useful Books'. Working with Hit Subscribe is an option for getting a better idea of the workflow. Then its really just a game of building up your blog/books and maybe sales with companies.
on “How to get started on building a personal brand as Technial Writer?” ↗