
Six-ish Months of eBook Sales: Riak Handbook - thibaut_barrere
http://www.paperplanes.de/2012/7/5/six-ish-months-of-ebook-sales-riak-handbook.html
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zenocon
I bought the book. The reason why: there was a clear lack of documentation on
Riak at the time (still is). Your book is bar none one of the best sources of
material for quickly getting up to speed on Riak. I read it cover to cover
several times. Your writing style, ability to explain complex topics with
simple prose, and fantastic executable code snippet examples also contributed
to my decision to shell out the $29 - after I had read the sample chapter.
Frankly, I probably would have had no issue paying more for it.

Now, if someone would just give the node riak driver some love....

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roidrage
Thank you so much for the kind words. I'm really glad you're finding the book
this helpful!

Now, about the Node client. You are correct that there's been stalling over
the last six or more months, but there's work on continuing the work on it,
adapting it to new features in Riak and to push Frank's (original author) work
on rewriting it in pure JavaScript towards the finish line.

Thanks again, your comment is very much appreciated!

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thibaut_barrere
I love this trend that people share their numbers, discuss pricing etc. I will
definitely do the same in the coming months if all goes well.

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nathanbarry
Please share the numbers even if things don't go well. A balance of successes
and failures helps everyone learn.

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thibaut_barrere
Will do! My "all goes well" was more about estimating the "when" than about
the outcome (which is already fairly positive anyway!).

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thehickmans
Did you do any validation on the book idea before you started writing? How
much time did you invest before you decided to publish it?

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roidrage
In the article I wrote that there was no guarantee the book would be a
success. The reason for that is that I didn't have any validation upfront
whether the book is a good and viable product idea or not. I started work on
it long before I joined the 30x500 class, and how the book came about is not
exactly in the spirit of it, as it takes a whole different approach on finding
audiences for products and all that.

The total time that went into the book is hard to put a number on. I'd say at
least three months of dedicated writing, testing out theories in practice,
editing, proof-reading and building up marketing momentum around it went into
the book.

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robomartin
Can you explain a little more about the mechanics of selling the eBooks? You
mentioned 8.9% going to a fulfillment provider. Who? What exactly did they do
for you?

Great article.

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roidrage
Sure can. I actually wrote a post about how I'm building and publishing the
book a while back which has more details on the fulfillment provider as well:
[http://www.paperplanes.de/2012/1/12/my-publishing-tool-
chain...](http://www.paperplanes.de/2012/1/12/my-publishing-tool-chain.html)

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edwinnathaniel
I'm starting to think that Amy Hoy 30x500 class will make more money than her
products (^_^)

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alexknowshtml
Don't forget that infoproduct (ebook & class) income is an alternative way to
fund product development.

In a way, in addition to being helped to their own sustainable success,
revenue from the classes supplants the need for angel or venture money in
order to help fuel growth of the software products.

And in the end she owns 100% of her business, all the while fulfilling her
mission to help people launch their own businesses that they can own 100% of
as well.

