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I sold 640 copies of my book in one year

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

#41

Post by strzibny »

osel wrote: post #6

As one of your 640 customers - thank you! Having a lightweight reference for simple things that I only do occasionally is a godsend and a massive time saving. I can dive into Deployment from Scratch and tweak something that needs updating, or even deploy a new system in less time than it takes me to lookup and parse/refresh my knowledge from the actual documentation on most topics. And even if I do need to refer to t…

Thanks a lot for supporting my work. I am happy you like it. Would you consider making a testimonial? In a way what you just wrote here, reads like one.

Send me an email or Twitter DM at @strzibnyj with a name and personal/company link and title if you up to it. It would make me very happy.

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

#42

Post by strzibny »

lkrubner wrote: post #8

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…

Thanks for sharing. It's great that you are still able to sell after such a long time.

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

#43

Post by mhaberl »

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/ )

I like the landing page for the book (is that the right name for it?) except one detail and I wonder if it done so purposely - I don't see any any info about the book (file) format. I assume it is only available as an e-book.

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

#44

Post by strzibny »

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…

Thanks a lot and for sharing your inspiring story :)

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

#46

Post by empiricus »

bencollier49 wrote: post #23
nonrandomstring wrote: post #21

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?

I (living in EU) brought some RPi hats from some UK online store. DHL asked me to to print/sign/scan several docs, complete multiple forms, etc, and make a separate VAT payment. The process took almost two weeks.

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

#47

Post by scoot »

strzibny wrote: post #35
pkrumins wrote: post #16

That’s pretty great! I sold 1000 on the first day ( http://catonmat.net/awk-book ).

That's crazy good! But would be better if you also submit a story how you came to create and market it.

He did. It's what the linked post describes.

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

#48

Post by rwieruch »

Congrats! I never counted my sales for different periods of time, because I always felt the feedback is what counts the most to have a long tail of sales. If the feedback is positive, the sales will go on. So I rather focused on this aspect, but it seems to go well for you from the feedback side as well :)

I too released my first self-published book The Road to React on HN (initial in wrong English "The Road to learn React" haha) a few years ago and the community helped tremendously to get this project off the ground. Thanks to all of you! And I wish your success continues too :)

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

#50

Post by kylegalbraith »

Well done and thanks for sharing your experience. Having written my own book a few years ago I can truly say job well done and congrats on a huge milestone. It's no small feat. As you hint in the blog post, writing a book is a full time job to get it done and also requires working a second full time job to pump up the marketing around it.

Then, once it's out in the world, comes the job of maintaining it and keeping the momentum high. A slog to say the least and often times very demotivating. So, from one author and self publisher to another, congratulations! You should be proud of your success.

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