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Writing a software book and making over $100k

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Re: Writing a software book and making over $100k

#61

Post by symplee »

swyx wrote: post #12

for those interested in other examples I studied a bunch of them and compiled them into this list for my own book launch https://github.com/sw-yx/launch-cheatsheet I'll be adding this one naturally

Very cool resource.

Have you thought about adding the scale of the author's following and/or social media presence?

For example, this story's author has 21,000 followers on Twitter, and a successful blog.

Another example is 200k in sales https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23502770 where the self-publishing author admitted that practically all sales were due to 35,000 Twitter followers.

Have you come across an example of a successful book launch where an (unknown) author didn't already have a large following?

Re: Writing a software book and making over $100k

#62

Post by hn_check »

vladmihalcea wrote: post #2

I'm the book author, so if you have any questions, let me know.

Just as a bit of cynicism, when people talk about how well they did in a field, or all the money they made, most of the time they are lying and doing the fake-it-till-you-make-it tactic. HN is famous for a few of these guys making their reputation on exactly this ruse.

And yes, this will be auto-dead. Whatever.

Re: Writing a software book and making over $100k

#63

Post by teddyuk »

commandlinefan wrote: post #51
hohenheim wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mentioned publishers leave you with 10% of the sales. I can't wrap my head around that, how is that possible and acceptable by authors?

> how is that possible and acceptable by authors? I had no problem accepting just 10% of my book sales - without going through a traditional publisher, it would have been impossible for me to get my book carried by physical book stores. Of course, this was 10 years ago, when physical book stores were more common; this may not be such a consideration today.

I've just signed a contract to write a book and I get an advance and then 10% (goes up to 12/15% if more are sold).

One major reason is that I am more likely to finish it and get it done than if I rely on it myself.

Another reason is that I want to be known for one niche, this will help and if that works out then I could likely self-publish and keep more of the profit.

It is slightly more nuanced than I want as much cash as possible for this thing.

Re: Writing a software book and making over $100k

#64

Post by vladmihalcea »

distalx wrote: post #57
vladmihalcea wrote: post #2

I'm the book author, so if you have any questions, let me know.

Thanks for sharing your process. it is very insightful. How did you found out that JAVA is your niche? edit: This might sound vague, I'm curious because I'm trying to figure out my own niche.

I've been using Java since 2005 so it's the ecosystem I know best. When I started my blog, I tried various topics, but the Java Persistence and Hibernate got the most traffic.

Since I liked the topic, I decided to write a book about high-performance data access with Java.

Re: Writing a software book and making over $100k

#65

Post by pc86 »

teddyuk wrote: post #63
commandlinefan wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how is that possible and acceptable by authors? I had no problem accepting just 10% of my book sales - without going through a traditional publisher, it would have been impossible for me to get my book carried by physical book stores. Of course, this was 10 years ago, when physical book stores were more common; this may not be such a consideration today.

I've just signed a contract to write a book and I get an advance and then 10% (goes up to 12/15% if more are sold). One major reason is that I am more likely to finish it and get it done than if I rely on it myself. Another reason is that I want to be known for one niche, this will help and if that works out then I could likely self-publish and keep more of the profit. It is slightly more nuanced than I want as much…

Does the 10% go against your advance or does it start immediately?

Re: Writing a software book and making over $100k

#66

Post by DVassallo »

symplee wrote: post #61
swyx wrote: post #12

for those interested in other examples I studied a bunch of them and compiled them into this list for my own book launch https://github.com/sw-yx/launch-cheatsheet I'll be adding this one naturally

Very cool resource. Have you thought about adding the scale of the author's following and/or social media presence? For example, this story's author has 21,000 followers on Twitter, and a successful blog. Another example is 200k in sales https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23502770 where the self-publishing author admitted that practically all sales were due to 35,000 Twitter followers. Have you come across an examp…

Here’s one example of a successful launch with almost no followers: https://twitter.com/dvassallo/status/1260964674561953792?s=2...

Re: Writing a software book and making over $100k

#67

Post by dhosek »

pc86 wrote: post #65
teddyuk wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've just signed a contract to write a book and I get an advance and then 10% (goes up to 12/15% if more are sold). One major reason is that I am more likely to finish it and get it done than if I rely on it myself. Another reason is that I want to be known for one niche, this will help and if that works out then I could likely self-publish and keep more of the profit. It is slightly more nuanced than I want as much…

Does the 10% go against your advance or does it start immediately?

An advance is, just what it sounds, an advance payment on royalties. Publishing, unlike film/tv or music generally doesn't play games with royalties, so, if the book sells, once you've earned enough royalties to cover the advance you will get additional earnings.

Re: Writing a software book and making over $100k

#68

Post by jashmenn »

These numbers are possible and repeatable. I've made over $100k on software books at least 7 separate times [1].

If you're going to try to do this, the key idea is to build an audience e.g. an email list. You need to budget 50% of your time to writing the book and 50% of your time to blogging/promoting the content.

There's basically three key aspects to making $100k on a programming book:

1. Market - is the topic broad enough to sell $100k in copies?

Weak market: Build an Adblocker with Clojure on Arduino

Strong market: Complete Guide to D3

2. Offering + guarantee - what does the student get when they buy?

Weak offering: my 200-page pdf

Strong offering: my 400+page pdf/epub/mobi, 2 hours of video intro, invite to community chat, interviews with experts, support, questions answered by the author, quizzes, and worksheets

3. Promotion Effort

Weak promotion: posting 3 times to medium

Strong promotion: writing remarkable content, posting weekly, creating downloadable resources, collecting emails - launching to an email list of 10k-100k+

When you hear someone say, "you can't make money in programming books" run their strategy through the filter above. It's no wonder most folks don't make much money, because doing it right is hard.

It can take months to build an email list of 10k, but that's how the game works.

[shameless self plug]

If you're thinking about creating a programming book or a course, this is what I do and I'd love to chat. See here: https://www.newline.co/write-with-us

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17015117

Re: Writing a software book and making over $100k

#69

Post by dhosek »

hohenheim wrote: post #20
vladmihalcea wrote: post #2

I'm the book author, so if you have any questions, let me know.

You mentioned publishers leave you with 10% of the sales. I can't wrap my head around that, how is that possible and acceptable by authors?

It's worth noting that the 10% vs 80/95% figures are comparing different totals. For a traditional publisher, the 10% is against the price of the book (depending on the contract this might be against cover price or against the price the publisher actually receives from the wholesaler). It's not, like the self-publishing platforms, the percentage of net profit after costs like printing etc.

Re: Writing a software book and making over $100k

#70

Post by JKCalhoun »

hohenheim wrote: post #20
vladmihalcea wrote: post #2

I'm the book author, so if you have any questions, let me know.

You mentioned publishers leave you with 10% of the sales. I can't wrap my head around that, how is that possible and acceptable by authors?

I thought 15% was the industry standard. But yeah, that's how it acceptable: it's the industry standard.

At one time publishers did all the advertising and actually "publishing" (printing). They also took the risk of course.

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