We're all experts in something; or at least we all have a unique viewpoint to share with the world. What's keeping you from writing a book to share your expertise?
I've written 2 books, so I suppose I'll answer the reverse question - how come nothing stopped me?<p>The first one was an accident of sorts. I went to a lot of conferences in the late 90's, early 2000's around the world to hawk our wares, and wanted a way to supplement the returns, so I'd visit user groups and do some training with them.<p>I started with simple notes, which gradually grew up to about 120 pages, which accompanied a full day course. After one event in 2002 I was pestered to sell extra copies of the notes, by folk who weren't there.<p>Initially I resisted, they weren't written with that in mind, but capitulated, edited, added a bunch of things, and sold them for $50 plus postage - I cleared about $25 per copy and sold in total about 1000 copies.<p>The second one was more deliberate, although again borne out of a 2 day training class. That costs $200,is PDF only, and I've sold maybe 300 or so. I update that one and am currently working on the 4th edition. (in 13 years)<p>It's not terribly profitable. The time it takes to write is insane. Unlike casual speaking or blogging every tiny detail has to be checked. It has to have a coherent voice. It ultimately needs to teach difficult concepts and make them easy.<p>To describe the topic as niche is an understatement. It's a pimple on niche. If it was 100 times bigger it'd still be a small niche. So upside, no competition. Downside, tiny market. Its not really profitable, but it is a nice side project.<p>So maybe the right answer to your question, for most people, is that they haven't accidentally tripped into it (yet).
I have written an ebook ("Stratospheric - From Zero to Production with Spring Boot and AWS": <a href="https://stratospheric.dev/" rel="nofollow">https://stratospheric.dev/</a>). So, technically, I'm not qualified anymore to answer that question.<p>However, looking at it ex negativo, I can tell what convinced me to write this particular book: A subject to write and learn more about and two co-authors to write the book together with.<p>Making writing a collaborative effort is enormously helpful, not only since it helps with staying motivated but also because it allows you to more easily break down what can otherwise seem like a daunting amount of work. We even organically arrived at a "pull request"-style review process that allowed us to release quickly and iteratively without getting a third-party editor involved, which could've been a bottleneck and hence might've slowed down progress (more on our writing process: <a href="https://progmot.com/post/self-publishing-a-book-with-almost-complete-strangers/" rel="nofollow">https://progmot.com/post/self-publishing-a-book-with-almost-...</a>).<p>Another key factor was a relevant target audience we could relate to. Knowing that there's a problem (How to become productive with developing Spring-based applications on AWS?) which hadn't been explored and addressed in an in-depth, comprehensive manner before and being aware that we weren't the only ones having that problem but a significant number of people from our peer group were facing the same issue, was vital for our decision to write this ebook.
> We're all experts in something; or at least we all have a unique viewpoint to share with the world.<p>No, we really all are not, and not everyone does. I don't write because I have nothing to say that hasn't been said more eloquently. It's also a hell of a lot of work and unlikely to break even in strictly financial investment, valuing my time at $0.
In my field of expertise, the books are already written. I don't know what else I could add.<p>As for a fiction novel, I don't have any storyline in mind. I have images in my mind, short videos/films I find enjoyable, but not a grand story that could fill 400 pages.<p>I'm also not a famous person, so my autobiography wouldn't be of much interest.
I don't think most people realise:<p>- how much you gain writing a book about a technical viewpoint you have (from researching all of your "instincts" and figuring out a way to explain them to beginners)<p>- you don't have to start with a book - just write blog articles about sub-problems in the space<p>- a book can literally just be a collection of blog articles (see Freakonomics: <a href="https://freakonomics.com/blog/" rel="nofollow">https://freakonomics.com/blog/</a>)<p>- it's not about the money - unless you've spent the last decade being well known in your field, most folks will likely not hear about your book. Doesn't mean it isn't a worthwhile endeavour.<p>(I write this having written <a href="https://useeffectbyexample.com/" rel="nofollow">https://useeffectbyexample.com/</a> for my React blog's audience, has made low 4 figures)
I wrote a fair chunk of a technical book once, thirty-ish years ago, but technology was changing very quickly back then, and I had too many other irons in the fire to finish it before the content became obsolete.<p>An idea for a book did occur to me a couple years ago: I thought I might write down everything I know about throwing renegade-style rave parties. What kept me? I'm not certain my knowledge is unique enough to be useful, and I think maybe it's better for people to figure it out organically, as part of a community. I wouldn't want to help people throw such events as a business.
The rewards i reap will not be proportional to what i deserve for my efforts. Come to think of it, a lot of people aren’t rewarded appropriately for their work. But why pursue a path of diminishing returns?
Only procrastination and juggling other things these days. I've released a few fiction books now (self-published) so I know what I need to do and how to market it. But actually getting the time to sit down and power through that first draft is always a challenge for me.
Time, and writer's block, and some things I do not know how to write them clearly.<p>Also I have many things that I could write about and do not know what are all of the things that I will want to write about.