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Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

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Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#311
launched the Coding Career Handbook here on HN a couple years ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23700486

got decent spike of initial sales but surprisingly it has continued to sell about 3-5k per month since then with not a lot of additional promo work

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't you think this might not be a safe side income for you?

It is as safe as filing any valid cause of action in law. Submissions in court is not much different than presenting for a budget in large corporate. Law is not mysterious, it is just plain ability to find case laws that fits your particular sets of circumstances (authorities) - what we devs call pattern matching. Like chess,prepare your defenses while you plan your offensive. Playbook is just like MCO("chess") but b…

You could get powerful enemies, and also risk losing a lot on any particular case. Best of luck.

I have to ask though, do you think “most lawyers” fit your description? I would hope they do not.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#313

https://www.newaudiotechnology.com/ A shared friend introduced me to someone who claimed to be a struggling Hollywood genius. We were all drinking at some university party. He told us about all the cool shit he would do if only technology wasn't so bad. So I built a tool to solve his issues. To my surprise, he used it on the Expendables 3 blurays. Later, the audio crew for George Lukas' Red Tails praised the tool in…

Oh my gosh! I was a happy user of Hajo Headphone Enhancer for years until he dropped off the Internet and his software wasn't updated for newer macOS versions. Now I see that you have licensed it and are reselling it under Spatial Sound Card - L.

It was a tremendous pain to get installed, and the documentation on your site is insufficient (I had to open the driver installer app inside the main app bundle manually, in the terminal to see the output with the error message, then google the error message to find out where the System Preferences request was), but I'm really excited to hear the fullness of the sound again!

Initial notes: Idle CPU while playing through SSC is about 1-2% less than without, and the "Energy Impact" of SSC is ~6.7 compared to Spotify's ~3.0. I don't think I'd call it particularly "light", but I love the sound! I'm rocking Reykjavik, but New York also sounds good in my headphones.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#314
post #28

Wrote a book, published nine years ago. I earned back my advance after about five years and have been receiving royalty checks ever since. This year, it surpassed 100,000 copies sold. Just a little note for other would-be authors ... it's never been easier to self-publish -- but getting a book deal with a traditional publisher still has substantial upsides, particularly on the distribution side. There are exceptions…

> Wrote a book, published nine years ago.

This might work for some writers and books, but not for others.

There was this one Tweet that went into detail about what some trial documents revealed about a particular publisher: https://twitter.com/aprilhenrybooks/status/15662306587665039...

> In the Penguin Random House/S&S antitrust trial it was revealed that out of 58,000 trade titles published per year, half of those titles sell fewer than one dozen books.

There were also articles that disagreed with the claim: https://countercraft.substack.com/p/no-most-books-dont-sell-...

Which also had some discussion on HN, where some people suggested that it was somewhat true, while others explored other aspects of it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32794673

But even the article itself refers to more claims like that, with many suggesting that in writing, like many other industries, there will be a few very successful books/projects, and many that will fall by the wayside (honestly, I'd say the same about most things, from making SaaS products, to game development and art/music). Here's a humbling article that someone wrote: https://hughhowey.com/most-books-dont-sell/

I guess what I'm trying to say here: don't write a book hoping to earn a lot of money. Write a book because you find the experience interesting or fun, and just because you want to write (and publish) a book.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#316

Suing lawyers as side income. we all know most lawyers are scummy using all sorts of deceit to gain advantage. However in the increasing documented world, it is a matter of digging(using text search) to find fault with the offending lawyer's deceit and then file a DIY action in court. I am involved in estate litigation since 2016 where I discovered collusion by many lawyers with the estate administrator to defraud th…

How much time per week do you spend on that? It doesn't really seem like a side thing to my I don't know the law eyes.

Courts are very slow moving. The cartel known as the Bar makes it difficult for litigant in person.But once you have to tools (case law database access) and templates for the documents to file it is like writing up aproject proposal in corporate office. The digitally filing process is quick(after you physically present yourself at a court to hand over the CDRom to the court registry and filling in paper forms). The cartel(Bar) in my country however prevents litigant-in-person access to the digital filing system(reserved for licensed practitioners only) I do not bill the estate for my hours so I have no idea but it can be absorbing as a chess game.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#317
post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does HN have some kind of discord channel or similar?

This would be the closest thing to one: https://discord.gg/Wp2PSCgH

Sorry, that is not supposed to be an open server, and posting the link in clear is a way to invite spammers and bots... Also, it's not supposed to be an unofficial HN discord. It's just a place for randos to talk about stuff.

My bad, sorry if you got kicked, but please send me an email if want in.

(I am the one who created the server and only admin. I do not have enough bandwidth to manage an open server.)

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#318

I actually have a few: 1) Board member (advisor really) of a crypto/blockchain company. They pay me $5k per month to basically answer questions and help solve certain issues that might arise. There's also regular meetings but all in I spend 4 hours per week max. 2) Small contractor jobs. I was a contractor and home builder in a previous life. These days, I do side jobs both for the extra income and as a way to relax…

Thank you for your open and honest replies about your hyperproductivity and optimization. There is an expression, "the days are long, the years are short." Do you see yourself building toward a point in older age where you can either relax, or focus on something that you consider a major achievement? Of course, that could very well be creating a comfortable existence for your family, which it seems like you've already done.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is as safe as filing any valid cause of action in law. Submissions in court is not much different than presenting for a budget in large corporate. Law is not mysterious, it is just plain ability to find case laws that fits your particular sets of circumstances (authorities) - what we devs call pattern matching. Like chess,prepare your defenses while you plan your offensive. Playbook is just like MCO("chess") but b…

You could get powerful enemies, and also risk losing a lot on any particular case. Best of luck. I have to ask though, do you think “ most lawyers ” fit your description? I would hope they do not.

yes, the possibility of making powerful enemies (the Bar) but like any activism - "having skin in the game", the law exist to be relied on. 95 to 98% is my personal observation. My own sister(Yale sheepskin) included. I am in tech solutions not reliant on the Court circuit to earn my income. I do see an opportunity for a Notion based litigation tool for time saving to easily organize and retrieve the myriad of documents in a case. coupled with case law access and template - A DIY engine for Litigant in Person saving hundreds of thousand in legal fees. AI vs weasels. Game on.

Re: Ask HN: What is the best income stream you have created till date?

#320

I actually have a few: 1) Board member (advisor really) of a crypto/blockchain company. They pay me $5k per month to basically answer questions and help solve certain issues that might arise. There's also regular meetings but all in I spend 4 hours per week max. 2) Small contractor jobs. I was a contractor and home builder in a previous life. These days, I do side jobs both for the extra income and as a way to relax…

I want to do #5 so badly but don’t have millions in cash - how do you arrange financing?
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