I sold 640 copies of my book in one year(nts.strzibny.name)
nts.strzibny.name
I sold 640 copies of my book in one year
https://nts.strzibny.name/one-year-of-sales/
77 comments
> In fact I'd say that academics these days never have time for writing and that most other successful authors I know are independent.
That’s a weird thing to say, academic careers revolve around writing. On the other hand, their output isn’t in book form nor aimed at more general audiences. They do author some books sometimes, but maybe more like textbooks. There is a lot of “write what will sell” thought that goes into being a successful author, academics are less immune to that (they still have to do research that will sell to funding agencies and write papers that they can “sell” to peer reviewers).
I was asked to write book (for commercial selling) awhile ago and during exploration found the process a bit off putting (ultimately decided I didn’t really have anything to contribute). I began to look at a lot of books on the shelve in the programming section in a very different mode cynical light afterwards, a lot of books were equivalent to clickbait (timely on hot topics, but of very low quality and not contributing much to the field). There are still gems, but a reader has to be very discerning these days and not buy on title alone.
I enjoy academic papers more, but even in a highly rated conference proceedings, you have to watch out for academic clickbait.
That’s a weird thing to say, academic careers revolve around writing. On the other hand, their output isn’t in book form nor aimed at more general audiences. They do author some books sometimes, but maybe more like textbooks. There is a lot of “write what will sell” thought that goes into being a successful author, academics are less immune to that (they still have to do research that will sell to funding agencies and write papers that they can “sell” to peer reviewers).
I was asked to write book (for commercial selling) awhile ago and during exploration found the process a bit off putting (ultimately decided I didn’t really have anything to contribute). I began to look at a lot of books on the shelve in the programming section in a very different mode cynical light afterwards, a lot of books were equivalent to clickbait (timely on hot topics, but of very low quality and not contributing much to the field). There are still gems, but a reader has to be very discerning these days and not buy on title alone.
I enjoy academic papers more, but even in a highly rated conference proceedings, you have to watch out for academic clickbait.
> academic clickbait.
I like that term, it's quite astute. Yes, there's definitely topics that have no longevity like "Y2K survival guide" or things tied to specific hardware. But it's hard to tell. Occam and the Transputer seemed like the future once... and who knows... we studied it at university under "concurrency and parallelism" in the 80s, but then I never heard of it again until last week, it just came to mind because I saw an article about doing it with Raspberry-Pis. Likely a dozen books on "Living in the Metaverse" are being funded right now, and will be doorstops and firelighters in no time. Btw, I say academics don't have time to write because they're overwhelmed with pointless admin.
I like that term, it's quite astute. Yes, there's definitely topics that have no longevity like "Y2K survival guide" or things tied to specific hardware. But it's hard to tell. Occam and the Transputer seemed like the future once... and who knows... we studied it at university under "concurrency and parallelism" in the 80s, but then I never heard of it again until last week, it just came to mind because I saw an article about doing it with Raspberry-Pis. Likely a dozen books on "Living in the Metaverse" are being funded right now, and will be doorstops and firelighters in no time. Btw, I say academics don't have time to write because they're overwhelmed with pointless admin.
> I enjoy academic papers more, but even in a highly rated conference proceedings, you have to watch out for academic clickbait.
Many ML papers are actually clickbait. If not, they're mostly suffering from robustness checks. See the ML section here:
https://medium.com/@parttimeben/how-not-to-read-scientific-p...
Many ML papers are actually clickbait. If not, they're mostly suffering from robustness checks. See the ML section here:
https://medium.com/@parttimeben/how-not-to-read-scientific-p...
> Each book you write, if researched from scratch, is kinda equivalent to a PhD.
That's an interesting perspective. A PhD Thesis is basically a book length manifestation of original work. Which should apply to any book worth publishing, too.
That's an interesting perspective. A PhD Thesis is basically a book length manifestation of original work. Which should apply to any book worth publishing, too.
Oh hey, I own that book! It felt to me like SICP for sound.
I'm curious what kind of projects it led to you consulting for?
I'm curious what kind of projects it led to you consulting for?
> It felt to me like SICP for sound.
As a lisper at heart (amateur Racketeer) who had SICP as my grad text that's the nicest complement imaginable. Thank you so much.
> I'm curious what kind of projects it led to you consulting for?
Creative media, games, interactive sound software mostly.
As a lisper at heart (amateur Racketeer) who had SICP as my grad text that's the nicest complement imaginable. Thank you so much.
> I'm curious what kind of projects it led to you consulting for?
Creative media, games, interactive sound software mostly.
I just bought your sound design book. Looks very interesting!
Thanks a lot and for sharing your inspiring story :)
[deleted]
My own experience convinces me there are many extra benefits to having written a book. My first book has been out for 4.5 years now. I know many people on Hacker News have read it and I'm grateful to all of you.I've enjoyed getting emails about it. Especially regarding "badly managed startups" and "abusive bosses" many of you have reached out to share similar stories. Maybe at some point I'll do a blog post that collects some of those email stories. Some people thought I was destroying my career by revealing the dark side of startups, but some entrepreneurs appreciate my realism and practicality, so I've gotten three very lucrative consulting jobs, thanks to that first book. And, surprisingly, the book has gotten more and more popular. It sold more this last year than it sold during its first two years. I assume that at some point the book will seem dated and obsolete, but at least for now it still strikes people as current, so the benefits of writing that book continue to pay dividends.
Thanks for sharing. It's great that you are still able to sell after such a long time.
Which book is this?
I sold around 300 in my first year (which ended recently), which is much less than the other book I wrote via my publisher. Yet, even though it is sold at a lesser price, my self-published book made almost more money. This is essentially because the percentage I make on every sales with my publisher is really low (10%). So for my next book, I'll self publish as well.
(the book btw https://securityhandbook.io/)
(the book btw https://securityhandbook.io/)
Awesome, a really pithy and down to earth workaday style that complements
the exhaustive tomes like Ross Anderson's.
What I've found so important is knowing your keywords and making sure your work is associated with the right BIC/BIS Subject Category Codes [1]
"Security Engineering" (a much better term imho) has a lesser impact in academic sales than "Ethical Hacking" and "Cybersecurity" because of how courses are named, and therefore how graduates and recruiters think of the skill namespace. Make sure you get coverage on all the terms adjacent to yours.
[1] I hear they are being replaced by a new international standard in 2023, so it's a dynamic area for authors to be aware of - kinda SEO for writers.
What I've found so important is knowing your keywords and making sure your work is associated with the right BIC/BIS Subject Category Codes [1]
"Security Engineering" (a much better term imho) has a lesser impact in academic sales than "Ethical Hacking" and "Cybersecurity" because of how courses are named, and therefore how graduates and recruiters think of the skill namespace. Make sure you get coverage on all the terms adjacent to yours.
[1] I hear they are being replaced by a new international standard in 2023, so it's a dynamic area for authors to be aware of - kinda SEO for writers.
RE [1]: very interesting. Thx for the heads-up about this. I found this related anncoucement, https://www.bic.org.uk/files/pdfs/Press%20Releases/Press%20R... which says the replacement will be the Thema scheme: https://ns.editeur.org/thema/en
The main tradeoff for me is that--rightly or not--going through a major publisher confers some prestige and Good Housekeeping seal of approval in the minds of a lot of people. So, if you're doing a book for reputational purposes rather than cash, that can be a consideration.
I've done it both ways. But if I do more, at this point in my career, they'll probably just be relatively short ebooks.
I've done it both ways. But if I do more, at this point in my career, they'll probably just be relatively short ebooks.
I like the landing page for the book (is that the right name for it?) except one detail and I wonder if it done so purposely - I don't see any any info about the book (file) format. I assume it is only available as an e-book.
Pragmatic may be worth exploring. The 50% cut is really high compared to rest of publishers, and I believe that 80% of my sales came from their reputation and marketing.
As one of your 640 customers - thank you!
Having a lightweight reference for simple things that I only do occasionally is a godsend and a massive time saving. I can dive into Deployment from Scratch and tweak something that needs updating, or even deploy a new system in less time than it takes me to lookup and parse/refresh my knowledge from the actual documentation on most topics. And even if I do need to refer to the docs for something not in the book, it is much much quicker as I have the context already.
Having a lightweight reference for simple things that I only do occasionally is a godsend and a massive time saving. I can dive into Deployment from Scratch and tweak something that needs updating, or even deploy a new system in less time than it takes me to lookup and parse/refresh my knowledge from the actual documentation on most topics. And even if I do need to refer to the docs for something not in the book, it is much much quicker as I have the context already.
Thanks a lot for supporting my work. I am happy you like it. Would you consider making a testimonial? In a way what you just wrote here, reads like one.
Send me an email or Twitter DM at @strzibnyj with a name and personal/company link and title if you up to it. It would make me very happy.
Send me an email or Twitter DM at @strzibnyj with a name and personal/company link and title if you up to it. It would make me very happy.
Sounds like a great success.
Back when (long before ebooks) I helped with their self publishing. A minimum press run of the book-length projects would often be 500 or 1,000 copies. I'd tell authors to expect to sell half the run or less and to be generous with "review copies" and so on.
Back when (long before ebooks) I helped with their self publishing. A minimum press run of the book-length projects would often be 500 or 1,000 copies. I'd tell authors to expect to sell half the run or less and to be generous with "review copies" and so on.
Nowadays there are also print on order services which helps a lot to start selling books.
I always love transparency like this from authors, thanks for sharing!
This line resonated way too much with me: "Initially, I thought five months might be enough for me to write it, but the scope quickly grew, and the progress was slow."
Somehow, even though I've been writing for years now, I consistently underestimate the scope and time commitment of every writing project, even after attempting to adjust for my tendency to underestimate.
This line resonated way too much with me: "Initially, I thought five months might be enough for me to write it, but the scope quickly grew, and the progress was slow."
Somehow, even though I've been writing for years now, I consistently underestimate the scope and time commitment of every writing project, even after attempting to adjust for my tendency to underestimate.
My first book took me four years. That was too long, so with my second book, I aimed to get it done in two years. It took me six, instead. Estimation is hard.
Oh, no. I guess that's how it is in the end :)
Good success. The $24k is misleading, in that there is more 'untapped value' now this has been done once. If he makes a video series based on the same thing for example, it should be easier to make the next $24k using all that is set up for marketing.
That's true. I am also exhausted :D
Before 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.
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.
Amazing! Niche tech books definitely have a market in them. I wrote a generic "teach yourself to program" self-help book and sold ~100 copies my first year.
Started with 0 audience, 0 idea of how to write a book and ended up turning it into a fairly sizable newsletter (1k+) and made a couple grand for my month or two of time spent.
I wish I knew much more about self-publishing when I published it, but for my second book, I'm very prepared this time around and have strategies to help it perform better that I got from a book called "Published".
https://www.amazon.com/Published-Proven-Blank-Published-Auth...
I think the real challenge of self-publishing is advertising, marketing, and simply getting your name out there. The writing part is fairly easy!
Started with 0 audience, 0 idea of how to write a book and ended up turning it into a fairly sizable newsletter (1k+) and made a couple grand for my month or two of time spent.
I wish I knew much more about self-publishing when I published it, but for my second book, I'm very prepared this time around and have strategies to help it perform better that I got from a book called "Published".
https://www.amazon.com/Published-Proven-Blank-Published-Auth...
I think the real challenge of self-publishing is advertising, marketing, and simply getting your name out there. The writing part is fairly easy!
Congrats! I never counted my sales for different periods of time, because I always felt the feedback is what counts the most to have a long tail of sales. If the feedback is positive, the sales will go on. So I rather focused on this aspect, but it seems to go well for you from the feedback side as well :)
I too released my first self-published book The Road to React on HN (initial in wrong English "The Road to learn React" haha) a few years ago and the community helped tremendously to get this project off the ground. Thanks to all of you! And I wish your success continues too :)
I too released my first self-published book The Road to React on HN (initial in wrong English "The Road to learn React" haha) a few years ago and the community helped tremendously to get this project off the ground. Thanks to all of you! And I wish your success continues too :)
I 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).
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).
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.
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.
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.
Well done and thanks for sharing your experience. Having written my own book a few years ago I can truly say job well done and congrats on a huge milestone. It's no small feat. As you hint in the blog post, writing a book is a full time job to get it done and also requires working a second full time job to pump up the marketing around it.
Then, once it's out in the world, comes the job of maintaining it and keeping the momentum high. A slog to say the least and often times very demotivating. So, from one author and self publisher to another, congratulations! You should be proud of your success.
Then, once it's out in the world, comes the job of maintaining it and keeping the momentum high. A slog to say the least and often times very demotivating. So, from one author and self publisher to another, congratulations! You should be proud of your success.
Thanks a lot man!
That’s pretty great! I sold 1000 on the first day (http://catonmat.net/awk-book).
> I sold 1000 on the first day
Please tell us about your marketing and strategy. I'm amazed awk can shift so many.
I'm also finding (with "Digital Vegan") that independent ebooks are much better cash creators than paper sales. Brexit is killing me - I can't sell paper outside the UK any more.
Please tell us about your marketing and strategy. I'm amazed awk can shift so many.
I'm also finding (with "Digital Vegan") that independent ebooks are much better cash creators than paper sales. Brexit is killing me - I can't sell paper outside the UK any more.
> I can't sell paper outside the UK any more.
What is this down to? Export regulations? Could you use print on demand or something instead?
What is this down to? Export regulations? Could you use print on demand or something instead?
Shipping and tax mainly. What I hope to put into readers' hands for
about $15 ends up costing them $30-$40. Physical distribution still
seems a mess for small publishers who are in that gap between full
POD/Lulu type thing and working with a major brand.
For example, many distributors won't take on business with publishers with less than 5 or 10 titles. Mine has 3, so is considered a "vanity press". Coordinating POD internationally is a PITA. So I use a smallish UK POD (Great British Bookshop) of my current project, and hold a few dozen myself mainly for mailing out to reviewers and press. Also, lots of distributors still operate on "store and forward", which means holding litho-printed stock (runs of 500+). I just can't be doing with that in 2022!
I also recorded an audio [1] version, which has had precisely zero sales AFAICT, mainly because I have no idea how to break that market.
Any podcasters here wanna give it a listen? shoot me a message, cheers.
[1] https://digitalvegan.net
For example, many distributors won't take on business with publishers with less than 5 or 10 titles. Mine has 3, so is considered a "vanity press". Coordinating POD internationally is a PITA. So I use a smallish UK POD (Great British Bookshop) of my current project, and hold a few dozen myself mainly for mailing out to reviewers and press. Also, lots of distributors still operate on "store and forward", which means holding litho-printed stock (runs of 500+). I just can't be doing with that in 2022!
I also recorded an audio [1] version, which has had precisely zero sales AFAICT, mainly because I have no idea how to break that market.
Any podcasters here wanna give it a listen? shoot me a message, cheers.
[1] https://digitalvegan.net
Have you looked into Ingram Spark? They do on-demand global distribution. I'm considering it for my book once I finish the ebook and get around to printing paper copies.
I (living in EU) brought some RPi hats from some UK online store. DHL asked me to to print/sign/scan several docs, complete multiple forms, etc, and make a separate VAT payment. The process took almost two weeks.
> > I can't sell paper outside the UK any more.
> What is this down to?
Probably producing locally and then exporting is prohibitively expensive.
> What is this down to?
Probably producing locally and then exporting is prohibitively expensive.
There was no marketing strategy. I wrote blog posts then merged them into a pdf and announced the book. My blog has 100,000 subscribers.
That's crazy good! But would be better if you also submit a story how you came to create and market it.
That will be his second book :)
/s
He did. It's what the linked post describes.
This is exactly the resource I was currently looking for! I've recently started a pet project as a way to learn deployment and CI. I work in a big company, where the devops parts are worked on by different teams, are mighty complex and are pretty much black boxes for other teams. I've already submitted my request for the book. Best of luck for the author and thank you!
Thanks a lot! Hope you like it, and if anything, I am just an email away (and on Twitter as @strzibnyj too).
This is really impressive! I recently hit $1000 in sales on mine and celebrated with a glass of something nice. You're right about how much time marketing takes - I don't spend nearly enough time on it but I'm trying to get myself into a pace where I alternate iterating on the book itself and then doing some marketing (reddit, twitter, website).
I will never forget the first day I made a $15 sale of my first book.
A moment to be forever treasured
A moment to be forever treasured
I agree. It just feels different to $job money, doesn't it?
Have 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.
Get to the front page of HN isn't going to hurt either.
Congratulations; putting a book together is a challen hard enough all on its own. Actually selling copies is another.
Congratulations; putting a book together is a challen hard enough all on its own. Actually selling copies is another.
It looks really useful to me. I am someone that deploys projects to $10 VPS using digital ocean guides for some minimum security setups. Never had a problem.
I'd probably buy this if and when it is offered as paper. I don't really like to read on a screen.
I'd probably buy this if and when it is offered as paper. I don't really like to read on a screen.
Thanks, I might do it for a revision in the future.
Congratulations!
Cool achievement :)
As others have noted, beyond the revenue of the book itself, having published one creates opportunities. My TypeScript book helped me grow my audience, meet cool people and land some consulting gigs.
As others have noted, beyond the revenue of the book itself, having published one creates opportunities. My TypeScript book helped me grow my audience, meet cool people and land some consulting gigs.
There'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.
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
If I should pay my time as a business, it would be a loss.
[0] https://gumroad.com/pricing
I deliberately haven't been tracking my time spent writing my book because it would be super depressing to see an hourly rate less than minimum wage. But without knowing that number it's still super exciting to get an email saying I sold a copy, and to see a payment arrive every month. It's like free money!
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
Costs a lot of time to become famous enough to make money I suppose
Congratulations!
The economics of self publishing is interesting. When I think back on my first book I count at least 5 years research that enabled me to be able to write it, 3 years writing it and then many years selling the thing around industry. By a pessimistic account I was about £500k down :) Like you, the first year I sold about 500. Unlike online fulfilment today, I spent that time stuffing envelopes, staring at a slowly shrinking pile of boxes in the corner of my study, printing labels, with occasional trips to the post-office. It was actually work, and many times I thought 'this is crazy'. It doubled for two more years until dealing with the orders actually became too much (while doing a "real job").
On the other hand, it got me a string of well paying jobs, established me as the go-to consultant in a niche, invitations to talk and teach all around the world, and basically transformed my career. So putting a "net profit" number to it seems unfathomable. Each book you write, if researched from scratch, is kinda equivalent to a PhD.
What happened next is that I sold the title, from my own publishing company to a large publisher (MIT). Publishers don't take many risks these days, but they will buy a book that already has reasonable number of sales as a going concern. The advantage is that all mechanics and business is suddenly off your hands. Without an advance to pay back you then have a modest income stream and time to write the next book.
Another effect of being a semi-professional writer, as a side gig, is that other people want to pay you to edit, typeset, and review works. Learning LaTeX and various markups and text processing tools has been a huge gift. That can be quite fun if you're in a vibrant field that genuinely interests you. And you don't have to be associated with academia or a big-name institution for that to work. In fact I'd say that academics these days never have time for writing and that most other successful authors I know are independent.
I hope your book takes off even more, but right now I think you can count 600 sales in the first year as a definite success!