Adventures in Self Publishing • Hacker News Board

Re: Adventures in Self Publishing

#11

Post by Throwaway3rdSep » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 1:12 PM UTC

I self-published a programming book a while ago, and it brings in about $700 per month. I didn't see the big initial spike the OP did (shame), but the money has been consistent, and I would expect it to continue for several years.

Total start-up costs: $150 (proof copies etc.)

We're lucky as programmers that we tend to be able to wrangle LaTeX, and some of us have taste in typography and an ability to write decent prose. This means that the up-front cost of editors, typesetters, cover designers and so on is gone.

The disadvantages compared with my previous (real) publisher are a) no advance and b) no marketing and c) paying for translations to be done. Everything else has been an advantage.

When someone buys my book on Amazon for $35 I get $21. No traditional publisher can beat that.

Re: Adventures in Self Publishing

#12

Post by zrail » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 1:16 PM UTC

Throwaway3rdSep wrote: post #11

I self-published a programming book a while ago, and it brings in about $700 per month. I didn't see the big initial spike the OP did (shame), but the money has been consistent, and I would expect it to continue for several years. Total start-up costs: $150 (proof copies etc.) We're lucky as programmers that we tend to be able to wrangle LaTeX, and some of us have taste in typography and an ability to write decent pr…

That's awesome, congratulations!

> no marketing

That's definitely been the biggest learning component of this project. Having to do all of the marketing myself has been eye opening and very instructional.

Re: Adventures in Self Publishing

#13

Post by robomartin » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 1:18 PM UTC

zrail wrote: post #6

casca wrote: post #4

A writer pointed out to me that writing a book is very similar to building a tech startup. The hours are long, it's critical to build a strong platform and there are the same swings from despair to elation. Additional data points are always very much appreciated and it's very good of the author to release his tools and methods for others to learn from. Of course, the $5k in 2 weeks doesn't account for the time it too…

Yeah, definitely the $5k in two weeks doesn't include the development time. I figure I broke even on the writing when it hit $7k, but it's definitely not any kind of substitute for a full time salary.

Great work!

How much of the book is useful (probably wrong word choice) if the reader does not know Rails?

Re: Adventures in Self Publishing

#14

Post by casca » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 1:20 PM UTC

zrail wrote: post #6

casca wrote: post #4

A writer pointed out to me that writing a book is very similar to building a tech startup. The hours are long, it's critical to build a strong platform and there are the same swings from despair to elation. Additional data points are always very much appreciated and it's very good of the author to release his tools and methods for others to learn from. Of course, the $5k in 2 weeks doesn't account for the time it too…

Yeah, definitely the $5k in two weeks doesn't include the development time. I figure I broke even on the writing when it hit $7k, but it's definitely not any kind of substitute for a full time salary.

Would you mind telling us how long it took you to write? The impression I get is that people routinely underestimate how long good writing takes by orders of magnitude.

Thanks again for publishing this.

Re: Adventures in Self Publishing

#15

Post by rly_ItsMe » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 1:20 PM UTC

it_kraut wrote: post #8

hmmm, 2 weeks => 8 work hrs. per day. 5000$:80hrs. = 62,50$ 1 $ = 0,7592$ = 47,4479€ = 47,45€ ---------------- total: 3796€ in two weeks. 50€ per hr. is a german student designer/programmer (first uni year) price. nothing special. the most work for 70-120,00€ p. hour.

> 50€ per hr. is a german student designer/programmer (first uni year) price.

I've definitely doubts about that price for a german first semester student. As a student in first semester you'll be a non payed trainee in germany.

Re: Adventures in Self Publishing

#16

Post by Throwaway3rdSep » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 1:21 PM UTC

zrail wrote: post #12

Throwaway3rdSep wrote: post #11

I self-published a programming book a while ago, and it brings in about $700 per month. I didn't see the big initial spike the OP did (shame), but the money has been consistent, and I would expect it to continue for several years. Total start-up costs: $150 (proof copies etc.) We're lucky as programmers that we tend to be able to wrangle LaTeX, and some of us have taste in typography and an ability to write decent pr…

That's awesome, congratulations! > no marketing That's definitely been the biggest learning component of this project. Having to do all of the marketing myself has been eye opening and very instructional.

You know that it's very easy to get your book on Amazon through their subsidiary CreateSpace, right? You already have the PDF... Also getting it into the kindle store is free and easy. If you're just selling the ebook on your website, you're missing a trick.

I haven't really done any marketing except for the initial announcements. Most people find it directly on Amazon, or find the website by searching for " book".

Re: Adventures in Self Publishing

#17

Post by zrail » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 1:22 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #13

zrail wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, definitely the $5k in two weeks doesn't include the development time. I figure I broke even on the writing when it hit $7k, but it's definitely not any kind of substitute for a full time salary.

Great work! How much of the book is useful (probably wrong word choice) if the reader does not know Rails?

I have had several people work through it and stumble at points because the book assumes quite a bit of rails knowledge. At some point I'm going to add content for beginners but that's probably a few months away.

Re: Adventures in Self Publishing

#18

Post by zrail » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 1:24 PM UTC

casca wrote: post #14

zrail wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, definitely the $5k in two weeks doesn't include the development time. I figure I broke even on the writing when it hit $7k, but it's definitely not any kind of substitute for a full time salary.

Would you mind telling us how long it took you to write? The impression I get is that people routinely underestimate how long good writing takes by orders of magnitude. Thanks again for publishing this.

Sure. 70 hours for the first draft and probably another 70 for the editing and revisions. I had the first draft done on July 1st, then spent two weeks editing before starting the preorders. I was developing the companion rails application at the same time so it's hard to get real numbers.

Re: Adventures in Self Publishing

#19

Post by noelwelsh » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 1:27 PM UTC

Nice article and great to read some additional validation of the Patio11/Nathan Barry playbook. A few things I'm interested to know:

- How many sales you got from this HN post?

- Have you received any consulting gigs from the book?

- How big did your mailing list get?

- Why aren't you collecting signups to your list from this blog post?!?!

Re: Adventures in Self Publishing

#20

Post by zrail » Tue, Sep 03, 2013, 1:30 PM UTC

Throwaway3rdSep wrote: post #16

zrail wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's awesome, congratulations! > no marketing That's definitely been the biggest learning component of this project. Having to do all of the marketing myself has been eye opening and very instructional.

You know that it's very easy to get your book on Amazon through their subsidiary CreateSpace, right? You already have the PDF... Also getting it into the kindle store is free and easy. If you're just selling the ebook on your website, you're missing a trick. I haven't really done any marketing except for the initial announcements. Most people find it directly on Amazon, or find the website by searching for " book".

I've briefly looked into it, sounds like I should probably look into it more. I was thinking about doing a limited print run through Lulu but that wouldn't really help with the marketing.

Thanks!