Submission timeline
2007–2026One slot for every year since HN launched. Height is that year's peak points; orange marks a 100+ point or 50+ comment breakout. Select a bar to open its strongest thread.
First comments on top threads
HN comment orderThe most important quote here for me: "What kept me from [writing my own tool] was a calm voice in my head telling me that I’m here to write a book, not a preprocessor. [...] Now I have written two books and zero tools, which I consider a success."
I've written 4 technical books including the Classic Computer Science Problems Series (https://classicproblems.com). I agree with what Thorsten said at the end—none of this really matters—or it's marginal at most. Most people who say they want to write a book lack the motivation to do it. It's not the tools getting in the way. Apress used Word templates back in 2013 when I did my first book with them. Manning let you use asciidoc or Word templates when I worked…
(2018) Popular in: 2022 (180 points, 39 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31394719 2018 (472 points, 97 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17910089
The first top-level comment from each of the four biggest threads, in HN’s own order. Excerpts are shortened; open a comment for full context.
- Breakout years
- 2
- Total points
- 644
- Total comments
- 138
100+ points or 50+ comments
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
reference only — not used in Hall rules or ranking
Every submission
| Date | Title as submitted | By | Points | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-09-04 | The Tools I Use to Write BooksFirst breakout · Best thread | misternugget | 472 | 97 |
| 2022-05-16 | The Tools I Use to Write Books (2018)Latest 20+ point return | benhoyt | 170 | 39 |
| 2025-03-16 | Thorsten Ball: The Tools I Use to Write Books | fuzztester | 2 | 2 |