[Ed Miller]

Hey,

I think some here would be surprised how big the potential market is for poker books right now. Titles you and I haven't even heard of are selling a thousand copies a month or more.

If you work hard on the book, your timeframe is reasonable. We started working on SSH around Christmas. We have a manuscript finished now (that has already been heavily edited). We should be published and available for purchase within two months.

Something you MUST do (and it seems you have thought along these lines, but you have to be SOLID):

1. Define your audience. EXACTLY what kind of people should read your book. "Beginning to intermediate (0 to 4 months of experience), losing, low-limit online sit 'n go players who understand basic poker jargon, but who are not familiar with any poker literature," for instance. What kinds of terms and concepts will they know, and what won't they know? What kind of mistakes do they make? Are they casual readers, or are they serious students really trying to become expert players?

Every word should be written with your audience in mind. If your book is for beginning players, don't start by talking about limping under the gun with big pairs. They won't know what you are talking about. OTOH, if your book is for intermediate players, don't spend 60 pages discussing the rules of the game and how to read the board. Poker books make mistakes in this area CONSTANTLY. I probably have made a few mistakes like this, but I really tried hard not to.

2. Define your scope. What EXACTLY do you hope to teach? Are you giving basic rules that will turn beginning players into marginal winners at the 20+2 level? Are you trying to teach people the sophistcated concepts necessary to be big winners at 20+2? Do you want to provide people with the necessary skills to move up, or are you just teaching people to master the smaller buy-in tournaments?

If you write a well-organized book that teaches a SPECIFIC audience how to accomplish a SPECIFIC goal, then you will have written a quality book, even if your target audience is rank beginners, and your goal is simply to teach them to break-even at small buy-in tournaments.

Most poker books suck. Like terrible, I would be totally embarassed if my name were on it even if it was selling thousands of copies, suck. These are their problems:

1. Disorganized. Authors tend to bounce from topic to topic in a confused, "stream of consciousness" style.

2. Poor Prioritization. Authors tend to emphasize points that are really not very important, leaving important topics to only passing references. The MOST IMPORTANT topics (probably the most EXPENSIVE mistakes that you are trying to correct) should receive the most attention, the most examples, etc. Don't spend fifteen pages discussing what to do when you flop two pair or better, ten pages distinguishing between playing on the button after five limpers versus after three, and only three pages on playing the river. (A prominent hold 'em book made exactly this mistake.)

3. Erroneous information. You are welcome to use rules of thumb or simplifications. But if you do, note them as such. Don't pretend that "don't call on the flop with bottom pair without an overcard or backdoor flush kicker" is some hard-and-fast rule of hold 'em. If your point is, "this is a simplified rule intended for beginners," then say so. Otherwise, you are flat out wrong, and it's on you.

4. Lack of clear audience and scope. Some books insist on adding all sorts of chapters that are essentially not relevant/confusing. One well-known hold 'em book that is 80%+ about loose, limit hold 'em cash games decides to spend the final 20% talking about no limit hold 'em, tournaments, and other extraneous topics. At the same time, it spends about five pages TOTAL discussing play on the turn and river. If your book is about loose limit hold 'em cash games, make your book EXCLUSIVELY about loose limit hold 'em cash games. Save the other material for essays, columns, or another book.

5. Muttled advice. You are giving advice. GIVE ADVICE. Make clear, unambiguous suggestions. Your advice should be the CENTERPIECE of your book. This is one thing that Mike Caro does well (from what I've read). In his "Fundamental Secrets of Winning Poker," his advice (though not always correct) is always unmistakable. You cannot read that book and not know what he wants you to do. The book is written like an infomercial (which is annoying to me), but it is better than many other books I have read because it is VERY CLEAR. In a different poker book I read earlier this year, you could literally read a whole chapter and at the end have no idea what it was about.

Hehehehe... it just occurred to me that you didn't really ask any of this stuff. It kind of turned into a rant about "What I don't like about poker books." I guess my point is: It sounds like, despite your limited experience, you could write a valuable poker book. Stick to what you know well, and make sure you write to a specific audience to achieve a specific purpose. If you do, your book will be well worth reading.

As for publication, there are several options, but I would at least explore signing up with an established publisher before I settled on self-publishing. Self-publishing is risky and expensive with a large overhead. You will also get more exposure and sell more copies if you go with an established publisher. Writing a book can open up opportunities that are based on your reputation, and you will get a better reputation if you go with an established publisher.

If you write a quality poker book, you should be able to find a publisher even though you are writing about a "niche" topic. Poker is that popular now. Good luck. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]