The unusual way I'm funding my open source work(kerkour.com)
kerkour.com
The unusual way I'm funding my open source work
https://kerkour.com/blog/the-unusual-way-im-funding-my-open-source-work/
58 comments
Interesting post from the other day about author regrets when writing books. [1] I don't totally agree. The out-of-pocket amounts seem pretty high to me--especially if you're going through a publisher. But, then, book writing for me (as a business) has always been reputational as opposed to trying to be a serious income stream in its own right. Which I think it's been very effective in doing even though I've made very little direct money.
[1] https://withoutbullshit.com/blog/the-15-biggest-regrets-that...
[1] https://withoutbullshit.com/blog/the-15-biggest-regrets-that...
You can always graduate up to starting a restaurant to lose even more money, and for those trying to divest themselves of a billion or so I believe the usual recommendation is to start an airline, with the caveat that this strategy misfired for Richard Branson and Niki Lauda.
The quickest way to become a millionaire is to start as a billionaire
Partially inspired by that post and wanting to write my thoughts about business failures, I wrote...
How to Lose Money with 25 Years of Failed Businesses
https://joeldare.com/how-to-lose-money-with-25-years-of-fail...
How to Lose Money with 25 Years of Failed Businesses
https://joeldare.com/how-to-lose-money-with-25-years-of-fail...
Interesting post, thank you for sharing.
Writing a popular book is also the easiest way to make money. While it's infoproducts not just books, I've made around $250,000 over the past 5 or 6 years with my sidehustle. If you add the dayjob/consulting opportunities it enabled, that number easily jumps to $500,000.
Yes, being born in SFBA, going to Stanford, and getting on the startup wagon straight out of school would've been a better ROI, but that path was not available to me. The sidehustle did however open it up and I'm on that ride now with about a 6 to 7 year delay.
tldr: Write something people want to read.
Yes, being born in SFBA, going to Stanford, and getting on the startup wagon straight out of school would've been a better ROI, but that path was not available to me. The sidehustle did however open it up and I'm on that ride now with about a 6 to 7 year delay.
tldr: Write something people want to read.
Would love a link to one/some/all of your books!
Thanks!
Indeed it's less lucrative than freelancing or working in a big company, but so far the experience is so enjoyable that the ride worth it :)
I created an ebook[1] and made about $2,000 in the real estate category. Getting it written, transformed into an ebook format and in the amazon / smashworld store altogether took a christmas break 1 1/2 weeks.
My secret was I didn't write more than 5% of the book. 95% came from discussion posts written over the years on one of my website forums.
I still get orders.. I'm still in the top 500 small business / real estate books in canada. This was written in the 2012 and lives on.
I would encourage everyone to publish at least one book. But don't actually write it yourself that's insane amount of work for the expected return.
[1] https://www.amazon.ca/Ontario-Sale-Property-Buyers-Guide-ebo...
My secret was I didn't write more than 5% of the book. 95% came from discussion posts written over the years on one of my website forums.
I still get orders.. I'm still in the top 500 small business / real estate books in canada. This was written in the 2012 and lives on.
I would encourage everyone to publish at least one book. But don't actually write it yourself that's insane amount of work for the expected return.
[1] https://www.amazon.ca/Ontario-Sale-Property-Buyers-Guide-ebo...
I hesitate to ask, but what’s the copyright status of the material written by people other than you which you’re publishing and charging money for? Did your web site forum terms say the user assigned their copyright to you?
Interesting point and in my case yes and all writing is attributed to the person who wrote it in print. And everyone got a book and a special private forum. In a way it was a community effort of mostly old timers who were there in the beginning.
I'm curious about your point of view. What is your take on these.
- If someone posts something in your forum. Can you legally repost in twitter saying.. so and so just posted?
- When you post in a public forum do you automatically assign the copyright as public domain by virtue of where you posted and who can see it?
- Facebook owns all of the content you post (pictures/posts/videos). Doesn't this apply to all/most sites with user generated content?
I'm curious about your point of view. What is your take on these.
- If someone posts something in your forum. Can you legally repost in twitter saying.. so and so just posted?
- When you post in a public forum do you automatically assign the copyright as public domain by virtue of where you posted and who can see it?
- Facebook owns all of the content you post (pictures/posts/videos). Doesn't this apply to all/most sites with user generated content?
> If someone posts something in your forum. Can you legally repost in twitter saying.. so and so just posted?
It may constitute fair use. Publishing their work in a book and profiting from it is another story.
> When you post in a public forum do you automatically assign the copyright as public domain by virtue of where you posted and who can see it?
No.
> Facebook owns all of the content you post (pictures/posts/videos).
As the sibling says, they do not.
> Doesn't this apply to all/most sites with user generated content?
No. A given website may state that as a condition of its use, users must assign copyright to anything they post to the owners of the company. This is not a common condition.
It may constitute fair use. Publishing their work in a book and profiting from it is another story.
> When you post in a public forum do you automatically assign the copyright as public domain by virtue of where you posted and who can see it?
No.
> Facebook owns all of the content you post (pictures/posts/videos).
As the sibling says, they do not.
> Doesn't this apply to all/most sites with user generated content?
No. A given website may state that as a condition of its use, users must assign copyright to anything they post to the owners of the company. This is not a common condition.
- Facebook owns all of the content you post (pictures/posts/videos). Doesn't this apply to all/most sites with user generated content?
I don't think this is technically true. https://www.copytrack.com/does-facebook-own-my-pictures/ Basically their terms of service say that you give them the right to distribute it. It specifically says they don't own it.
I don't think this is technically true. https://www.copytrack.com/does-facebook-own-my-pictures/ Basically their terms of service say that you give them the right to distribute it. It specifically says they don't own it.
- If someone posts something in your forum. Can you legally repost in twitter saying.. so and so just posted?
- When you post in a public forum do you automatically assign the copyright as public domain by virtue of where you posted and who can see it?
What is the difference between them posting on your forum and them posting on their on blog/site? Both are visible to the public. If you have some policy written "anything posted here becomes public domain" when maybe but if you don't I suspect it's at best undecided and at worst, "no, it is not okay to repost"
- When you post in a public forum do you automatically assign the copyright as public domain by virtue of where you posted and who can see it?
What is the difference between them posting on your forum and them posting on their on blog/site? Both are visible to the public. If you have some policy written "anything posted here becomes public domain" when maybe but if you don't I suspect it's at best undecided and at worst, "no, it is not okay to repost"
and here is one of two reviews (the other one isn't so good either).
"This is the worst book I have ever read. Not organized, inconsistent tabs, incorrect spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
Many of the points on tax sales are not fully explained and the reader is left with gaping holes in understanding the tax sale process. Some of the points are incorrect on how the tax sale process works.
I would not recommend this kindle to anyone, especially someone someone looking for guidance on the tax sale process. Perhaps this kindle could be useful in an English class as an example of what not to do."
"This is the worst book I have ever read. Not organized, inconsistent tabs, incorrect spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
Many of the points on tax sales are not fully explained and the reader is left with gaping holes in understanding the tax sale process. Some of the points are incorrect on how the tax sale process works.
I would not recommend this kindle to anyone, especially someone someone looking for guidance on the tax sale process. Perhaps this kindle could be useful in an English class as an example of what not to do."
Conversation style is not for everyone.
A lot of people want a step by step guide with easy to understand rules and clear steps.
I read those types of guide books when I got started and many exist. When I tried to follow them in real life they missed so glossed over so many other problems or situations that can come up. The knowledge of local rules and past experiences and sound judgement was lacking. I found the best way to learn was from conversations in coffee shops / outside auctions from people who have been doing this for years.
This book tries to copy that style with a focus around specific topics that come up. Raw knowledge, warts and all.
A lot of people want a step by step guide with easy to understand rules and clear steps.
I read those types of guide books when I got started and many exist. When I tried to follow them in real life they missed so glossed over so many other problems or situations that can come up. The knowledge of local rules and past experiences and sound judgement was lacking. I found the best way to learn was from conversations in coffee shops / outside auctions from people who have been doing this for years.
This book tries to copy that style with a focus around specific topics that come up. Raw knowledge, warts and all.
This sounds like "having a job on the side" only far less profitable. Being an author is like being a musician, there's a handful of superstars, a few people who make a living (by working their tits off), and hordes and hordes of people who might occasionally make some money, but still need a real job.
Hell, in Australia, even the (comparatively) superstar musicians have day jobs.
>I announced the (extremely) early-access edition of the book on Reddit last week and received a lot of positive feedback.
Idea validated. Funding secured.
This is extremely extremely extremely naive. In reality, it's very easy to get praise and encouragement from a random stranger on the Internet, but it's extremely hard to get a single dollar of actual commitment from them. The original Reddit thread has 85 comments. Optimistically assuming that every single one of them donated the asking 10€, it's 850€ for multiple months of work.
In reality, the donation ratio would be the same order of magnitude as the conversion rate for ad clicks to downloads, that is about 1-5%. So, it's 8.5-42.5€ for multiple months of work.
Sorry to be brutal, but making money off something is a craft that is not easier than software development itself. That involves market analysis, lead acquisition, feature prioritization, price research, and a magnitude of other factors. Having a bunch of positive Reddit feedback is a marketing equivalent of downloading a "Hello, World in Java Script" tutorial and managing to run it in the browser. It's very far from the final product.
This is extremely extremely extremely naive. In reality, it's very easy to get praise and encouragement from a random stranger on the Internet, but it's extremely hard to get a single dollar of actual commitment from them. The original Reddit thread has 85 comments. Optimistically assuming that every single one of them donated the asking 10€, it's 850€ for multiple months of work.
In reality, the donation ratio would be the same order of magnitude as the conversion rate for ad clicks to downloads, that is about 1-5%. So, it's 8.5-42.5€ for multiple months of work.
Sorry to be brutal, but making money off something is a craft that is not easier than software development itself. That involves market analysis, lead acquisition, feature prioritization, price research, and a magnitude of other factors. Having a bunch of positive Reddit feedback is a marketing equivalent of downloading a "Hello, World in Java Script" tutorial and managing to run it in the browser. It's very far from the final product.
FWIW, I read "Funding secured" as sarcastic--probably a reference to Elon Musk's funding secured tweet, when (like the author) he hadn't actually secured any funding.
No no, I actually made enough money from the early-access sales to work on it full-time for the coming months :)
"I announced the (extremely) early-access edition of the book on Reddit last week and received a lot of positive feedback.
Idea validated. Funding secured. "
OP seems happy enough. I quoted the same as you and yet read it differently.
They have literally said: "Funding secured. <party>".
Sorry to be brutal but Sylvain seems quite happy about their approach to making money.
[Edit: Soz, my quote is not quite the same as yours and things may have changed between your and my quote. I await DV oblivion 8) ]
Idea validated. Funding secured. "
OP seems happy enough. I quoted the same as you and yet read it differently.
They have literally said: "Funding secured. <party>".
Sorry to be brutal but Sylvain seems quite happy about their approach to making money.
[Edit: Soz, my quote is not quite the same as yours and things may have changed between your and my quote. I await DV oblivion 8) ]
I am merely a random stranger on the Internet with a random opinion. It's up to OP to consider it or ignore it.
Speaking for myself, I ran a few donation-funded projects for a few years and found out that it involves too much mental gymnastics. Hey, I'm almost making the minimum wage. I don't have a family, I live with my parents, but at least I'm free and don't have a shitty boss. It's great, and I'm happy, right? Right? Tell me people, it's great, it's truly great?
So I learned the business skills, started working on a for-profit business idea, tweaked it based on the early feedback, and grew it into a full-time business that pays comparably to a corporate job. It was much harder than keeping to tell myself that my parents' basement is all I need, but it paid off well in the long term.
Speaking for myself, I ran a few donation-funded projects for a few years and found out that it involves too much mental gymnastics. Hey, I'm almost making the minimum wage. I don't have a family, I live with my parents, but at least I'm free and don't have a shitty boss. It's great, and I'm happy, right? Right? Tell me people, it's great, it's truly great?
So I learned the business skills, started working on a for-profit business idea, tweaked it based on the early feedback, and grew it into a full-time business that pays comparably to a corporate job. It was much harder than keeping to tell myself that my parents' basement is all I need, but it paid off well in the long term.
No no, I actually made enough money from the early-access sales to work on it full-time for the coming months :)
Hey HN,
Funding Open Source is a hot topic here and after more than one year of full-time work without being paid I have finally achieved (a little bit more than) ramen profitability.
I'm happy to answer any question.
Funding Open Source is a hot topic here and after more than one year of full-time work without being paid I have finally achieved (a little bit more than) ramen profitability.
I'm happy to answer any question.
Might have just missed it on the website, but will early access buyers get access to the finished version on completion?
For sure!
I will send the chapters to all early access buyers as soon as they are available.
Please remember that chapters could be updated even after their initial publication according to the feedback I will receive.
Hi, this is interesting and I wish you all the best. Just as a random anecdata point, the price that I was expecting and would personally be willing to pay would be 20€. This is because I am not planning on working in IT security and would be reading this foro fun. Just FYI, since I think it's interesting for you to know the price sensitivity of people. Don't know if you would be able to finance yourself at that price point, but again I just want to give feedback. Perhaps this could be achieved via a steeper early adopter discount. Perhaps I'm simply not the target group. Hope this is helpful somehow.
I really appreciate this kind of feedback, because a lot of people will think that but won't bother leaving a comment and I will never be aware. Thank you!
Today it makes no sense to reduce the price of the book because of the niche topic covered and my small audience, but for sure I will re-evaluate it later.
Today it makes no sense to reduce the price of the book because of the niche topic covered and my small audience, but for sure I will re-evaluate it later.
I agree with the parent. Much above $20 for a technical book is getting into "this is an expensive book" for me. Doesn't mean I won't ever buy it, but it's probably not the sort of thing I'll go "Why not?" right away and click the button.
You don't actually know this unless you have run an A/B test. Pricing a book is like software, you might very well sell many more than twice as many copies at half the cost, off hobbyist sales. (background, I worked in the book business years ago). If you really want to know if you're doing it right, run a time limited test of different prices and see what happens. I doubt this is nearly as much a niche as you think.
Thank you, you are absolutely right and this is the good mentality to approach the issue!
I will do it as soon as I have more bandwidth available.
Yep, that's what I thought! Good luck! :-)
Here is a coupon to save 23€ on the book :) https://academy.kerkour.com/black-hat-rust?coupon=HACKERNEWS...
I negotiated with my employer to spend some time every week on an open source project they depend on.
It isn't by any means a full time job, and I could definitely spend more time on it, but it does allow me to contribute to open source without completely ruining my life.
It helps that the main job is also open-source-based, so they're already committed to the concept.
It isn't by any means a full time job, and I could definitely spend more time on it, but it does allow me to contribute to open source without completely ruining my life.
It helps that the main job is also open-source-based, so they're already committed to the concept.
I like the idea, although I don't know this is really unusual. It is the basic RedHat shtick you are making money off the knowledge in your head. The difference is that instead of giving it out in a consulting contract it is in a book.
Except I’m not sure they’re related enough. If OP’s book was a productivity guide based off bloom, for sure. Instead it’s a collection of learnings discovered while (although likely not exclusively while) developing the product.
> Having a real job™ beside: but is your project worth sacrificing all your free time for it?
I often ask myself the same about that real job™.
I often ask myself the same about that real job™.
Some other resources for funding open source work:
https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
https://github.com/fossjobs/fossjobs/wiki/resources
Why not look for a brick and mortar University to teach at?
You could probably fund the project with research funding and pump out the required papers just working on it.
You could probably fund the project with research funding and pump out the required papers just working on it.
I have yet to dive into Rust beyond "hello, world", but I am looking forward to the book.
TLDR: you are selling a book
He is, and it's cleverly wrapped content marketing, but I would let it pass since his "content" is actually a complete software package. If every content marketeer, instead of spamming low effort Medium posts, would be publishing fully-fledged software repos, I think that would be quite a positive development :)
Hey,
I have to admit that I moderately appreciate being compared to the content marketing crowd but still appreciate the kind words :)
Yes, my ability to pay the rent is directly related to the number of books I sell.
That being said, I thought it was worth sharing because a lot of people think they can't make a living writing Open Source code. I hope to change their mind and give them ideas to take the leap.
Edit: rephrasing
Yes, my ability to pay the rent is directly related to the number of books I sell.
That being said, I thought it was worth sharing because a lot of people think they can't make a living writing Open Source code. I hope to change their mind and give them ideas to take the leap.
Edit: rephrasing
> my ability to pay the rent is directly related to the number of books I sell
Do you have (and are willing to share) an estimation of how many books you expect to sell per month?
Do you have (and are willing to share) an estimation of how many books you expect to sell per month?
It's extremely hard to tell. As iainctduncan said I will need to do some A/B testing.
I believe that more than 100 books a month will be enough to make a comfortable living.
I believe that more than 100 books a month will be enough to make a comfortable living.
I don't want to sound like a pessimist, but that feels like a rather large number to sustain over a long period for a book like this. It convers a niche field in a language with a relatively small userbase.
I would love to be proven wrong though, and I really hope that you do sell a lot of books. I might even buy it if I decide to pick up Rust again. Best of luck!
I would love to be proven wrong though, and I really hope that you do sell a lot of books. I might even buy it if I decide to pick up Rust again. Best of luck!
Thanks for answering, and good luck with your book!
Yes!
As this is a rarely discussed topic, I thought it was worth sharing :)
tl;dr use a license that is not stupid for your business case. (in his case agpl)
> 2. Write a Book
> Most consistent
> You might think writing a book is a great way to make a bunch of cash – and you’d be wrong. In spite of the many books that will tell you how to make money writing a book, I’m here to let you in on a secret –writing a book is actually a fantastic way to lose money. I’ve written four short books and they have literally grossed hundreds of dollars. Now – hearing that I’ve sold some books might make you think you should write one also. But it’s a trap – you will spend hundreds of hours writing a book and then make hundreds of dollars in return. Not sure about you, but if I’m working for $1/hour I’m losing money fast. My latest book probably has more pages than it has copies sold – take a look here if you want a quick reference on how to get a job.
Jokes aside, props for the creativity and best of luck!
[1] https://www.getrevue.co/profile/andrewtye/issues/how-to-lose...