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

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

#91

Post by limedaring »

walterbell wrote: post #86
limedaring wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean the code that's on Github (like the installation instructions) and not in the paperback? The install stuff is online because I highly suspect it'll need to be updated often, and I didn't want the book to go out of date quickly. Let me know if I misunderstood the question!

Yes, I was referring to the code on GitHub.

I'm assuming/hoping that most paperback readers will still have a computer in front of them when going through the book since it's a tutorial, so hopefully opening up the GitHub code isn't that much of an inconvenience. If they're ideally reading without a computer, then missing that chapter shouldn't be a problem.

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

#92

Post by gknoy »

limedaring wrote: post #33
jacalata wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how did you get to the point of writing a book on topics you didn't know about? I always thought the process was more like "well, I know this shit backwards in my sleep, I should write a book!"

It was more like having 50% of the book already known, and knowing that the book wouldn't be great without another 50% on top of it.

How did you find a subject that you felt you knew 50% about? :-) Given how much I've learned from other people, and the web, I have difficulty feeling like an _authority_ on any technical subject.

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

#93

Post by chrisgd »

bemmu wrote: post #48
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…

I've been using Leanpub to write my first ebook doing the "1000 words a day" thing for 2 weeks now. I thought I would see if I've learned enough from running Candy Japan to do a book on subscription boxes. It's been a really pleasant experience so far, although my chosen topic feels a bit broad, as it encompasses everything from running a website to marketing, shipping, packaging, curation, customer service etc. and…

Candy Japan looks very cool.

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

#94

Post by erikano »

kfk wrote: post #85
erikano wrote: post #77

Judging by the title, this book seems targeted at beginners. Nonetheless, I decided to buy it since I'm using Django in my current side project. I have a question (not related to my side project). I maintain a list of my eBook library where I put the following information about the eBooks I have (data for this book in parentheses): Publisher (Leanpub), Title (Hello Web App), Authors (Tracy Osborn), Published (), Purc…

So you have books that are - Not started reading, not finished reading, recommended. You are missing the "finished reading, but not recommended", don't you think? Or maybe I am reading things wrong.

I have now made a new label for eBooks I discourage and I also wrote a clarification about neutral books -- those without any legend. Thanks for pointing out this element of confusion.

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

#95

Post by erikano »

limedaring wrote: post #83
erikano wrote: post #77

Judging by the title, this book seems targeted at beginners. Nonetheless, I decided to buy it since I'm using Django in my current side project. I have a question (not related to my side project). I maintain a list of my eBook library where I put the following information about the eBooks I have (data for this book in parentheses): Publisher (Leanpub), Title (Hello Web App), Authors (Tracy Osborn), Published (), Purc…

2015-05-04 would be the published date.

Ok, thanks :) Just to confirm, though, that's May 2015, right? (And not the 5th of April 2015.)

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

#96

Post by limedaring »

gknoy wrote: post #92
limedaring wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was more like having 50% of the book already known, and knowing that the book wouldn't be great without another 50% on top of it.

How did you find a subject that you felt you knew 50% about? :-) Given how much I've learned from other people, and the web, I have difficulty feeling like an _authority_ on any technical subject.

I think beginner books are easier to get to that 50%. The subject I'm teaching really isn't that hard, it just needs to be explained differently.

So, that said - maybe it's not feeling like an authority, but more feeling like you have an alternate/interesting/different take on a subject.

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

#99

Post by peterarmstrong »

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.

We want to improve our support for fiction a lot in the months ahead. We're mostly computer programming books right now because Leanpub used to be so hard to use you needed to be a programmer to figure it out :) Most programmers already know Markdown, whereas the idea that you should write in something other than Word is something that we need to explain to people, and that opportunity only comes with traction.

To support fiction properly, we need to add support for paying for instalments, so that you can buy a chapter at a time, etc. Serial fiction used to be a big deal in the 1860s, and it should be a bigger deal now because of the internet.

Also, we're working on a new version of our in-browser editor which will be more friendly for people who don't like writing in Markdown -- which probably includes many fiction authors...

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

#100

Post by peterarmstrong »

jtwebman wrote: post #44
peterarmstrong wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very good point. Adding to backlog :)

It is nice to see people from the tools we use daily watch Hacker News and actually listen to what we talk about. Thank you and I will be using you guys for my first book on Functional Programming soon!

Great! Brian Marick's book on Functional Programming (https://leanpub.com/fp-oo) has done really well; looking forward to seeing more of them!
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