I self-published a learn-to-code book and made nearly $5k in pre-orders • Hacker News Board

Re: I self-published a learn-to-code book and made nearly $5k in pre-orders

#51

Post by limedaring » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:22 AM UTC

WalterGR wrote: post #49

limedaring wrote: post #2

Happy to answer any questions about the process of writing a book! It's been a surprisingly fun side-project that brings in some money too.

How many hours did you spend on the book to get to this point?

Urg, that might be impossible to estimate. Hundreds on the various tasks (writing, editing, designing, researching, etc.)

Re: I self-published a learn-to-code book and made nearly $5k in pre-orders

#52

Post by whitenoice » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:35 AM UTC

Congrats! How do you manage the inventory for hard copies? Like how many copies do you pre-order for printing? (Sorry I have no knowledge in this space)

Re: I self-published a learn-to-code book and made nearly $5k in pre-orders

#53

Post by alajarvela » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 5:39 AM UTC

The cover looks like it was formatted in CSS. Just kidding, congrats on the book :)

Re: I self-published a learn-to-code book and made nearly $5k in pre-orders

#54

Post by bencollier49 » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:04 AM UTC

darkmarmot wrote: post #46

dmlorenzetti wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Off-topic comment on Leanpub -- Judging from the "best sellers" list, you handle a lot of software-related titles. Yet the categories pulldown in the bookstore has only two obvious software-related topics: the rather specific "Agile", and the rather broad "Software". I wonder whether you might not help browsers discover books of interest, by providing more categories and sub-categories (e.g., distinguish programming…

I second this. Also you seem to have more erotic/unusual titles...

I think that's because vanity publishing is typically very popular amongst programming and "romance" authors.

Re: I self-published a learn-to-code book and made nearly $5k in pre-orders

#55

Post by kriro » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:17 AM UTC

limedaring wrote: post #23

peterarmstrong wrote: post #21

Congrats on your book! As a cofounder of Leanpub, I'm really happy that you enjoyed using our platform :) And yes, you can sell your Leanpub books wherever you want -- at Leanpub, authors own their work. Thanks for the suggestion regarding pre-orders. At some point we'll probably add this. It would have to coincide with our also adding store credit, so that we can give refunds to purchases that are older than 45 days…

Yay! Leanpub is my top recommendation for anyone self publishing a book, the platform is really great. Hope it gets even bigger!

It seems very geared towards non-fiction. Is there an equivalent for fiction writers or would you recommend going with them for fiction as well? The platform looks excellent but I'm not sure if it's the right fit. I love that they recommend exploring other options (excellent company philosophy)

Fantasy has one entry, scifi has no entries and fiction has a total of three entries.

Re: I self-published a learn-to-code book and made nearly $5k in pre-orders

#56

Post by WalterGR » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:17 AM UTC

limedaring wrote: post #51

WalterGR wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many hours did you spend on the book to get to this point?

Urg, that might be impossible to estimate. Hundreds on the various tasks (writing, editing, designing, researching, etc.)

Could you... round to the nearest hundred?

Re: I self-published a learn-to-code book and made nearly $5k in pre-orders

#57

Post by aladine » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 6:53 AM UTC

Great article. Congrats on your successful ebook and how you analyse sales through out different channels. I guess your next hacker news article will be like: "I published an article on hacker news of how I get nearly $5k in pre-orderes. And I got another $1k pre-order after the 10k visitors to my site. "

Re: I self-published a learn-to-code book and made nearly $5k in pre-orders

#58

Post by mdpopescu » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 7:04 AM UTC

kriro wrote: post #55

limedaring wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yay! Leanpub is my top recommendation for anyone self publishing a book, the platform is really great. Hope it gets even bigger!

It seems very geared towards non-fiction. Is there an equivalent for fiction writers or would you recommend going with them for fiction as well? The platform looks excellent but I'm not sure if it's the right fit. I love that they recommend exploring other options (excellent company philosophy) Fantasy has one entry, scifi has no entries and fiction has a total of three entries.

What's wrong with Amazon?

Re: I self-published a learn-to-code book and made nearly $5k in pre-orders

#59

Post by staticelf » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 7:05 AM UTC

Nice book, I will recommend it to my gf that I've been trying to introduce programming for. Your book seems like a good starting point.

Re: I self-published a learn-to-code book and made nearly $5k in pre-orders

#60

Post by avinassh » Wed, Jul 08, 2015, 7:06 AM UTC

limedaring wrote: post #2

Happy to answer any questions about the process of writing a book! It's been a surprisingly fun side-project that brings in some money too.

How many years of Django experience you had, before started writing this book? Does this book come with any example apps? Is that code available on Github?

Thanks for the sharing the numbers :)