[HN Gopher] So you want to self-publish books and courses on pro...
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So you want to self-publish books and courses on programming
Author : lorendsr
Score : 65 points
Date : 2021-07-29 17:11 UTC (5 hours ago)
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| synergy20 wrote:
| Economically, a typical programming book will gain you around 20K
| USD, which is normally a two month pay as a good software(if you
| can write a book about programming, you're probably very good at
| it). I don't think it makes much financial sense unless your goal
| is something else, e.g. consult, fame, etc.
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Great books outlast the author. Nobody is going to put up a
| Wikipedia page saying how much money I had in my bank account
| when I died.
|
| Not that you should necessarily care how you get remembered as
| you're dead anyway, but I think it's worth it to share
| knowledge and give to the community if you think you have a
| contribution worth making. I'm certainly glad other past giants
| wrote instructional material even if it didn't make them rich.
| adamwathan wrote:
| Just speaking from my own experience, if you execute very well
| on audience building and marketing you can do much better than
| this. I have released 2 books and 2 courses for developers and
| together they have done close to $4m USD in revenue.
|
| I wrote in detail about the process of writing, marketing, and
| releasing my first book here:
|
| https://adamwathan.me/the-book-launch-that-let-me-quit-my-jo...
|
| And was interviewed on IndieHackers to talk about the most
| recent one here:
|
| https://www.indiehackers.com/podcast/098-adam-wathan-of-refa...
|
| If the work is a good match for your skills and personality
| it's a really great way to make a fantastic living.
| chrisweekly wrote:
| Hi Adam, I'm a fan of your writing, but your experience in
| riding and monetizing Tailwind's explosive growth is
| obviously a massive outlier.
| andrewmcwatters wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this, but when I read stories like it, and
| look at the content sold, the concept is completely foreign
| to me.
|
| I would prefer to read reference content from the vendors
| themselves and not third-parties, so I don't understand what
| draws people to this sort of content I the first place.
|
| That is, I couldn't create any of this, because I would never
| buy it myself.
|
| Your story is nonetheless very interesting.
|
| I don't think anyone can argue with the results, but arguing
| with reproducible results is a bit more difficult.
| soapdog wrote:
| I have written a post on the topic of writing a technical book
| recently which might interest people who are thinking about doing
| it: https://andregarzia.com/2021/04/writing-a-technical-
| book.htm...
|
| I have also launched a free eBook generation SaaS at:
| https://little.webby.press it is completely client-side, there
| are no accounts and no tracking, just have fun building your own
| books.
| agladlad wrote:
| This was helpful to read, as someone currently collecting my own
| unreleased technical writing (possibly for a book). Thank you for
| focusing on the "why" here and sharing information on the range
| of possible outcomes.
|
| Also, congrats on the launch of https://graphql.guide/! It is so
| critical to have well thought out, long-form content available in
| this day and age.
| shahinrostami wrote:
| From this month I've decided to see if I can work on my personal
| projects full time... these include the books I've self-published
| through http://datacrayon.com/shop/, but now I wonder if it's
| worth while getting any of them into print...
| dhosek wrote:
| Any suggestions for fulfillment on PDF ebooks? My kickstarter for
| my LaTeX book1 is almost over and I have enough backers that I
| think I want to do something a bit more sophisticated than just
| send people a download link (ideally, I'd like to have
| individually watermarked PDFs for each backer to act as a social
| deterrent to uploading the file to download sites). It'd be nice
| also if they could come back later to get a corrected version of
| the PDF if I do updates in the future.2
|
| 1. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/preppylion/the-
| preppy-l...
|
| 2. I'm working on being meticulous about typos but I know they
| _will_ happen, plus there will likely be updates to LaTeX that
| will require some minor changes in the text as time goes by.
| gurchik wrote:
| > ideally, I'd like to have individually watermarked PDFs for
| each backer to act as a social deterrent to uploading the file
| to download sites
|
| What if someone provides fake information then uploads the book
| with your watermark?
| a_t48 wrote:
| The watermark gets the backer's name on it, now the author's
| name on it.
| gurchik wrote:
| I know that. You've misread my question. The idea is that
| the backer won't upload the PDF on file sharing websites
| because the author will find it and trace it back to the
| backer using the watermark. But if the backer was anonymous
| by means of fake information provided to the author at the
| time of purchase then it's not deterring anything.
| soapdog wrote:
| checkout bookfunnel: https://bookfunnel.com/ I'm not affiliated
| with them, just a happy customer.
| Grieving wrote:
| This is what pragprog does, but I don't know any self-
| publishing platform that does the same. You can probably roll
| your own without much trouble, just using stripe for billing.
| ipnon wrote:
| Surely storing Unicode in thin layers of dried tree mush stitched
| together in a bind is a bit outdated these days, right? Yet the
| demand for transmitting useful information into brains is higher
| than ever. If we rethink of books as a medium for thought
| transmission, especially the actionable thoughts of domain
| experts, then physical books should seem to us like dinosaur
| bones. Its the inertia of the dusty university library and the
| Madison Avenue publishing industry that keeps book relevant. If
| the sole goal is learning, there is still much unrealized
| potential to be innovated in web and mobile apps.
|
| The iPhone is still only 14 years old. Somewhere between now and
| universal brain-computer interfaces are many education unicorns
| waiting to be found.
| mihaic wrote:
| I have better information retention from reading text in a book
| than on a Kindle/digital screen.
|
| I'm not sure why, but turning the page and feeling a physical
| object seems to improve my memory. It might be wasteful, but
| it's often hard to beat the tactile sensation of books.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| It improves your memory because it creates a stronger
| impression. There is more novelty in the experience of
| reading a physical book than an ebook in an e-reader. Ever
| notice how you have stronger memories of your first or second
| drive on some roads to some place than the later drives?
| After you've made the commute 100 times you find yourself at
| your office with no strong impression from anything that
| happened on the way unless there was something novel or
| eventful (like the suicidal deer that jumped in front of me
| yesterday)? An e-reader, even if it's a different text, ends
| up creating a similarly uniform and consistent experience
| that makes it harder to form the same kind of strong memories
| that a physical book tends to create. Each page is unique,
| the position in the book is actually conveyed properly (not
| just a small number in a corner or a progress bar at the top
| or bottom that you quickly learn to filter out), every book
| has a somewhat unique smell. It has weight and heft that also
| matter in the creation of the memories associated with
| reading it. Your e-reader will always be the same weight and
| have the same feeling in your hand no matter what book you're
| reading in it.
| vidarh wrote:
| I mostly read ebooks now, but my main issue w/kindle and
| similar readers is that a lot of my retention is spatial. E.g
| I remember where physically something is in a book better
| than where in a reflowable document something is.
|
| Sticking to a single, fixed size reader and avoiding changing
| font sizes helps solve some of that, but it's not quite the
| same.
| renewiltord wrote:
| I have had the same problem. Especially because going back
| a page on a Kindle can cause a reflow so words aren't in
| the same position.
|
| Have you had any luck turning on progress bars on your
| reader? Hasn't helped me yet but I know I have a very good
| intuition on physical books for how far through the book a
| concept was. I can often just move directly to the area and
| then scan forward / backwards.
|
| On my Kindle or iPad I find this hard.
| reidjs wrote:
| I like reading books because: 1) easier to focus 2) easier to
| take/draw notes in the margin 3) static content
| segh wrote:
| You might be interested in Why Books Don't Work by Andy
| Matuschak
|
| https://andymatuschak.org/books/
| ipnon wrote:
| I have to thank you, because projects like his are exactly
| what I had in mind with my original post, but I had forgotten
| this man's name and work for months!
| blacktriangle wrote:
| What if I told you I had an amazing new technology for
| information transferal? It has infinite battery life, is
| readable in almost any lighting conditions, reading it won't
| wear out your eyes, it is water resistant and wont' break when
| dropping it or hitting it with a hammer. As an added bonus, the
| vendor can't stealthily revoke access to this information or
| change it without telling you. You're allowed to lend it to a
| single person at a time with the downside that you temporarily
| no longer have access to the information. This miracle
| technology is 100% recyclable and its manufacture is
| environmentally friendly and ethical requiring no rare earth
| metals.
|
| Yeah there's a reason we still love books.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Each book also comes with a "free screen". We programmers
| have dual-monitors or triple-monitor setups.
|
| Well, Dungeons and Dragons dungeon-masters have 2 or 3 copies
| of important rulebooks (Core Rulebook and/or Beastiaries)
| because we get tired of flipping through the pages all the
| time.
|
| But its not so hard to have two books (Ex: Bestiary1 +
| Beastiary 2 copies) and have a page on Goblins + a 2nd book
| with the page on Devils to run a Goblin+Devil encounter.
| [deleted]
| a9h74j wrote:
| 99.9% yes. Acid in most papers still implies an O(100yr)
| lifetime, AFAIK.
| crvdgc wrote:
| Issac Asimov wrote a similar essay in 1974 called The Ancient
| and the Ultimate.
| sidpatil wrote:
| > it is water resistant
|
| Is it? I wouldn't want to test that claim on any books I own
| or have borrowed.
| zabzonk wrote:
| I've dropped many in the bath, and one or two down the loo
| - they still worked.
| blacktriangle wrote:
| Well, it'll survive a coffee spill at least, I can attest
| to that.
| [deleted]
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