I've written three books for Apress, and their process seems to be a bit leaner (less review), so more of the book quality is the author's responsibility.
The technical reviewers were good, but certainly not world experts on the topics.
I didn't get any say in the cover images, just a proposal to which they showed me.
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Regarding the topic of writer's block, my advice is to write blog posts instead of book chapters first. Depending on your contract, you might or might not be allowed to actually publish them, but if you did a bit of blogging first, you are likely used to writing blog posts, so the idea is not as scary as writing a book chapter.
You can do enough editing later, but starting from blog posts gives the chapters some independence that I as a reader appreciate.
The technical reviewers were good, but certainly not world experts on the topics.
I didn't get any say in the cover images, just a proposal to which they showed me.
---
Regarding the topic of writer's block, my advice is to write blog posts instead of book chapters first. Depending on your contract, you might or might not be allowed to actually publish them, but if you did a bit of blogging first, you are likely used to writing blog posts, so the idea is not as scary as writing a book chapter.
You can do enough editing later, but starting from blog posts gives the chapters some independence that I as a reader appreciate.