Hurts your career if you write a tech book that gets negative reviews?
SwellJoe: Don't write a bad book.Also be involved in good things. You get some leeway for making mistakes if you are a developer on an Open Source project that a lot of people like. My first (and, so far, only) book had many flaws, but the reviews were almost universally favorable (the biggest negative sentiment was that it was too short, which is about as good negative as I can think to have) because peoples opinion of me were mostly favorable, and they knew I was trying to do good things.My book was also available for free, which tends to make people like you better, thought it's no guarantee.As long as reviews aren't really bad, which I can only imagine would happen if you were obviously writing crap to cash in rather than transfer knowledge, having a published book will not hurt your career. It can only help. My book got me my best contract ever, almost single-handedly (I was one of a handful of people they interviewed for the gig, and the moment after my book was discussed, I could tell they'd decided the search was over and I was their guy).