How to Write and Self-Publish a Financially Successful Tech Book

This presentation draws upon Jason's 15 years of experience working in both traditional and self-publishing environments.

Transcript

1. How to Write and Self- Publish a Financially Successful Tech book W. Jason Gilmore wj@wjgilmore.com www.wjgilmore.com @wjgilmore
2. –People who didn’t make any money writing their book and people who never wrote a book. “You can’t make any money writing technical books.”
3. About Jason Contract developer and consultant for startups and internationally recognized companies alike. Author of eight books, four published through Apress, four self- published. Apress' Open Source Editorial Director for five years Spent much of the past two years immersed in a large publishing analytics project for an international publisher. Now retired CodeMash cofounder.
4. Books Published via Apress A Programmer’s Introduction to PHP 4.0 (2001, Apress) Beginning PHP and MySQL (2004, Apress). In print for 10 years, 5th edition will publish this year. Beginning PHP and PostgreSQL 8 (2006, Apress) Beginning PHP and Oracle (2007, Apress)
5. Self-Published Books Easy PHP Websites with the Zend Framework (2009, 2010) Easy PayPal for PHP Developers (2010) Easy Active Record for Rails Developers (2014) Easy Laravel 5 (2014) Easy Heroku for Busy Rails Developers (2015)
6. So What Are We Going to Talk About?
7. Goals Validate Your Book Idea Configure a Sane Writing Environment Build an Audience Before the Book Publishes Produce Your Book Sales Channels Deploy Your Bestseller Draft to Leanpub Did Above Scare You? We’ll Touch Upon Traditional Publishing
8. Case Studies
9. Case Study #1: Discover Meteor Discover Meteor is a self-published book about the Meteor JavaScript framework. Co-authored by Sasha Grief and Tom Coleman, creators of Telescope. $306,268 in sales over 18 months. After Gumroad fees, that’s $290,954.60 in pre-tax revenue. All sales conducted through a single channel, www.discovermeteor.com
10. Case Study #2: Nathan Barry Nathan Barry self-published The App Design Handbook, Designing Web Applications, and Authority. ~$597,000 in sales over the past four years. http://blog.gumroad.com/post/73421524134/nathan- barrys-lessons-learned-selling-355-759-on
11. More About Barry 2011: Designer learning iOS development. Made $60K/ year. Quit his job. 2012: Self-published The App Design Handbook and Designing Web Applications. Made $85,639. Total income: $145,471. 2013: Published Authority. Total book income: $194,112. 2014: No new books. Total book + online training income: $257,950
12. Case Study #3: Thomas Palef Soon after Phaser JS framework released, Thomas started publishing games via http://lessmilk.com/. Wrote a 130 page e-book, promoted via his mailing list and http://phaser.io/ In the first 24 hours following publication he made more than $12,000 in sales http://www.howwelaunched.com/thomas-tells-us-how- he-made-over-12000-from-his-ebook/
13. Shared Approaches Built mailing lists Managed sales and customers autonomously through Gumroad Offer multiple book packages in order to cater to widest possible customer range Appropriately priced their products Executed relentlessly
14. Show Me the Money
15. Traditional Publishing Payments Average industry royalty is 10%. Calculated on *net*. $49.99 book sold into channel at $25. Your royalty is $2.50. 20% of your royalty held 6 quarters in arrears to account for returns. $5,000 advance, paid in 3 installments. $1,666.67 every 2.5 months. Overwhelming majority of books do not earn out advance.
16. Self-publishing Payments Your self-published book sells for $28.50 via Gumroad. Your take: $26.83. That’s 9.4x your traditional publisher royalty. You can be paid before book even publishes. Sell at a discounted price of $15, sell 100 before you’re even done, you’ll make $14 * 100 = $1,400. You are paid every two weeks. Sell just one book a day at $28.50, you’re making $804.90/month. 4.5 months after publication, you’ve recouped what would have been your publisher’s $5K advance.
17. Validating Your Book Idea
18. The Idea Everybody has ideas. A few are good. So what’s a good idea? One that sells books. “First, fabulous, or forgotten” is a popular mantra in publishing.
19. Idea Validation: Google Trends Rust Language: http://www.google.com/trends/ explore#q=Rust%20language Dart Language: http://www.google.com/trends/ explore#q=Dart%20Programming%20Language Angular JS: http://www.google.com/trends/ explore#q=Angular%20JS
20. Idea Validation: Meetups How many ______ groups are out there? Are they active? Have a look at Rust-related meetups. Research: What is being discussed at past and forthcoming meetups?
21. Idea Validation: Amazon Are there any published/forthcoming books on the topic? See Raspberry Pi. If yes, not necessarily a show-stopper. If no, not necessarily a green light.
22. Idea Validation: Stack Overflow Go to Tags, type in keyword. What is question frequency for week/month? Research: Which questions are garnering the most interest? The most discussion? Where are users getting confused? See AngularJS
23. Idea Validation: Reddit Is there a Subreddit? Is it active? How many members? The Rust Subreddit Research: What questions are beginners asking?
24. Idea Validation: GitHub How many Rust-related GitHub projects are out there? Search for Rust language. Research: any interesting projects to cover in the book? Do you know any project developers?
25. Idea Validation: Your Peers Chances are you work in tech, and your friends/ colleagues are using the very same technology you’d like to write about. Send them a draft TOC! Take a few out to lunch and ask their thoughts. Carefully note valuable feedback, ignore the occasional comment about ____________________.
26. The Writing Process OR HOW TO SOLVE FOR #2: 1. Come up with a book idea. 2. ??? 3. Profit!
27. –Khaled Hosseini “I have met so many people who say they’ve got a book in them, but they’ve never written a word. To be a writer — this may seem trite, I realize — you have to actually write.”
28. The Writing Process Your Writing Environment Defining a Schedule Pacing Yourself Table of Contents Development Outlining, Revising, Editing
29. Your Writing Environment MS Word great for writing a college essay. It is not well- suited for writing technical books. Consider Markdown and a Markdown-capable editor Sublime Text, Mou, MacDown, Vim, Emacs Demo: Sublime Text (also demo Leanpub snippets) Demo: MacDown
30. Other Writing Environment Solutions LaTeX Docbook git-scribe: Scott Chacon used early version of this to write Pro Git. See this post. AsciiDoc-based.
31. Defining a Writing Schedule Hemingway wrote from 6am to noon daily during time in Key West Important to define a writing block. Mornings before work? At lunch time? Saturday morning block?
32. Pacing Yourself “Beginning PHP and MySQL, 4th Edition” is more than 800 pages. It was not written in a weekend. More like 6 months. 225 words per page * 800 pages = 180K words. That’s just 1,000 words/day for six months. 500 words/day * 20 days/month: 10,000 words/month = 44 pages 500 words/day * 16 days/month + 1,000 words/day * 4 days/month = 12,000 words/month = 53 pages/month Write now. Edit later. See Typewriter app Just keep writing. http://nathanbarry.com/365/
33. Table of Contents Development Create your dream TOC. You can always revise later. Most successful technical books offer readers a journey. Each chapter is a stop along the way from home to the destination. Look at your own tech bookshelf. Which TOCs work? Which did not? Why?
34. Outlining Consider outlining every section and subsection until book is complete. Consider mind mapping. Demo: Heroku mindmap
35. Revising Run a spell-checker Readers are forgiving of imperfect grammar, but not misspellings. Ask anybody and everybody to review drafts
36. –Dean Koontz “I work on one page, revising and polishing until I can't make it better, then move on to the next. Some pages might get 20 or more drafts before I move on. At the end of every chapter, I print out and read it because I see things on the page that I didn't see on the screen. I pencil the chapter, print it out, pencil it again if necessary, and then continue with the next chapter.”
37. Hire an Editor? Probably not, unless you aren’t a particularly proficient writer. Copy editors cost $25-$50/hour Technical Reviewers can be very hit and miss
38. Regularly Build Your Book Seeing your work in “book” format is highly motivational. If using Sublime Text you can convert Markdown to HTML and PDF using an extension. If using Macdown you can convert to HTML and PDF using Export feature. If using Leanpub you can build preview.
39. Consider Packages See http://easyactiverecord.com/purchase/ See http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-handbook/ If technology is sufficiently mature, consider offering a video package.
40. Building Your Audience
41. Create a Landing Page If you have a book idea, launch your landing page immediately. Google for rails activerecord book http://www.wjgilmore.com/books/easy-heroku- rails.html http://easylaravelbook.com/ Integrating Mail Chimp or similar mailing list subscription form.
42. Engage with Your Subscribers Ask them about issues they are having with technology. Send them links, tips and tricks. Keep the conversation going! David Molnar (@davidmolnar) did a masterful job of this with his book. See http://iphoneonlyphoto.com/
43. Begin Publishing Blog Posts Find topics that will resonate with prospective readers of your book. Publish clearly identified excerpts and adaptations of material found in the book. Integrate Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools Demo: See EasyActiveRecord.com analytics
44. Promoting Your Blog Subsequent to publishing a new EasyActiveRecord.com post, I add links to RubyFlow.com, RubyDaily.org, Reddit.com/r/rails, DZone.com, LinkedIn, Hacker News, and Twitter.
45. Begin Selling Early Version Sell a draft version of book at discount. Provide these readers with regular updates. See EasyLaravelBook.com. Made almost $1,000 Be straightforward: https://leanpub.com/easylaravel
46. Seed YouTube with Companion Videos Google logically prioritizes YouTube videos in search responses. http://easyactiverecord.com/companion-videos/ https://www.youtube.com/analytics
47. Companion Video Production I use Screenflow (OS X only), have used Camtasia in the past on Windows. Conquer fear of mistakes and pauses. Just edit them out!
48. Production
49. Published Formats PDF, ePub, Mobi Include all three versions in download when possible Don’t fret over using Pandoc, Kitabu or similar; take advantage of Leanpub. Let’s update Easy Active Record for Rails Developers!
50. Creating a Book Cover Pretty straightforward thanks to eBook dominance. Leanpub wants a 2550 x 3300 pixels @ 300 PPI image Amazon requirements much less stringent, 625 x 1000. Offers the KDP Cover Creator with stock art, layout templates, and free fonts. Bottom line: Invest some time and money into producing a quality cover
51. Should You Print Books? If work with independent printer, you will be asked to provide polished PDFs and a spec cover file. Readers print book expectations are different. An index is noticeably missing, for instance. InDesign is expensive, and a nightmare if you are an amateur Create Space
52. Sales Channels
53. Selling Your Book You might be inclined to install and configure Magento or another e-commerce platform and manage sales autonomously through your own online store. Don’t do this. Focus on your product. Outsource sales to a third-party.
54. Sales Channels: Gumroad Demo: EasyActiveRecord.com 5% + $0.25 per transaction. $28.50 would net $26.83. $35.00 nets $33.00. 100 sales @ $28.50, you will make $2,683 and Gumroad will make $167. Paid every two weeks, directly to bank account. No PayPal intermediary. Automates customer notification of product updates You can export customer data (name, e-mail, city, state, zip), other information (promo code usage)
55. Gumroad Drawbacks I am hard-pressed to identify any drawbacks. Not supposed to sell services or events. Must be preapproved to sell physical goods.
56. Sales Channels: Leanpub See https://leanpub.com/ and https://leanpub.com/easylaravel/ edit Offers a superb Markdown to PDF/EPUB/MOBI conversion service. Transaction fee is 10% + $0.50. $28.50 would net $25.15. 100 sales @ $28.50, you will make $2,515 and Leanpub will make $335. Offers an interesting “name your price” feature. Book included in the Leanpub catalog.
57. Leanpub Drawbacks The 45 day return policy is ridiculous. Book purchased on December 17, 2014: You are paid for that sale on February 1, 2015 (43 days). Book purchased on December 18, 2014, you are paid for sale on March 1, 2015 (72 days). Administration interface is a mess. No customer data!
58. Sales Channels: Amazon Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (http://kdp.amazon.com) Your book will be available within 24 hours via 10 Amazon stores $2.99 to $9.99 book price = 70% royalty. $9.99 and higher = 35% royalty. $28.50 would net $9.97. 100 sales @ $28.50, you will make $997 and Amazon will make $1,853. 100 sales at $9.99, you make $699, Amazon makes $300.99. Paid 60 days following end of calendar month during which sale occurred. Easy onboarding: supply payment information, add book description, cover image, the book (HTML, DOC, other formats). 12 hours later the book is for sale.
59. Amazon KDP Drawbacks Clear interest in devaluing author IP in order to drive volume. Your price setting is a suggestion. Amazon can and does unilaterally change the price. No access to customer information. Cannot contact customers. Horrible, horrible administration interface. Can’t pre-publish an unfinished e-book via KDP. Can’t sell packages.
60. Amazon Associate Account Pays 4% for e-books. $29 book payment is $1.16. Sell 20 books/month through Amazon, that’s another $278.40 annually.
61. Sales Channels: PayPal Universally recognized payment processing solution Less than $3,000 monthly revenue, transaction fee is 2.9% + $0.30. $28.50 would net $27.37. 100 sales @ $28.50, you will make $2,737 and PayPal will make $113. $3,000 to $10,000, transaction fee is 2.5% + $0.30.
62. PayPal Drawbacks Has earned a fairly negative reputation among sellers. Many stories pertaining to frozen funds, cancelled accounts. Integration (Express Checkout) can be a bit involved. PayPal Payments Pro is $30/month + 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction. Administration interface comprehensive but horrible.
63. Sales Channels: Nook Press https://www.nookpress.com/ $0.99 - $2.98: 40%, $2.99 - $9.99: 65%, $10.00 - $199.99: 40%. $28.50 would net $11.40. 100 sales @ $28.50, you will make $1,140 and BN will make $1,710. 100 sales at $9.99, you make $649, BN makes $350.99. I have sold exactly zero copies of Easy Active Record for Rails Developers through BN.com since publishing it on the site in September, 2014.
64. NOOK Press Drawbacks Nobody uses BN.com to purchase books. Barnes & Noble financial statements indicate NOOK- related sales are collapsing.
65. Sales Channels: iBooks Apple takes 30% of the book price. Book sold via iBooks to 51 territories, including all major countries. Apple provides e-mail and phone-based support to iBooks Store authors.
66. iBooks Drawbacks Does anybody buy books through iBooks?
67. Sales Channels: Google Play Horrible interface, horrible service, I hate everything about this.
68. Pricing Your Book Writing a vampire romance book? Price it at $1.99. How large is your audience? How much value can be derived from your book? How much will volume be boosted by price decrease?
69. Pushing Your Draft to Leanpub Announcing Apocalypse Pi! http://apocalypsepi.com/
70. The Leanpub Book Format Book.txt 01_chapter_title.markdown 02_chapter_title.markdown
71. Publishing on Leanpub is Easy Create a Leanpub account Navigate to https://leanpub.com/books/new Dropbox or GitHub? Create book Optionally set stealth mode https://leanpub.com/ YOUR_BOOK/actions
72. Pre-launch Checklist
73. The Checklist Confirm your packages are properly configured Create discount codes Send e-mail blast out to subscribers Prepare and schedule five blog posts Notify your Twitter followers
74. In Conclusion E-mail me anytime with questions at wj@wjgilmore.com.