How I Made $70k Self-Publishing a Book about Ruby on Rails

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/ ↗), 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.]

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-publishing-skyrockets/ ↗ (Data from Bowker, http://media.bowker.com/documents/bowker-selfpublishing-report2015.pdf ↗)

2. http://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/reports/2016/2015-us-book-industry-year-end-review.html ↗

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 ↗), 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)

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...

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 ↗

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 ↗

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.