If I were to write a Book....

[deehi]

Tien,

I have been keeping up with you on this forum and I noticed that you are interested in IM, which I am also involved in doing.

I think that while the general poker community would be tough to reach as Pokey mentioned, the person that is attempting to get better at poker,and more specifically online poker, is going to find your book ONLINE.

This would involve marketing your book through a website built to reach the specific target market:
"How to Crush Small Stakes No Limit blah, blah, blah"
and setting up the privacy protection for downloads.

This can be done on the cheap for the internet. Especially since you are talking about an ebook.

Even, if you sold 10 copis(which I believe that the 2p2 crowd would buy more than that) you would come out ahead.

Also, remember a few things. When you are talking about a book, PNL may be the definitive work on NLHE,but everyone cannot comprehend what it is saying. I have bought the book, I understand some of it, while at the same time,I need to come on here to look at the study sessions to understand other parts of the book. Its not always what you say, its how you say it. Tien, in his articles, at least the "Raise it Up" one, was very clear and concise. Not a lot of theories and "secrets" as he mentioned. Look at the number of replies that confirm that he was making a valid point.

Have the games online truly changed so much from I believe it was around December of last year til now? I would say they haven't. Its not as if we have entered into a "New Age of Poker Play" beyond the realm of what was being played last year. Tougher play in some regards, but you are still getting the first time noob that has just heard about poker in the dorm or the penny home games that he's been invited to and is hooked.

Raise it up!

[Tien]

[ QUOTE ]
Not to pee in your Cheerios or anything, but a few months ago I approached Mason (Malmuth) about possibly writing a book, to see if 2+2 would consider publishing it. His response:

[ QUOTE ]

Hi Pokey:

I'm not optimistic. Right now we have committments to a lot of books (for us) and this include five (and possibly six) books on no limit cash games. So for us to work another one in it would have to be exceptional.

Furthermore, I don't believe that intermediate or beginner material has much sales potential. The market has matured and the sales of those level books is now quite poor. You can see this yourself by going to Amazon.com and looking at sales ranks.

If you finish a manuscript, we can take a look at it, but I really doubt if we would have much interest.

best wishes,
mason


[/ QUOTE ]

He's right -- the market is FILLED with beginner and intermediate poker books right now. Even worse for potential writers (like you or me) is that many of them are written by "poker celebrities" like Annie Duke, Phil Helmuth, Dan Harrington, Phil Gordon, Doyle Brunson, T.J. Cloutier, etc. Since you don't have a famous name, you don't have a draw. Beginners are going to see a book by you and a book by Phil Helmuth and they're going to say "who the hell...oh, WAIT! I know Phil Helmuth! I'm buying THAT ONE!" Maybe your book is a masterpiece and maybe (OK, certainly) Phil's is a steaming crap pile, but the beginners won't know the difference. Until they're good enough that they don't need the book, they won't recognize good advice versus bad advice. That's why I'm always happy to see a new Cloutier or Helmuth book hit the market -- they'll make the fish WORSE rather than better. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

In short, unless you've got a brilliant marketing strategy or you're secretly Clonie McGowan, I'd say you might want to reconsider this project.

[/ QUOTE ]




I am not really afraid of writing a book and not being a big name writer.

There are millions of books / best sellers out there on a million different subjects being written by average joes and turning into very popular books.


What the poker world really misses is a no BS book about how to really win.

I read all these poker books riddled with theories, but none of them actually have taught me how to make money.


That is why it took me 8 months to figure out what I learned in the article I wrote.



I believe that the selling point of this book is the down to earth non BS approach to it, written by those actually in the trenches duking it out day by day.

I can see that this book can produce a very cult like following especially if sold online and it has a very specific niche market that it will sell to: beginning / SSNL players looking to improve.


I have already started on the downswings / networking section of the book which I feel would be an incredible benefit to poker players out there. Things I learned in the business world that I feel can give a different perspective to poker players.



What the hell, I have nothing to lose by going forward with this book.

[Tien]

[ QUOTE ]
Pokey, Tien,

Write an e-book and sell it on Ebay/online. With digital delivery all you would have to do is send files to people and they ship you money. Files are content protected to protect against piracy - you don't need a publisher.

If this is something you are interested in PM me.

[/ QUOTE ]


How I thought about selling this book is very similar to that.


1) Create an internet website solely for the purpose of this book with merchant account or paypal etc etc.
2) Sell this book on Ebay / other auction sites.
3) Promote this book on other websites that have a large gathering of poker players looking to improve.


Get a strong enough support from buyers online and eventually get this book published in bookstores.


I understand that it is nearly impossible to get it published on 2+2 unless the content of the book is really damn good.

[corsakh]

Poker is a skill game and as such it requires a professional to write it. I mean if you decide to write a book about golf you need someone like Tiger Woods to write about it. Otherwise people will go - "who the heck is this and what does he know about poker". So from commercial point of view, content isn't really an issue here. Mike Matasow will sell more in a a book about playing chinese poker with hookers than you about beating 5/10NL for 5ptbb. And publishers aren't exactly charites and 2+2 is one of them.

So ye, the best bet in my opinion would be going ebook and targeting good forum (ith, ftp, etc) and rakeback communities. People you know and people who know you.

ps Discounts for bookings in advance? [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ZingZhang]

What about a Pokey/Tien collaboration? I think most of us would be ever so slightly interested in your collected works guys [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]
Everything Sean has said makes good sense, but if the book is well underway there is no reason to give it up. The cult-like following is fairly likely imo, certainly amongst 2+2 posters...and then you have all the semi-lurkers and lurkers, it's still a significant, though niche, market.

Whatever happens, please give us updates etc. and absolutely, definately...make it available in the U.K. lol

[EMc]

Tien,

Dont take this the wrong way, but you wrote one good article that well, was pretty basic IMO. I remember almost locking it cause I thought you were just some n00b that thought he had it figured all out. I think writing a book is a much more ambitious project then you are imaging.

[Tien]

I am not writing this book by myself EMc.

I don't claim to know it all, I plan to have much better players coming together to write the book.



And plus, you don't need aba20 or Taylor Caby level players to write a book for it to be beneficial to the current target market I am targeting. Even a solid winning player at 400 NL could spill out his secrets and it would be worth gold to lower stakes players.

[ama0330]

Raise that [censored] up!

[Sean Fraley]

I would like to clarify that whatever Tien does I'm going to buy a copy, especially if he is condensing the collective wisdom a group of winning NL players. If nothing else it will be better than the first NL book I ever purchased which was Phil Gordon's Little Green Book (I was suspicious when it gave advice on playing every single type of hand except top pair). I just felt that it was important to bring up the fact that publishing it as a dead tree book might not be profitable. On the other hand, the e-book idea sounds like it could work quite well.