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That’s pretty great! I sold 1000 on the first day ( http://catonmat.net/awk-book ).
Please tell us about your marketing and strategy. I'm amazed awk can shift so many.
I'm also finding (with "Digital Vegan") that independent ebooks are much better cash creators than paper sales. Brexit is killing me - I can't sell paper outside the UK any more.
That’s pretty great! I sold 1000 on the first day ( http://catonmat.net/awk-book ).
> I sold 1000 on the first day Please tell us about your marketing and strategy. I'm amazed awk can shift so many. I'm also finding (with "Digital Vegan") that independent ebooks are much better cash creators than paper sales. Brexit is killing me - I can't sell paper outside the UK any more.
What is this down to? Export regulations? Could you use print on demand or something instead?
640 copies ought to be enough for anyone:) Congratulations, anyway.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I sold 1000 on the first day Please tell us about your marketing and strategy. I'm amazed awk can shift so many. I'm also finding (with "Digital Vegan") that independent ebooks are much better cash creators than paper sales. Brexit is killing me - I can't sell paper outside the UK any more.
> I can't sell paper outside the UK any more. What is this down to? Export regulations? Could you use print on demand or something instead?
For example, many distributors won't take on business with publishers with less than 5 or 10 titles. Mine has 3, so is considered a "vanity press". Coordinating POD internationally is a PITA. So I use a smallish UK POD (Great British Bookshop) of my current project, and hold a few dozen myself mainly for mailing out to reviewers and press. Also, lots of distributors still operate on "store and forward", which means holding litho-printed stock (runs of 500+). I just can't be doing with that in 2022!
I also recorded an audio [1] version, which has had precisely zero sales AFAICT, mainly because I have no idea how to break that market.
Any podcasters here wanna give it a listen? shoot me a message, cheers.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I sold 1000 on the first day Please tell us about your marketing and strategy. I'm amazed awk can shift so many. I'm also finding (with "Digital Vegan") that independent ebooks are much better cash creators than paper sales. Brexit is killing me - I can't sell paper outside the UK any more.
> I can't sell paper outside the UK any more. What is this down to? Export regulations? Could you use print on demand or something instead?
> What is this down to?
Probably producing locally and then exporting is prohibitively expensive.
My own experience convinces me there are many extra benefits to having written a book. My first book has been out for 4.5 years now. I know many people on Hacker News have read it and I'm grateful to all of you.I've enjoyed getting emails about it. Especially regarding "badly managed startups" and "abusive bosses" many of you have reached out to share similar stories. Maybe at some point I'll do a blog post that coll…
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…
That’s a weird thing to say, academic careers revolve around writing. On the other hand, their output isn’t in book form nor aimed at more general audiences. They do author some books sometimes, but maybe more like textbooks. There is a lot of “write what will sell” thought that goes into being a successful author, academics are less immune to that (they still have to do research that will sell to funding agencies and write papers that they can “sell” to peer reviewers).
I was asked to write book (for commercial selling) awhile ago and during exploration found the process a bit off putting (ultimately decided I didn’t really have anything to contribute). I began to look at a lot of books on the shelve in the programming section in a very different mode cynical light afterwards, a lot of books were equivalent to clickbait (timely on hot topics, but of very low quality and not contributing much to the field). There are still gems, but a reader has to be very discerning these days and not buy on title alone.
I enjoy academic papers more, but even in a highly rated conference proceedings, you have to watch out for academic clickbait.
My own experience convinces me there are many extra benefits to having written a book. My first book has been out for 4.5 years now. I know many people on Hacker News have read it and I'm grateful to all of you.I've enjoyed getting emails about it. Especially regarding "badly managed startups" and "abusive bosses" many of you have reached out to share similar stories. Maybe at some point I'll do a blog post that coll…
Which book is this?
Apart from that, very informative.