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I sold 640 copies of my book in one year

nts.strzibny.name

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Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year

#11

Post by nonrandomstring »

Well done. That's a respectable number of sales for your first year!

The economics of self publishing is interesting. When I think back on my first book I count at least 5 years research that enabled me to be able to write it, 3 years writing it and then many years selling the thing around industry. By a pessimistic account I was about £500k down :) Like you, the first year I sold about 500. Unlike online fulfilment today, I spent that time stuffing envelopes, staring at a slowly shrinking pile of boxes in the corner of my study, printing labels, with occasional trips to the post-office. It was actually work, and many times I thought 'this is crazy'. It doubled for two more years until dealing with the orders actually became too much (while doing a "real job").

On the other hand, it got me a string of well paying jobs, established me as the go-to consultant in a niche, invitations to talk and teach all around the world, and basically transformed my career. So putting a "net profit" number to it seems unfathomable. Each book you write, if researched from scratch, is kinda equivalent to a PhD.

What happened next is that I sold the title, from my own publishing company to a large publisher (MIT). Publishers don't take many risks these days, but they will buy a book that already has reasonable number of sales as a going concern. The advantage is that all mechanics and business is suddenly off your hands. Without an advance to pay back you then have a modest income stream and time to write the next book.

Another effect of being a semi-professional writer, as a side gig, is that other people want to pay you to edit, typeset, and review works. Learning LaTeX and various markups and text processing tools has been a huge gift. That can be quite fun if you're in a vibrant field that genuinely interests you. And you don't have to be associated with academia or a big-name institution for that to work. In fact I'd say that academics these days never have time for writing and that most other successful authors I know are independent.

I hope your book takes off even more, but right now I think you can count 600 sales in the first year as a definite success!

Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year

#12

Post by smilespray »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #11

Well done. That's a respectable number of sales for your first year! The economics of self publishing is interesting. When I think back on my first book I count at least 5 years research that enabled me to be able to write it, 3 years writing it and then many years selling the thing around industry. By a pessimistic account I was about £500k down :) Like you, the first year I sold about 500. Unlike online fulfilment…

I just bought your sound design book. Looks very interesting!

Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year

#13

Post by [deleted] »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #11

Well done. That's a respectable number of sales for your first year! The economics of self publishing is interesting. When I think back on my first book I count at least 5 years research that enabled me to be able to write it, 3 years writing it and then many years selling the thing around industry. By a pessimistic account I was about £500k down :) Like you, the first year I sold about 500. Unlike online fulfilment…

[deleted]

Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year

#14

Post by reitzensteinm »

nonrandomstring wrote: post #11

Well done. That's a respectable number of sales for your first year! The economics of self publishing is interesting. When I think back on my first book I count at least 5 years research that enabled me to be able to write it, 3 years writing it and then many years selling the thing around industry. By a pessimistic account I was about £500k down :) Like you, the first year I sold about 500. Unlike online fulfilment…

Oh hey, I own that book! It felt to me like SICP for sound.

I'm curious what kind of projects it led to you consulting for?

Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year

#15

Post by markwisde »

I sold around 300 in my first year (which ended recently), which is much less than the other book I wrote via my publisher. Yet, even though it is sold at a lesser price, my self-published book made almost more money. This is essentially because the percentage I make on every sales with my publisher is really low (10%). So for my next book, I'll self publish as well.

(the book btw https://securityhandbook.io/)

Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year

#18

Post by nonrandomstring »

reitzensteinm wrote: post #14
nonrandomstring wrote: post #11

Well done. That's a respectable number of sales for your first year! The economics of self publishing is interesting. When I think back on my first book I count at least 5 years research that enabled me to be able to write it, 3 years writing it and then many years selling the thing around industry. By a pessimistic account I was about £500k down :) Like you, the first year I sold about 500. Unlike online fulfilment…

Oh hey, I own that book! It felt to me like SICP for sound. I'm curious what kind of projects it led to you consulting for?

> It felt to me like SICP for sound.

As a lisper at heart (amateur Racketeer) who had SICP as my grad text that's the nicest complement imaginable. Thank you so much.

> I'm curious what kind of projects it led to you consulting for?

Creative media, games, interactive sound software mostly.

Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year

#20

Post by nonrandomstring »

markwisde wrote: post #15

I sold around 300 in my first year (which ended recently), which is much less than the other book I wrote via my publisher. Yet, even though it is sold at a lesser price, my self-published book made almost more money. This is essentially because the percentage I make on every sales with my publisher is really low (10%). So for my next book, I'll self publish as well. (the book btw https://securityhandbook.io/ )

Awesome, a really pithy and down to earth workaday style that complements the exhaustive tomes like Ross Anderson's.

What I've found so important is knowing your keywords and making sure your work is associated with the right BIC/BIS Subject Category Codes [1]

"Security Engineering" (a much better term imho) has a lesser impact in academic sales than "Ethical Hacking" and "Cybersecurity" because of how courses are named, and therefore how graduates and recruiters think of the skill namespace. Make sure you get coverage on all the terms adjacent to yours.

[1] I hear they are being replaced by a new international standard in 2023, so it's a dynamic area for authors to be aware of - kinda SEO for writers.

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