
How I Made $70k Self-Publishing a Book about Ruby on Rails - nateberkopec
https://www.nateberkopec.com/blog/2017/03/10/how-i-made-self-publishing-about-ruby-on-rails.html
======
austenallred
I think people _severely, severely_ underestimate the amount you can make
self-publishing.

I blame it on traditional publishing companies and old habits. My mom was a
book editor, and the _very best_ authors they published would sell 10,000
books. Their cut was something like $2/book, they'd pull in $20k.

So when I decided to write a book on growth hacking
([https://www.secretsaucenow.com](https://www.secretsaucenow.com)), I decided
to self-publish. This was more difficult, I had to find an editor and pay
them, had to market it myself, etc. Luckily I'm pretty good at the marketing
part (hence the book) and I found old contacts of my mom's to edit, but we
launched on Kickstarter, so I figured if it flopped I would know in advance.

We sold $66,000 on Kickstarter, then went on to sell another $44,000 on
Indiegogo while we finished it up.

Since then we've sold around $20,000 on gumroad. In total it's something like
2,000 copies (though we charge a lot more per copy than most book publishers
do, and that keeps us out of Amazon, etc.)

If I had a publishing deal I would make about $5,000 from that. But because I
self-published I took home _$130,000 minus costs and fees_ , so we'll
conservatively say $100,000.

Now I sit back and check gumroad a couple times a day; I average $800 in sales
per day, and _almost_ make more from the book than I do from my (well-paying)
full-time job. If I can keep this rate up I will replace my salary (or,
rather, double it)

~~~
wyldfire
> I think people severely, severely underestimate the amount you can make
> self-publishing.

I think you really should qualify this for the sake of all of us amateur
writers out there. I would've said "people severely, severely _overestimate_
the amount you can make self-publishing."

Most of us don't have a book idea worth writing about or are really bad at
writing, or both. It's also really hard for a lot of us to realize which group
we're in.

You say "I raked in $TONS for a $40 non-fiction book that helps folks with
business development" but I think the rest of us should recognize those
details when we see your numbers. If I want to write a book about the subtle
great things about unit tests, python, or the great American novel, I should
tread with caution. My boring story will probably not make $TONS.

> very best authors they published would sell 10,000 books. Their cut was
> something like $2/book, they'd pull in $20k.

This is a more interesting part of your post, and worth highlighting. Self-
publishing can net you a LOT more than working with a publisher. But for sure
you've got to start with an idea that people think is worth buying.

~~~
mooreds
I made ~$500 on my book about a niche tool for a niche product:
[http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/1339](http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/1339)

And then I never revised it because I was sick of the tech, and had moved on.

Still glad I did it, but I'd spend a lot of time thinking about the product
category before I'd write another book.

~~~
taude
That's the hard part, finding something 1) you're passionate about enough to
suffer through the writing 2) has value to people to buy it.

------
jasode
_> , I launched a _course_ called The Complete Guide to Rails Performance.
Since then, I have sold just over 500 copies, for gross revenue of $70,714.20
($1350/week)._

(The emphasis on "course" was mine.)

It looks like much of the revenue was the full course which means videos and
Q&A webinars.

I'm not going to say it's clickbait but it's _slightly_ misleading to put _"
Book"_ in the article's title since most tech authors including Douglas
Crockford, John Resig, etc will not be able to pull $70k in 12 months whether
they self-publish or let a traditional publisher like O'Reilly market the
book.

That said, congratulations on producing content that people want to pay for.
Your numbers seem to be better than the author royalties from
Pluralsight/Lynda for a single course.

~~~
adamwathan
The most important thing you can do to increase your odds of success when
releasing a technical book is to have multiple pricing tiers, adding
additional content so you give people the option to pay you more than $30 or
whatever you are charging for just the book.

I released a book in May 2016 teaching PHP programmers how to refactor code
with lots of loops and conditionals into collection pipelines.

So far it's made about $180,000 CAD.

~$30,000 of that came from the "just the book" tier, at $29-$39 (depending on
if the customer bought at the discounted launch price)

~$75,000 came from a "book + screencasts" tier, at $59-$79

~$75,000 came from a book/screencasts/example application tier, at $135-$179

If I had only given people the option of the cheapest tier, I would've made
less than half of what I made by adding additional tiers.

The absolute bulk of the value is all in the cheapest tier, in fact the
screencasts are the same examples from the book + just two bonus examples, and
the example application is a project I already had that happened to use a lot
of the principles in the book.

You can take a look at the landing page here if you're interested:
[https://adamwathan.me/refactoring-to-
collections/](https://adamwathan.me/refactoring-to-collections/)

I think this sort of success is pretty achievable, I just followed the
strategy outlined by Nathan Barry in his "Authority" book:
[http://nathanbarry.com/authority/](http://nathanbarry.com/authority/)

Nobody is going to make a lot of money selling a $40 book through a
traditional publisher. If you really want to produce content like this and be
able to earn a living from it, you need to be a bit more strategic about it,
which includes things like tiered pricing.

I don't think it's deceptive to call it a "book" just because the author put
in the extra effort to give people the option to pay a premium price for some
bonus material; that's the _right_ way to self-publish a book if you actually
want to earn a decent income from it.

~~~
sireat
Really nice landing page!

Curious, how many of these buyers have some sort of corporate backing, ie
businesses buying it for their employees?

I was very sceptical at first to see people paying $100+ to learn how refactor
their PHP code into functional style.

Then again it sounds realistic enough:

1000 book buyers 1000 "screencast" buyers 500 full package buyers

So there is a market for 2500 PHP developers willing to improve themselves.

It just seems like a $100+ would a be lot to spend to progress beyond
something like this article:
[https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/refactoring-
pipelines....](https://www.martinfowler.com/articles/refactoring-
pipelines.html)

EDIT: I mean writing functional map. reduce. filter. style code will be
"nicer" looking in many cases, but is there really a financial payoff to
refactoring loops?

~~~
pc86
I'm just a random programmer but if this was in my wheelhouse I would
absolutely buy the full package. I may even buy it to see if it's something
that could be applied to my C# brethren :)

------
ryandrake
> My favorite example of this (from the Ruby community, of course) is Why's
> Poignant Guide to Ruby. If you're a Rubyist, you already know what this is,
> but if you're not, it's a legendary tome in the Ruby community.

Not sure that's a great example, in my view. I remember when I was learning
Ruby, and everyone online was "Read that _why guide it's great!!" It was a
mess. I couldn't learn anything from it at all. There was probably good
content in there, but the interspersed poorly drawn comics and nonsense
asides/tangents made it impossible to follow. Maybe it was great for some
people but it did not fit my learning style at all. I expect a vanilla
introduction, a clear progression through control structures, data types,
keywords, variables, constants, operators, etc. and a concise review at the
end of each chapter, structured reference at the end, etc. In other words, a
plain vanilla "Pragmatic Programmer" or "O'Reilly" style guide.

> Having a unique voice is one of the most important things you can do to make
> your content stand out in a sea of "blah". It's what will make readers
> remember you and keep coming back.

Agreed that it's memorable though...

~~~
mwpmaybe
> I remember when I was learning Ruby, and everyone online was "Read that _why
> guide it's great!!" It was a mess. I couldn't learn anything from it at all.

I had the same experience (started Rubying in late 2015). I had much more
success with RubyMonk, Metaprogramming Ruby 2, and some other "Ruby for Perl
hackers" blog posts and such.

------
bphogan
This article is full of great advice on how to write a book, whether you
publish for yourself or for someone else.

I have written 10 books. 9 for the Pragmatic Bookshelf. I've made a nice side
income on my books by doing many of the same things he lists. This isn't so
much about self-publishing as it is about writing great technical content.

Full disclosure - in addition to writing, I am a development editor for the
Pragmatic Bookshelf. But I publish my own books with them because they offer
the best of both worlds. They split the profits with you 50/50, but you get an
editor to work with throughout the process, and they take care of a lot of
other things, like distribution, sales, billing, copy-edit, typesetting, etc
so you don't have to.

But the important thing is to get your message out there to people in a
quality way, like this article suggests. Do the research, find your voice,
write about something people care about. If you go the self-published route,
get technical reviewers, hire a development editor, and get a copy editor.
Your end results will go far.

[edited to clarify value add for publisher]

~~~
polysaturate
I think for those writing a technical book, myself included, just don't know
if it's worth going self-publish with a minimal cut from payment providers and
such. Or getting on board with PragProg who would help with marketing,
editing, etc and still get a decent royalty.

I understand there are no clear-cut rules to go by, but even a generic "If you
don't have 10k email list, 50% of PragProgs sales will most likely be higher"
might helper writers understand when to get help.

------
wjgilmore
I can share some perspective on this which will lend evidence to Austin's
conclusions regarding the financial gains to be had self-publishing.

Having written ~10 books, including a bestselling technical book for a
publisher (13 years in print), worked as an acquisitions editor for large
technical publishing house (signed more than 60 books during my time there),
and written a bestselling self-published book
([http://www.easylaravelbook.com/](http://www.easylaravelbook.com/)), it's
suffice to say I have a well-rounded understanding of publishing financials.

If you're willing to put the time into writing a quality book (not to mention
are a subject matter expert), there are significant profits to be made taking
the self-publishing route. It all boils down to the huge profit margin to be
had as compared to traditional publishing. Take my Easy Laravel book for
instance: I sell it at $28 via Leanpub and Gumroad. Gumroad takes 8.5% + $0.30
per sale, meaning I make $25.32 per unit. Compare this to traditional
publishing, in which the same book at $28 would sell into a chain at say a 40%
discount ($16.80). The author's royalty is calculated from this, which in most
cases starts at 10% (sometimes it scales), meaning the author makes $1.68 per
unit sold. This means comparatively the self-published author is making 15
times what the traditional author is making.

So ask yourself: as a self-published author could you sell at least 1/15 the
number of books a traditional publisher would otherwise sell? If yes, then
you're going to come out ahead. If the book is of sufficient quality, and you
are actively promoting it by blogging and maintaining an e-mail list, then
there is no doubt in my mind anybody with adequate writing skills (you don't
have to be Shakespeare) and determination will come out ahead, particularly
given the ability to electronically distribute the book through all major
channels.

If you're thinking about self-publishing, just do it. Even if you don't finish
the book (many will not), you'll have a lot of fun doing it!

[Edit: Just realized I didn't actually reply in Austin's thread. Despite
lurking for years I think this is actually my first ever HN comment. Sorry for
being clueless.]

~~~
j2bax
Congrats on finally jumping into the conversation, so to speak! Also, thanks
for the perspective, this is really encouraging.

------
ilamont
Indie publisher here. Nate did a lot of research to identify the hole that
needed to be filled, and then executed on developing his voice, setting up
product tiers, spreading the word, etc. I also liked his “posts as prototypes”
approach—it’s a great way to develop the ideas, hone creativity, and get
feedback prior to releasing a book. Congratulations!

However, I would like to offer a word of caution for anyone considering self-
publishing. For every selfpub sales success there are hundreds of books that
fail to make an impact. U.S. ISBN registrations for self-published books have
basically doubled every few years (1) and probably crossed the 1 million mark
last year. However, the number of Americans buying books has slowly declined
over the past several years, and is probably around 45% of the population
(down from over 55% a decade ago). (2) The growth in demand is simply not
there to support the explosion of supply, at least in the United States.

Niche technical books that are well-written and effectively marketed have
greater potential than a poorly edited shape-shifting romance title from an
unknown author. On the other hand, technical titles also have to compete with
free or low-cost information on the Internet, YouTube, etc., not to mention
existing books that dominate the field (something that Nate referenced in his
post).

Of course, there are other rewards associated with writing books, including
personal satisfaction, expanding one’s personal brand, and improving writing
and editing skills. But sales are never guaranteed.

1\. [http://leanmedia.org/number-book-readers-declines-even-
self-...](http://leanmedia.org/number-book-readers-declines-even-self-
publishing-skyrockets/) (Data from Bowker,
[http://media.bowker.com/documents/bowker-selfpublishing-
repo...](http://media.bowker.com/documents/bowker-selfpublishing-
report2015.pdf))

2\.
[http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2016/2015-us-b...](http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2016/2015-us-
book-industry-year-end-review.html)

~~~
dingbat
it seems like the exploding self-publishing market has coincided with a
massive increase in fake marketing tactics, purchased reviews and copy-catting
of any material that gets traction. as an indie publisher how do you compete
in a market that is inundated with cheap frauds?

~~~
ilamont
I publish utility nonfiction (i.e. "how-to guides”). There is indeed a
universe of cheap frauds using every scammy tactic you can imagine. There is
also the issue of free competition on the Web, YouTube, the library, etc.

But I have found that the seemingly infinite supply of information resources
gives a big advantage to brands that stand for quality. My customers don’t
like wading through YouTube, or sites of unknown provenance or quality, or
books with dodgy covers and keyword-stuffed titles. My brand (In 30 Minutes
Guides, 1) and motto (Quick Guides for a Complex World) stand for something,
and anyone browsing through first few pages or the verified reviews will see
that the books are legit. We update them regularly, and I am constantly
expanding the catalog - our newest release was on Monday for Crowdfunding
Basics In 30 Minutes and in a few months we will have another title about end-
of-life documentation as well as an update of LinkedIn In 30 Minutes for the
new UI.

1\. [http://in30minutes.com](http://in30minutes.com)

------
chris_hawk
Just to add a data point, I earned about $2,000 with a self-published "how to
start a podcast" book in 2015: [http://record-and-release.com](http://record-
and-release.com)

I wrote it and released it in 10 days and followed a highly-abbreviated
version of the promotional plan from Nathan Barry's _Authority_ to market it.

I know $2,000 is small money compared to some of the figures being tossed
around in here, but I'm thankful to have earned that much.

My 2nd book was a total flop, commercially:
[https://gumroad.com/l/clientconflictbook](https://gumroad.com/l/clientconflictbook)

The people who bought the book found the content super-useful, but the subject
matter just did NOT catch on as something my audience was willing to spend
money on. I found d a real pain point, just not one that was compelling
enough. I also prompted it poorly.

Here's hoping my 3rd book does better! I feel optimistic about the profit
potential of self-publishing, generally speaking. As has been mentioned here,
you have to market it well AND have a compelling subject matter with a hungry
audience. It's not easy.

------
apo
> I recently removed Google Analytics from my site when I realized it didn't
> really matter to me.

Interesting idea. If your analytics reports don't cause you to change course,
there is no reason to collect them in the first place.

Still, it's hard to believe that analytics add zero value to an aspiring self-
publisher. What about simple things, such as knowing which posts get the most
traction, and so may be more likely to appeal to someone buying a book or
course. That information can be quite counterintuitive.

~~~
IanCal
Basic information is easy to grab from your server logs. Unless you're doing
much more detailed stuff (journeys through the site, in-page interaction, etc)
then you may not really need google analytics. You can probably do a lot more
with just logs than I expect, but the most basic thing that a lot of people
want (basically just a hit counter) is easy enough to get.

I've been having success playing with
[http://goaccess.io/](http://goaccess.io/) recently. Not doing much with it
(partly as nobody is really visiting my site and there's not yet much real
content up :)) but it seems good and doesn't require you to change what you're
doing.

~~~
manarth

      Basic information is easy to grab from your server logs.
    

Unless caching. That's a good reason to move to frontend-based analytics like
GA.

------
siruva07
You were once my (first!) intern trying to hock background checks before any
p2p services needed identity verifications as a service.

I couldn't be more proud. This may get downvoted to hell (or to invisible),
but ef it ;-)

------
taude
This is an interesting read. I published a tech book for a major publisher,
received a $7K advance which never earned-out. Of course, the timing of my
technical topic couldn't have been worse, as the industry shifted. But if I
were to do it all over again, I'd definitely go the self-publishing route.
Especially, since I understand a professional editor/writer workfow.

Edit: one other thing that's interesting is that he did this in 2016, about a
decade after Ruby on Rails was introduced, and after the market was saturated
with Ruby on Rails material .

Great work, and congrats on boosting your consulting business. When I
published my book, I definitely got clients and work because of it, that was
the real payoff.

------
Delmania
Articles like this depress me. I know that if I want to achieve financial
independence, I am going to need to start a business, which involves
activities like this. (I should also get involved in real estate). However,
when I sit down to think about this, I realize how untechnical I am, get
depressed, and then move on..

~~~
nateberkopec
I was that person _for fucking years_. After my Shark Tank appearance I went
into a period of minor depression and didn't really try my hand at
entrepreneurship until this project, which was almost 7 years later.

All I can give for advice is to build a snowball - start _as small as
possible_ , and work on it consistently. Eventually the success will come.

~~~
55555
Thanks for that honesty. Whenever people see successful people they tend to
think they were always as successful.

~~~
nateberkopec
Yup. You can see it in the replies to Austen's results. "Your results aren't
typical","did you have a following before", etc. I've been in their shoes, so
I know now it was all just excuses, not tactical questions.

------
EternalData
As a long-term play, I think as much as people think about investing capital,
they should think about investing their time the same way. You put some blocks
of time into a particular project that scales well, and it'll eventually
provide you with enough passive income to escape being a service layer for
hire. In that sense, a job would be a portfolio of investments you can make
time-wise in building yourself and passive income assets.

~~~
adamwathan
+1000, thinking about digital products like books as assets akin to investing
in stocks has been an important realization for me over the past few months.

Most of us who participate in communities like this have this insane super
power of being able to create something out of nothing (but time and effort)
that has value to people.

We can build little things that work their asses off for us forever, just
requiring a nudge once in a while to keep them moving.

I've released two digital products in the last year, a book and a video
course. The book will be a year old in May and still makes me
$2500-5000/month, and the course (which came out in November) is still making
~$30,000/month, although I expect that to slow down soon.

Even still, with a little bit of maintenance marketing effort, I can expect
those products to keep making a few thousand dollars each month for the next
couple years while being able to dedicate the vast majority of my time to
creating new products (assets) for my portfolio.

It feels a lot like the mentality that's pushed in "Rich Dad, Poor Dad" of
owning things that generate cash flow, but instead of having to find money to
purchase real estate, folks like us can invent these assets out of thin air.
Really blows my mind.

~~~
rwmurrayVT
Quick question, where did you release the video course? Udemy or a similar
marketplace?

~~~
adamwathan
No I actually built my own platform for self-hosting the course. I don't think
you can make much money through sites like Udemy, I would instead recommend a
platform like Coach
([https://www.withcoach.com/](https://www.withcoach.com/)).

------
dboreham
A good read. One of the more interesting, informative and well written pieces
to appear here in a while.

The one concern I have with this playbook is that fashions in niche technical
subjects change (I think) very quickly. For this to beat simply selling coding
services on a T+M basis the revenue stream would need to continue for several
years, with a suite of similar books/courses added over time. Are people still
going to be interested in paying money to learn about Ruby performance in 2
years from now? Can two, three, four equally profitable subject be identified
and mined every year? Probably not, unfortunately, due to this industry's
eternal desire to churn the tech (often to no obvious positive purpose).

~~~
angelbob
At his price point, he'll probably get a continual trickle of customers. I
sell a book called "Rebuilding Rails" \-- not as successful as his, but I've
also made a few tens of thousands of dollars, so not nothing. And I reliably
make a few more thousands of dollars yearly, years after I wrote it.

After Ruby is a "hot" language (years ago), it becomes a legacy language where
companies will pay money for assistance with their products. In the $10-$15
niche, you need individual engineers to think a language is neat. In the
$40-$10,000 niches, you need companies to think they can save some engineering
time.

Both can be very valuable.

------
uberneo
Another good idea if somebody make a Good self paced book for Machine
Learning. There are millions of tutorials available online but its the similar
situation as Ruby on Rails. All somebody need is to just aggregate all this
info in a single book and with Machine Learning hotness these days you will
probably end up selling few of them. Just an idea

~~~
tomcam
Damn, you're right

------
jgalt212
It blows my mind why all these smart people write books for such little
payoff, but maybe it has to do with man's desire to feel important.

This is why I love books. You can get to hear what somewhat smarter than you
has to say for $15. There isn't a better deal out there.

~~~
angelbob
I got a raise of around $30,000 as a result (ish, hard to measure) of writing
my technical book. I'm also sufficiently well-known that I'm unlikely to ever
have trouble getting a Ruby job. That's hard to quantify exactly, but I think
it's fair to say it's worth $5,000-$10,000 annually, as a rough equivalent.

(My book sells for around $30-$40 rather than $15, but the math is similar.)

------
desireco42
Hmm... I intend to make an info product that I believe could be used by most
developers, however, my idea is to sell it for $10, thinking that no developer
should say he can't afford it. Mostly because of that as I want as many to
actually read and apply.

From what I read here, this product, which would have two parts and is largely
done, I should sell it for $49 specifically with higher tiers.

Not sure what to think honestly. I am close to finishing it and I want to make
money, but mostly want to share with other developers and open communication.

I like idea about slack channel and community.

------
ejo0
Congrats Nate! Really glad to see you doing well post JudoJobs, forwarding
this along to a few people who are into self-publishing technical books.
Accounting for taxes on self-publishing just seems to be something you need to
be careful about if you are selling via a few different channels like gumroad
so you aren't audited.

------
sanmon3186
Noob question. What are the implications of writing books on platforms that
are commercial in nature? Say I want to write a book or apigee or IBM bluemix.
Are there licensing restrictions on what I can cover and what not.

~~~
josho
Why not start writing a few articles for IBM developerWorks. At the very least
it will connect you to some good editors and give you credibility for the
longer book. Potentially IBM will even pay you to write the book and publish
it under their press.

To your specific question the vendor's EULA may have language that puts in
restrictions (e.g. most restrict benchmarks). So, give the EULA a close read
to get a sense. Second issue that you will have to pay attention to is
trademarks, you'll need to seek some guidance so as to not put you on the
wrong side of trademark law.

------
umen
Great thread !

can you please suggest from experience what is the best way to copy right and
translate book to english , if i want to self publish ? as none native english
writer ? Thanks!

------
z3t4
Good advice on persistence. It will be easier if you love it. But there will
also be times when you'll hate it. Sticking to the plan though is most
crucial.

------
ziikutv
Good read. I am wondering, why did you decide not to do a free HTML version of
the book; aside from the obvious, it is tedious to do.

Did you consider Physical printing of books?

~~~
nateberkopec
I actually have an HTML version of the course, it comes with the purchase.
This is because Gitbook can automatically output an HTML version. It's not the
_best_ , but it works.

I didn't do a free version because it's a premium product - if you want the
"free version" of my stuff, you read my blog.

I did not consider physical printing.

------
dsschnau
>I have sold just over 500 copies, for gross revenue of $70,714.20
($1350/week).

Uhh that is a really expensive book then

------
hota_mazi
> I have sold just over 500 copies, for gross revenue of $70,714.20

Er... what? Each copy of the book is $140?!?

~~~
milesvp
That's what it sounds like. You have to realize, that anyone that actually has
a performance problem is likely to save many multiples of that monthly. Just
getting an engineer to look at a performance problem for an hour is costing a
company at least $100 (probably more in opportunity costs). If you can save
time with some training it's totally worth it to buy a book like this and give
it to one of your devs to see if they can reduce your AWS footprint.

Mostly likely most of that $70k came from corporate credit cards.

------
marak830
thank you for this. As I have mentioned in previous comments a fellow chef and
I are looking into publishing our own chef's guides with an application and
indepth wrote ups.

Posts like this and all the comments are immensely helpful(and really help to
keep the motivation up!)

Thank you :-)

------
iplaw
Deleted

~~~
nateberkopec
Hi, author here. I don't do that. I think I even mention in the post that I
don't bother with vote-ringing on HN because I think HN's algos are pretty
sophisticated on this front. Plus, HN hellbans _a lot_ for _a lot_ of reasons,
so any type of manipulation is extremely risky.

Also, I generally write enough stuff that I don't need any one particular post
to succeed, but keeping my domain off any "blacklists" is very important to
me. Vote manipulation would be a very, very bad decision for me.

~~~
munificent
> I don't bother with vote-ringing on HN because I think HN's algos are pretty
> sophisticated on this front.

I think the right answer should be that you don't do vote manipulation because
_it 's deceitful and unethical_. Your argument here is basically "because I
can't get away with it". :(

~~~
exolymph
What HN considers "vote-ringing" is posting on Twitter and saying, "Hey
friends, can you vote for this?" Not exactly a crime against humanity.

------
3legcat
I think the fact this is book is a success shows just how many people are
having problems with Ruby on Rail performance.

If they would be willing to rethink their stack, they might have lesser need
for such books.

~~~
kovacs
Well luckily these customers have the money for the book because they were
able to launch an actual business at least 2 months sooner and can move 5x
more quickly than all the competitors still mulling over which lesser
productive alternative framework they'd like to use.

