Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Making extra income with books

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 50 posts

Ask HN: Making extra income with books

#1

Post by 1986v »

It seems a good source of extra revenue for many here is with books/ebooks. I am interested to know who has published what (links please!) AND how you went about publishing.

- Did you go with a traditional book (paper/hardback)? If traditional, did you sell online or within an actual store.

- Did you create an ebook? If so, which platform for distributing has worked out the best for you (3rd party, on your own, or a mix)

- Did you go with all text or do you have images or graphics? If you have done both, what can be noticed between the two?

It would also be helpful to know the income you generate, on average, from books (not necessary but I am curious to know). I have always talked about writing a book of sorts but have never fully carried through. I have started off and on and have written many tutorials for coworkers, I would like to take enhance those as well and maybe make some extra income from them. //Insert New Years Resolution Here//

Re: Ask HN: Making extra income with books

#2

Post by bdunn »

I self-published both of my books, and originally fulfilled orders through ejunkie but now use Infusionsoft. Revenue is a little over $50k for each book (and growing), and each took about a month to write.

I really look at my book as paid lead gen for my more premium products. Take a look at my annual report for the year which outlines how I funnel customers through my products: http://planscope.io/blog/how-i-changed-the-world-in-2013/

Re: Ask HN: Making extra income with books

#4

Post by triberian »

If one does something and he does if often and with passion he definitely has something to write about.

I started writing and finished https://leanpub.com/Privacy_in_Digital-Era still waiting editor to finish and after repairs it goes online. Published are http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HFGSB3K and https://leanpub.com/opensourceencryption

Digital editions for now, print is planed and should be available in month or so.

For writing i would recommend https://leanpub.com, great platform you write in markup and it creates .mobi, .epub and .pdf formats.

After that there is publishing and marketing. Main one's are amazon and apple, smashwords, lulu, nook, kobo etc. Marketing is something i still work on ;o)

Established writers get more revenue which is pure logic by itself, one book is not enough. Extra comes with time, good luck.

Re: Ask HN: Making extra income with books

#5

Post by zrail »

I self-published my ebook Mastering Modern Payments: Using Stripe with Rails[1]. I wrote about my experience and income a month after launch on my blog[2] (hn comments[3]). Current total revenue is ~$19k, averaging around $2k per month.

[1]: https://www.petekeen.net/mastering-modern-payments

[2]: https://www.petekeen.net/adventures-in-self-publishing

[3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6320333

Re: Ask HN: Making extra income with books

#7

Post by thirdtruck »

brohee wrote: post #3

Books look more like a marketing tool for a consulting activity to me than a dependable source of revenue. And good books are a labor of love more than anything else.

That's a common sentiment, particularly in the world of fiction books. However, the same could be said of software even though we've seen how much money that can make, even with open-source software.

To paraphrase very financially successful authors like Stephen King, D. W. Smith, and Joe Konrath: "good books are a labor of labor; the more books you write, the more you will sell."

Re: Ask HN: Making extra income with books

#8

Post by liamcarton »

I wrote The Kubic Kat as a standalone SciFi novella, and decide that it would be best to give this way free, in the hope that it would garner traffic to my start-up website, and interest in escaping surveillance. (http://www.tribalcontact.com)

I put it on Hacker news, but it sank without a trace, and yielded 0 comments, and very few downloads. Facebook, twitter, and Google+ have made up 30% of downloads, and Smashwords (https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/392425) most of the remainder. As long as you are on the front page you get good traction, but discoverability is poor.

Indeed, this is the biggest issue I know of. If you can put the book in front of people you can get good metrics (30% of all views led to downloads). But finding a way to get those views is very hard.

Re: Ask HN: Making extra income with books

#9

Post by lukev »

I have co-authored three books:

Practical Clojure (http://www.apress.com/9781430272311)

ClojureScript: Up and Running (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920025139.do)

Clojure Cookbook (http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920029786.do)

Practical Clojure and Clojure Cookbook were/will be available in B&M stores though those are a relatively small fraction of sales. ClojureScript U&R is print-on-demand/ebook only.

In each case I wrote the books because I felt I had something to say, and was qualified enough to say it. Getting published was mostly a matter of being in the right place at the right time, when the publishers were interested in these books, and being introduced to a couple editors via coworkers and open-source acquaintances.

Niche tech books like this are not a good deal from a purely financial perspective. I make some money, but somewhat less than I would contracting for the time I put in to them.

They were very valuable or forcing me to gain mastery of a topic, and they are quite possibly the best thing I've done with respect to my career.

Post reply on HN