
Ask HN: What does success for a technical book look like? - CoreSet
In September I released a small book about programming and security. Like most technical authors, I did it for the experience and professional credential more than the money.<p>Now I&#x27;ve sold around 300 copies in the first few months, nearly paying off my $2K advance.<p>I&#x27;d like to write more - a lot more - so I&#x27;m trying to judge how successful the book is in terms of securing myself more writing opportunities. I&#x27;ve been offered the chance to pitch &#x2F; write more by the publisher, and the publisher overall seems really happy with my output, but it would be an enormous help to understand what people in the industry &#x2F; acquisitions editors &#x2F; etc, use as their criteria for success in technical publishing.
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rwieruch
Serial self-publisher [0] here and loving it :-)

From a number's perspective, I think you can look at anything between $0 -
$3000 a month for a popular technical book on Amazon. Maybe there are some
even up at $3000 - $5000. That doesn't include what you get from publishing it
through other channels as well.

That's only on point of viewing it though. I like more to see success from the
recommendation/readers ratio perspective: How many of the people that have
read your book would recommend it to someone else. That's where word of mouth
comes into play that I find so much more worth than any money. It guarantees
your book's success over the long term, not only for the launch. As every
startup launch: it's a marathon and not a sprint! So make sure you deliver
high quality or iterate towards high quality.

\- [0] [https://www.robinwieruch.de/the-road-to-learn-
react/](https://www.robinwieruch.de/the-road-to-learn-react/)

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jklepatch
I never thought of publishing on amazon, interesting.

Which tool do you use for editing your ebooks?

So far I have self published my ebooks with the leanpub markdown editor.

However it leaves a mention of leanpub inside the book.

Pretty sure it wouldn’t be ok to have this for amazon.

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asicsp
have a look at pandoc [1], you can convert text files in markdown to ebooks

[1] [https://pandoc.org/](https://pandoc.org/)

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deeths
I'd published a couple books years ago and the publisher's benchmark was
2000-4000 copies (depending on variables within their business) over any
period of time was a commercial success. If you've done 300 in the first few
months it seems fairly likely you'll get there. That said, the biggest bar to
securing more writing opportunities for technical books is more about proving
you can write consistently, so as a second time author you'll already be well
ahead of the game. Technical publishers know the business and where there's
enough interest and little enough competition to make money, so let them guide
you on interesting areas to publish in and you can focus on great writing.

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CoreSet
Thank you - even seeing that number is really helpful.

Did the topics of your books diverge significantly? One thing I'm balancing is
moving out of security and into other areas.

My real, secret, ultimate goal would be to break into general interest
nonfiction, which is of course completely different, but I'm content for now
just moving on to other technical topics.

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eivarv
I don't think you should be afraid of linking to your book.

For anyone interested, it's "Bug Hunting for Penetration Testers" [0], and
seems pretty good.

Also: Packt Publishing has a 5$/5€ sale right now.

[0]: [https://handsonbughunting.com/](https://handsonbughunting.com/)

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CoreSet
Thanks for posting! Didn't want to come off as a shill.

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ecesena
Can you share the book? At least in the profile? I’d be interest to take a
peek.

