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Lessons learned from a year as a self-published author

blog.leanpub.com

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Re: Lessons learned from a year as a self-published author

#31

Post by peterarmstrong »

teh_klev wrote: post #27

Well done Josh, this looks like a book I'm going to pony up for on pay day. How did you manage the editorial, proof reading and technical review aspects of the book? Do LeanPub provide these services or do you do this yourself, if so how?

Authors do this themselves on Leanpub. But the thing is, readers of the in-progress book actually end up providing a lot of that in many cases, by providing feedback to the author via email, Disqus or Twitter. (Development and technical editors function as proxies for readers. We've found that readers also do a good job of that!)

[Leanpub cofounder here]

Re: Lessons learned from a year as a self-published author

#32

Post by lenepp »

poopsintub wrote: post #23
thejteam wrote: post #13

Does anybody have any experience with selling books like this outside of the software realm? By which I mean publishing beta books as you go or bundling other resources. and charging a premium. It seems to be something that the software community finds acceptable, but does this extend to other fields? Non-fiction or fiction.

I'm not sure how you would have a beta version of a fiction book. That would be like selling jumbled ideas. I have a friend whose mother just released her first book on amazon and I believe Barnes and Noble. It sat up next to Koontz on the amazon best selling new releases for the first few days in that category. She put it on sale for $.99 as a new release, then I assume, will raise the price to $2 or $3 eventually.…

"I'm not sure how you would have a beta version of a fiction book. That would be like selling jumbled ideas."

I know what you mean, though I'd like to point out that there is a serious and successful historical precedent for the publication of unfinished fiction: serial publishing (the way big novels used to be published, cf. Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Dickens, et al). Novelists would publish chapter-by-chapter, before finishing the whole thing, and would even change their plans for their novels in response to feedback from the public.

Now, of course for novels published serially, people do expect that at least each published chapter is finished when it is published, and is not a draft subject to change. However, as a former academic type, I find reading early drafts to be fascinating and meaningful; watching the jumble untangle is an exciting process. I've spent a lot of time reading early drafts of poems, and comparing how different versions of the same work are published by the author over time.

(btw I work at Leanpub)

Re: Lessons learned from a year as a self-published author

#33

Post by peterarmstrong »

gadders wrote: post #24

I think LeanPub needs to work on how it categorises its books. Most seem to be software but are showing up under weird categories like Fitness.

Authors categorize their books themselves. Using the wrong category is presumably a mistake in autocomplete...

Re: Lessons learned from a year as a self-published author

#34

Post by caseysoftware »

wikwocket wrote: post #22

I have seen a lot of articles like this pop up recently. I'm curious; do people think that any given software guy or other specialist can just decide to launch a book based on their domain knowledge, and have a shot at success like this? Or are these all the self-selected outliers, the minority of self-publishers that actually make a buck and so decide to blog about it instead of quietly abandoning the project? I've…

I'm three chapters into a book with a co-author now.. and there's a huge gap between having an outline and being able to publish something. Before that, there's a huge gap between having an idea and having an outline. Before that, there's a huge gap between having the skills and having the confidence to actually sketch out the idea.

I think authors are by default outliers within outliers within outliers..

Re: Lessons learned from a year as a self-published author

#35

Post by peterarmstrong »

lenepp wrote: post #32
poopsintub wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure how you would have a beta version of a fiction book. That would be like selling jumbled ideas. I have a friend whose mother just released her first book on amazon and I believe Barnes and Noble. It sat up next to Koontz on the amazon best selling new releases for the first few days in that category. She put it on sale for $.99 as a new release, then I assume, will raise the price to $2 or $3 eventually.…

"I'm not sure how you would have a beta version of a fiction book. That would be like selling jumbled ideas." I know what you mean, though I'd like to point out that there is a serious and successful historical precedent for the publication of unfinished fiction: serial publishing (the way big novels used to be published, cf. Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, Dickens, et al). Novelists would publish chapter-by-chapter, before fi…

I talk about this at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozO0kOnqmyA#t=935 ... The serial publishing bit starts at 14:03

Re: Lessons learned from a year as a self-published author

#36

Post by kalid »

thejteam wrote: post #13

Does anybody have any experience with selling books like this outside of the software realm? By which I mean publishing beta books as you go or bundling other resources. and charging a premium. It seems to be something that the software community finds acceptable, but does this extend to other fields? Non-fiction or fiction.

I have a self-published math book, more details here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=870015

It began as a beta, then a full PDF + supplement package, then a video course a year later. I'm currently working on a calculus series.

I'm not sure how it'd work with fiction (author interviews maybe?) but for non-fiction I think it can work well.

Re: Lessons learned from a year as a self-published author

#37

Post by YvesHanoulle »

carlmcqueen wrote: post #9

I find it more refreshing to read success stories of $16,920.12 rather than $250,000 on my first book success stories. Perhaps it comes from the fear of the 'I know a guy who...' stories that you hear as an anecdote why someone who really shouldn't take a huge risk is about to take one. Congratulations on your first book, hopefully the lessons learned will lead to continued success with future endeavors.

that is another cool thing of Leanpub. if you go to lean pub.com you can see how much money they have paid to all their authors in total: Currently it says:

Authors have made $1,130,454 selling their books on Leanpub — $91,438 in the last 30 days.

Re: Lessons learned from a year as a self-published author

#38

Post by YvesHanoulle »

sergiotapia wrote: post #6
pmtarantino wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what about epub or mobi files?

I think they do them to, but I never use them because I don't read programming books on anything other than my PC since I keep the book and the code side by side.

why won't PDF then won't work for you?

Re: Lessons learned from a year as a self-published author

#39

Post by steveklabnik »

teh_klev wrote: post #26
nonrecursive wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like what you might be asking is - it worth it to risk taking the time and effort to write a book? I'm going through the process right now, so maybe my thoughts can help. I'm writing a free online book, "Clojure for the Brave and True" ( http://www.braveclojure.com/ ), that has been picked up by No Starch. A couple of the chapters, "Start Using Emacs" and "Functional Programming" have done pretty well here…

Just curious about this: "I've made about $1k on leanpub so far for the unfinished book (ebook buyers will get the full No Starch ebook when it's ready)." What happens if you burn out and decide you can't finish the book? Do people get their money back or did they pay less for a beta/unfinished copy and accept that this is what they're paying for?

As someone who has been writing an ebook for over a year, I've found that people are pretty appreciative when you say "Hey, I need some time off due to burnout on this book."

I don't sell through LeanPub, though.

Re: Lessons learned from a year as a self-published author

#40

Post by steveklabnik »

thejteam wrote: post #13

Does anybody have any experience with selling books like this outside of the software realm? By which I mean publishing beta books as you go or bundling other resources. and charging a premium. It seems to be something that the software community finds acceptable, but does this extend to other fields? Non-fiction or fiction.

You're going to want to go read every post on http://jakonrath.blogspot.com/
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