Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which book is this?
How To Destroy A Tech Startup In Three Easy Steps. See my profile page.
That's an amazing title!
I sold 640 copies of my book in one year
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Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year
#72Before I got into writing novels I had a small publishing business centered around books for magicians. I started this when James Randi off-hand mentioned to me that every magic book sold at least 300 copies because there were that many diehard collectors out there who bought everything.
I figured that if my break even was at or below 300 units I could put out two or so titles a year and not worry about going into debt. At the time a $40 book earned about $16 wholesale. Cost of printing was ~$3. I’d usually sell 200 copies directly ($7,400) and another 500 to wholesalers ($6,500.)
It averaged out to about $15,000 per book a year….but then the books kept selling year after year. Some made me over $250,000 in a ten year period. I hadn’t factored in for the long tail - which made it even more lucrative.
There are much better opportunities than publishing, but there’s some money to be made if you understand the actual addressable audience and have a passion for it.
Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year
#73I bought your book. I am just starting out as a backend developer. Titles like these are badly needed. But your book needs a lot more polish. There were typos in a lot of places. Also it would have been great if you could cover Ubuntu. It's a lot of effort to map fedora commands to that.
Finally, compared to what you are charging for your book, The Unix and Linux System Administrator's Handbook costs 60 USD, covers way more, in better detail, and has much better presentation. The advantage your product should have is much more focus on backend deployments but it falls short in the quality of coverage and by extension, ease of use (for newbs).
Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year
#74Have you considered pursing public speaking? Having a book helps a lot to get your foot in the door for conferences. I'm acquaintances with a few authors and the bulk of their income is from speaking.
Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year
#75Have you considered pursing public speaking? Having a book helps a lot to get your foot in the door for conferences. I'm acquaintances with a few authors and the bulk of their income is from speaking.
I only ever did 2 conference speaks (not related to the book). I might prepare a talk that's relevant and promote the book this way. It's certainly something that crossed my mind.
Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year
#76I bought your book. I am just starting out as a backend developer. Titles like these are badly needed. But your book needs a lot more polish. There were typos in a lot of places. Also it would have been great if you could cover Ubuntu. It's a lot of effort to map fedora commands to that. Finally, compared to what you are charging for your book, The Unix and Linux System Administrator's Handbook costs 60 USD, covers w…
Thank you for your feedback.
I don't want to compare myself to a 1232 pages-long book. I am sorry you found some typos, the book will certainly get more polish and updates (I include lifetime updates in the price).
My price is $50 because it's not just book. There are demonstrations that you can run and that can save you way more money than $50. I am considering a PDF-only offer for less.
If you have some specific suggestions for me I welcome your feedback. You can write me an email or DM me at @strzibnyj on Twitter.
Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year
#77I bought your book. I am just starting out as a backend developer. Titles like these are badly needed. But your book needs a lot more polish. There were typos in a lot of places. Also it would have been great if you could cover Ubuntu. It's a lot of effort to map fedora commands to that. Finally, compared to what you are charging for your book, The Unix and Linux System Administrator's Handbook costs 60 USD, covers w…
Thank you for your feedback. I don't want to compare myself to a 1232 pages-long book. I am sorry you found some typos, the book will certainly get more polish and updates (I include lifetime updates in the price). My price is $50 because it's not just book. There are demonstrations that you can run and that can save you way more money than $50. I am considering a PDF-only offer for less. If you have some specific su…
My intention for bringing that book wasn't to say there are more pages. In fact I like that your book has less pages and more focused. I was comparing the typesetting, nicer fonts and such. Some pictures are always nice. Thanks for writing the book, and I hope you would keep improving it.
Re: I sold 640 copies of my book in one year
#78There's a graph with 3 items per time period and no legend. And nothing about profit vs revenue really, how much did each book cost vs profit? Apart from that, very informative.
The net profit is dependent on me paying taxes, social security, and insurance. Since I also program it's hard to say exactly how much net it is. Gumroad fees are explained on their site[0]. There were no ad costs. If I should pay my time as a business, it would be a loss. [0] https://gumroad.com/pricing
Thanks, so about 10%. You're selling ebooks, not p(aper)books, right?
Costs a lot of time to become famous enough to make money I suppose