The Key Benefits of Writing a Technical Book

Someone may wonder why would someone write a technical book these days, especially when the earnings of such an endeavor are small and getting smaller. I wondered about the same thing once until eventually, I came to realize some key reasons why such an endeavor is indeed worthwhile, particularly in the Data Science area. I’d like to share with you here the most important of these reasons (benefits), knowing fully well that these are just my own insights and that you’d be able to find your own ones, should you ever consider writing a technical book.

First of all, when you discover something, even if it’s not entirely new, the natural next step is to try to share this with others, be it to advance your career, personal branding, or for whatever other reason drives you. If you are serious about this task, you’d want to make sure that whatever you deliver has a certain quality standard, so writing a book on the topic could help you accomplish that. If you are more inclined to use film as your medium, you may decide to go with a video instead, but that would require a longer time and sufficiently more expertise. So, a technical book would be a more viable option, especially if what you have to say can have enough commercial value to attract a publisher. You as an author may not be motivated by the royalties you’ll receive from this project, but no publisher would publish something that isn’t going to pay for the paper or digital storage it is going to need.

Also, through writing such a book you realize what you don’t know and develop a more balanced approach to the whole subject since you are more aware of what’s out there. The arrogance you may have harbored as a newcomer will gradually give way to humility and a deeper appreciation of the field, as the research required to write this book is bound to cultivate in you. Besides, even the stuff you may know well, you may realize that you may not be able to express comprehensibly, something that the editor will be more than happy to let you know! So, your development as a professional in this field will be (at least) two-fold: related to the knowledge of subtle aspects of the field and related to your ability to express all that effectively and eloquently.

Finally, writing a technical book, particularly one that is marketed professionally by a publisher, enables your thoughts to cross lots of borders, reaching out to people you wouldn’t normally find on your own. This will expose you to a larger variety of feedback for your work that can help you grow further as a professional. Not all of the feedback is going to be useful, but at least some of it is bound to be. Besides, the people who would normally read your work are likely to be people who have valued it enough to pay for it beforehand, be it through the publisher or through a subscription to a technical knowledge platform. Either way, they would most likely be people who are driven by genuine care about the subject, not just curiosity.

I could go on about this for a while, perhaps even write a book on this topic! However, as I respect your time, I’d leave it to this. What other benefits of writing a technical book can you think of? Do they justify to you the undertaking of such a project?