Why write about Linux?

After I mentioned my new Linux book THE UBUNTU DESKTOP BEGINNER’S GUIDE: GNOME SHELL EDITION, long-time super-reader Bret commented:

“Linux help and documentation is extensively available and searchable on the web. It would’ve never even occurred to me to buy a such book. I don’t think I’ve bought a book for Linux or a programming language for decades at this point.”

Shortly after that, David Clinton (author of Linux In Action, available on October 7th) commented:

“This is actually exactly how I just came across your books for the first time: Manning recently published my Linux in Action and I was wondering how on earth your Ubuntu book made it to #2 on Amazon (I guess I just missed its moment at #1). At first, the fact that you didn’t seem to have physical books and your low pricing made me wonder if you weren’t one of those scammers who steals documentation from internet sites and quickly pastes it into shoddy eBooks. But a quick look at a page or two of your book tells me that you’re completely legit.
But that doesn’t explain how your book is ranked so much better than mine – despite the enormous production and marketing investment behind it. Whatever the back story is, I’m not jealous: you deserve it.”

Nah, if it was a scam, it would be in Kindle Unlimited! 🙂

I kid, I kid.

But, back to the point. Bret is definitely right that Linux documentation in extensively available and searchable on the web. There are also videos, interactive tutorials, etc. But someone brand new to Linux isn’t going to know that. And it’s often hard to find a good starting point. What I try to do with my tech books is give people that starting point at a low price, where basic concepts and commands are laid out logically, and once they finish reading the book they’ll be ready to get started or move on to a more comprehensive source.

Also, when I write tech stuff, I write for the absolute beginner. Part of that is practical. There are far more people just starting with Linux than advanced users who need to read about high-end server management and configuration. (I think Mr. Clinton’s book is definitely intended for the Linux sysadmin or potential Linux sysadmin.) So I’m aiming for a bigger market segment. Part of it is my own disposition – I was in IT help desk for a long time, so I have seen firsthand how difficult it is for a beginner to get started.

And I think my approach works – for my book THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE, I’ve gotten emails from college students who said it helped them through their first semester using LaTeX on Linux to render equations. Or from developers whose company decided they were switching over from a Windows development environment to Linux. My favorite reader email was from a teacher who suddenly found himself having to teach a high school computer class on Linux with only a few days to prepare, and THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE got him through it.

Finally, I think the math backs up my logic. I’ve been self-publishing for seven and a half years, and I’ve sold about 1.14 million copies of my books, fiction and non-fiction both. Of my 15 bestselling books, #9 is THE UBUNTU BEGINNER’S GUIDE and #11 is THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE. (You can see the chart of my top 15 bestselling books below.) In other words, if I hadn’t written the FROSTBORN series, my two bestselling books of all time would have been THE UBUNTU BEGINNER’S GUIDE and THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER’S GUIDE.

Since I only do tech writing as a hobby now, that’s not too bad of a result! 🙂

-JM