Sad. I did $403k last month as an independent writer. All analog publishing. None of it from KDP. Be careful what advice you listen to.
What are your books about? Fiction or non- ?
Why to Not Write a Book
21–30 of 215 posts
Re: Why to Not Write a Book
#22Maybe just me, but authors gravitate towards certain formats that fit them. Oscar Wilde did great with Dorian Grey but it was nothing compared to his plays. Imagining J.K. Rowling writing a blog feels wrong. I get Gwern's perspective, I'm not sure if I would read a gwern.net book... but on the flip side Randall Munroe (XKCD) has a couple of great books. So who knows?
I'm pretty sure she has written blog posts. Maybe you can claim they don't fit some technical definition but I have vague recollections of a quite large number of blog-like writings.
Re: Why to Not Write a Book
#23>I suspect that if many writers took seriously writing a book as a real project, rather than an aspirational cultural ideal of ‘being an author’ along the lines of ‘being a foreign language speaker’ or ‘being a PhD’, they would realize that it is a serious risk which can backfire.
Ha, I feel called out. I'm in the latter camp, I was always terrible at languages as a kid and it was part of the reason I decided to move to Finland and learn Finnish as an adult. 1000+ hours in and I"m still nowhere close to my goals.
I wouldn't recommend it for most halfway sane cost-benefit analyses - my ballpark number is I've forgone some $200,000 and counting in opportunity cost. (I still feel like I'm coming out on net is because it also allowed me to marry the world's greatest woman, and to heal a bunch of deep psychological issues. Assuming you don't have those, stay far away!)
Re: Why to Not Write a Book
#24On the flip side, converting my tutorials to ebooks saved me from having to look for a job again. Been selling them for 6 years (with the last two years spent just to update them to newer software versions, improve examples, new cover images, etc). Of course, I have the advantage of living in a developing country but selling to an international audience (just $200/month to pay my bills).
Re: Why to Not Write a Book
#25Why not just make an EPUB version of your website?
Yeah, and then why not just print it and put it in a cover? I don’t really understand the problem, honestly. The post doesn’t seem to be about writing a book, it seems to be about the Book as a concept that holds sentimental value to the author.
Yeah but what’s the point in that really? The website exists for anyone who wants it already. It’s not a book.
Re: Why to Not Write a Book
#26See, I am torn on this article. On the one hand, I am probably the target audience. I have much better things to focus on, but I cannot get the idea of having a novel(la) written out of my head. On the other, I have no stories to tell which would not be rather told in a short story/poem form. In short, yes but no but yes.
Re: Why to Not Write a Book
#27>I suspect that if many writers took seriously writing a book as a real project, rather than an aspirational cultural ideal of ‘being an author’ along the lines of ‘being a foreign language speaker’ or ‘being a PhD’, they would realize that it is a serious risk which can backfire. Ha, I feel called out. I'm in the latter camp, I was always terrible at languages as a kid and it was part of the reason I decided to move…
“I decided to move to Finland and learn Finnish as an adult”
Amazing move but you’ve not made it very easy for yourself given the huge difficulty in mastering the most mind-bending of European languages. Doubly difficult with the very high English fluency of all the locals. Hope you’re enjoying the Fazer!
Re: Why to Not Write a Book
#28I found a families, great grandfather’s memoirs while doing their estate. I realized with the family all gone and there were few in his class with the education to speak of early American life so I published it and illustrated the e-book. https://books2read.com/A-young-Mans-Adventures-In-19th-Centu...
Thank you for taking the time to do that. I'm sure if they were alive they would appreciate it. I went ahead and bought a copy and have read a few pages before passing out tonight. I'll read more tomorrow.
Re: Why to Not Write a Book
#29So curious who the anonymous example is
If he's really into chaff generation it might be be him. Or a fictional version of him, because your examples don't have to be real if you're posting online under an alias.
Re: Why to Not Write a Book
#30Sad. I did $403k last month as an independent writer. All analog publishing. None of it from KDP. Be careful what advice you listen to.
That's great for you. But the average full time author of books in the UK earned below minimum wage a few years ago, and that's fairly typical for developed countries. It's a profession that very heavily skews towards a tiny proportion of top earners.