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I sold 640 copies of my book in one year

nts.strzibny.name

51–60 of 78 posts

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

#51

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.

I simply wrote several blog posts and turned them into a pdf book. My blog has 100,000 subscribers. I didn’t have to do anything else.

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

#52

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.

There was no marketing strategy. I wrote blog posts then merged them into a pdf and announced the book. My blog has 100,000 subscribers.

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

#53

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/ )

The main tradeoff for me is that--rightly or not--going through a major publisher confers some prestige and Good Housekeeping seal of approval in the minds of a lot of people. So, if you're doing a book for reputational purposes rather than cash, that can be a consideration.

I've done it both ways. But if I do more, at this point in my career, they'll probably just be relatively short ebooks.

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

#54

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…

> Each book you write, if researched from scratch, is kinda equivalent to a PhD.

That's an interesting perspective. A PhD Thesis is basically a book length manifestation of original work. Which should apply to any book worth publishing, too.

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

#56
Amazing! Niche tech books definitely have a market in them. I wrote a generic "teach yourself to program" self-help book and sold ~100 copies my first year.

Started with 0 audience, 0 idea of how to write a book and ended up turning it into a fairly sizable newsletter (1k+) and made a couple grand for my month or two of time spent.

I wish I knew much more about self-publishing when I published it, but for my second book, I'm very prepared this time around and have strategies to help it perform better that I got from a book called "Published".

https://www.amazon.com/Published-Proven-Blank-Published-Auth...

I think the real challenge of self-publishing is advertising, marketing, and simply getting your name out there. The writing part is fairly easy!

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

#57

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 na…

RE [1]: very interesting. Thx for the heads-up about this. I found this related anncoucement, https://www.bic.org.uk/files/pdfs/Press%20Releases/Press%20R... which says the replacement will be the Thema scheme: https://ns.editeur.org/thema/en

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

#58
I always love transparency like this from authors, thanks for sharing!

This line resonated way too much with me: "Initially, I thought five months might be enough for me to write it, but the scope quickly grew, and the progress was slow."

Somehow, even though I've been writing for years now, I consistently underestimate the scope and time commitment of every writing project, even after attempting to adjust for my tendency to underestimate.

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

#59

I always love transparency like this from authors, thanks for sharing! This line resonated way too much with me: "Initially, I thought five months might be enough for me to write it, but the scope quickly grew, and the progress was slow." Somehow, even though I've been writing for years now, I consistently underestimate the scope and time commitment of every writing project, even after attempting to adjust for my ten…

My first book took me four years. That was too long, so with my second book, I aimed to get it done in two years. It took me six, instead. Estimation is hard.

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

#60
post #30

There's a graph with 3 items per time period and no legend. And nothing about profit vs revenue really, how much did each book cost vs profit? Apart from that, very informative.

The net profit is dependent on me paying taxes, social security, and insurance. Since I also program it's hard to say exactly how much net it is. Gumroad fees are explained on their site[0]. There were no ad costs. If I should pay my time as a business, it would be a loss. [0] https://gumroad.com/pricing

I deliberately haven't been tracking my time spent writing my book because it would be super depressing to see an hourly rate less than minimum wage. But without knowing that number it's still super exciting to get an email saying I sold a copy, and to see a payment arrive every month. It's like free money!
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