[HN Gopher] The unusual way I'm funding my open source work ___________________________________________________________________ The unusual way I'm funding my open source work Author : sylvain_kerkour Score : 69 points Date : 2021-02-10 18:31 UTC (4 hours ago) (HTM) web link (kerkour.com) (TXT) w3m dump (kerkour.com) | sylvain_kerkour wrote: | 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. | andrewnicolalde wrote: | Might have just missed it on the website, but will early access | buyers get access to the finished version on completion? | sylvain_kerkour wrote: | 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. | Sophistifunk wrote: | 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. | rychco wrote: | I have yet to dive into Rust beyond "hello, world", but I am | looking forward to the book. | blackbear_ wrote: | Immediately thought of "how to lose money" [1] (posted a few days | ago): | | > 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... | acegopher wrote: | You forgot the link... would like to read. | blackbear_ wrote: | Oops, added! | ghaff wrote: | 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... | amelius wrote: | Solution: put the book on a crowdfunding website and only write | the book if it is fully funded. | devlopr wrote: | 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... | inopinatus wrote: | 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. | sylvain_kerkour wrote: | 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 :) | Swizec wrote: | 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. | jnwatson wrote: | 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. | 1996 wrote: | TLDR: you are selling a book | sylvain_kerkour wrote: | Yes! As this is a rarely discussed topic, I thought it was | worth sharing :) | axiosgunnar wrote: | 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 :) | sylvain_kerkour wrote: | 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 | yiyus wrote: | > 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? | sylvain_kerkour wrote: | 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. | merb wrote: | tl;dr use a license that is not stupid for your business case. | (in his case agpl) | axiosgunnar wrote: | 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 20EUR. 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. | sylvain_kerkour wrote: | 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. | iainctduncan wrote: | 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. | sylvain_kerkour wrote: | 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. | axiosgunnar wrote: | Yep, that's what I thought! Good luck! :-) | ghaff wrote: | 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. | sylvain_kerkour wrote: | Here is a coupon to save 23EUR on the book :) | https://academy.kerkour.com/black-hat-rust?coupon=HACKERNEWS... | johnjohn22 wrote: | nicee | sylvain_kerkour wrote: | Thank you! | hpoe wrote: | 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. | ddek wrote: | 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. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-02-10 23:01 UTC)