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How I Made $6K With My eBook
- mynyml 17y agoCool tips. I especially like the part about testing the market before actually doing the work. Clever.
- myth_drannon 17y agoThat's a case from Tim Farris book ( at least the first time I read about it)
- macournoyer_ 17y agoYes exactly! It works for everything you want to sell online.
- HeyLaughingBoy 17y agoNo, common sense!
- JacobAldridge 17y agoThe Mahalo theory, only with substance to back it up.
- happenstance 17y agoThanks for sharing. How do you like e-junkie? What other alternatives did you consider?
- macournoyer_ 17y agoe-junkie is OK, but the UI is horrible, it's all in flash. I went w/ e-junkie at 1st because of the coupon code that gave me 120 days for free & because they handle all the digital delivery logic like link expiry. I'm now w/ ClickBank as it seems to be more popular w/ affiliate marketers, only costs an upfront $50 & can accept multiple methods of payment.
- euroclydon 17y agoThere has got be a better way to think about this market that just selling eBooks. It's premium information conveyance, right? Like a stock tip sheet? My brother is in a marketplace that depends heavily on advertising to get customers. He spends several hundred a year, just on newsletters and eBooks that tell him how to best utilize his advertising budget, which seems to be over a thousand per month.
- jasonlbaptiste 17y agohe pays for newsletters? Can you share which ones?
- davidw 17y agoHow much time did it actually take you to write the book?
- macournoyer_ 17y agoWriting took about 2 months IIRC. But the learning took >1 year :p
- icey 17y agoI would be really interested to hear about the learning process. Was there something in particular that you read that was especially helpful? Did you buy other e-books to learn how to write and market e-books?
- macournoyer_ 17y agoIt started as an experiment to apply what is described in the 4 Hour Work Week book, Muse Project chapter. I've learned about marketing and ebook publishing mostly by looking at how others did it. http://javascriptrocks.com/performance/ http://javascriptrocks.com/performance/ came out a little bit before mine so I was inspired by it a little.
- duck 17y ago2 months of work for $6000? While making money probably wasn't the only reason for doing it, isn't that a pretty bad payoff? I know you will keep making sales, but (especially for technical writing) it will have a short shelf life...
- sanswork 17y agoThe kind of technical books that have short lives are ones about specific products/versions. This is a book about creating programming languages by the sounds of it. Other books in this field are still available at my local mass market bookstore after 15-20, even 30 years in print. Look at TAOCP how old is that now? Like 40 years?
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- kqr2 17y agoAny reviews of his actual ebook? http://createyourproglang.com/ http://createyourproglang.com/
- euroclydon 17y agoMan, if it's tough to get programmers to buy a set of custom controls or developer tools, it must be ten times more difficult to get them to buy an eBook. I'll admit, the site does portrait credibility.
- allenp 17y agoI thought that too, but I think the difference is that a developer could look at a program and say, "hey, I could build that" but with a book they might not see it the same way.
- psyklic 17y agoNo way, I buy lots of eBooks. I consider them a cheap education, especially with some of those great $10 deals that some publishers have for modern titles (e.g. friends of ED, Manning).
- macournoyer_ 17y agohttp://www.rubyinside.com/how-to-create-your-own-programming-language-2495.html http://www.rubyinside.com/how-to-create-your-own-programming...
- wallflower 17y ago> “ The book I want to read. ” — Matz, creator of the Ruby language The amazing review / testimonial the author probably was able to ask for because he's credible and an active member of the Ruby ecosystem (tinyrb). Another lesson on the value of real working relationships.
- zephyrfalcon 17y agoOf course, it also implies that Matz did NOT read the book... :-/
- jamesbritt 17y agoRight. Says nothing about the quality of the book. Also, I'd like to read the book, but not for the price the author is asking. I'm impressed that one can sell an e-book for near $1/page, though. I realize that, in the end, it's about value delivered, not page count, but still. It tells me that people are not as price sensitive to some things as I thought.
- macournoyer_ 17y agoThat's why it's important to sell more than just an ebook. I included 2 full languages you can use in OSS, http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/ http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/ started from the Ruby language included in the package. + screencast and more. Also the book is amazingly good :p
- jamesbritt 17y agoGood points. :) And a better deal. Taking advantage of "This is a not a dead tree" is sorely lacking in the E-books I see. Even the page layouts of E-books assume you're using some shaped-like-a-page viewer, rather than allowing for a flexible layout that works well across different screens and devices.
- basugasubaku 17y agoIt was a single tweet (http://twitter.com/yukihiro_matz/status/3875573878 http://twitter.com/yukihiro_matz/status/3875573878). A more direct translation is "book I want". I'm glad the site links to the source, though. I like easy to verify testimonials.
- steveklabnik 17y agoHow do you feel about ClickBank? One of my weekend projects is a little site that'll make selling digital goods online really simple, targeted at a non-technical audience. Obviously, you are technical, but how'd you feel about the various sites that are out there? Did you try other services before ClickBank?
- macournoyer_ 17y agoClickBank is ok, a little better the e-junkie, but e-junkie has digital delivery built-in, but still... we're very far from the nice UIs we usually take for granted in our community. My dream setup would be Shopify + http://www.fetchapp.com/ http://www.fetchapp.com/ but this is quite expensive for my low volume.
- steveklabnik 17y agoInteresting; I wonder if I've never heard of Fetch because I'm not really involved in this kind of business. If you have any thoughts you'd like to share on what sucks about your experiences with any of this stuff, I'd love to get an email and pick your brain.
- aik 17y agoI wonder how many more sales he will get for it appearing on hn?
- johngunderman 17y agoI've seen this book from an HN link a few months ago, so he already got one boost. This will probably bump his sales nicely again though.
- macournoyer_ 17y ago5 so fare fyi.
- Alex3917 17y agoHow I made 6k with my eBook How I Made 6k With My eBook
- bgraves 17y agoI'd love some more details: 1. How did you come up with this as a topic for an eBook? 2. Is this your area of expertise, or did you see a niche market? 3. What are some specifics on your AdWords campaign? 4. Looks like you have a strong online presence. Do you think that helped sell your book or was it completely irrelevant to its success?
- macournoyer_ 17y ago1. I've been interested in language and VMs about 1 year ago, built http://code.macournoyer.com/tinyrb/ http://code.macournoyer.com/tinyrb/ and a couple other languages. 2. No, it all started w/ a passion for languages. I had the idea to write a book after reading 4 Hour Work Week 3. What do you want to know exactly? I used the keywords "create programming language" iirc 4. Yes, I think it helped a lot. The only "marketing" I've done is on Twitter and my blog (also recently on my site http://refactormycode.com http://refactormycode.com). I was surprised by the success, but I'm now convinced that OSS can pay in a way or another.
- rubyrescue 17y agonice landing page! it makes me want to create my own language and i don't even have enough quality time with the ones i already know!
- Groxx 17y agoInteresting set of ideas, thanks for the link! I hadn't actually heard of the book before, but I'm intrigued. Maybe they should include a last step of "post about book in popular geek hangouts". I'd also be curious how many sales were generated after the blog post, if they'd consider revealing that data. Also, "Help Me Promote My Book And Get 50% on Each Sale" Now THAT'S a good way to sell a book. Hooray pyramid schemes!
- zackattack 17y agoThat's not a pyramid scheme.
- Groxx 17y agoAh, my mistake, not pyramid scheme. Just pyramid sales (if nested within itself).
- grumpycanuck 17y agoI self-published a PHP programming book (http://www.littlehart.net/book http://www.littlehart.net/book) and I've sold about the same number of copies as he has (~200 between PDF and LuLu) but (a) I didn't charge as much as he did and (b) didn't hook up with any affiliate marketing / promotion until October of 2009. Sold about 150 copies (PDF + Lulu) before I found my current publisher.
- daok 17y agoWhy have you left Lulu?
- grumpycanuck 17y agoI'm using LuLu for print-on-demand copies of the book, just like I did before. I went with someone else to help with PDF sales.
- kalid 17y agoThanks for sharing! One of your questions was about laying out the ebook. For my own, I started with InDesign but found it too painful to use (I only used it for the cover). I used LaTex (since I had some math equations) but the benefit is that it's all plaintext and easy to modify with quick scripts. It also gives you really nice typography. Again, this is probably most useful if you end up having math equations inside :).
- macournoyer_ 17y agoAww yes I need to learn LaTex :/
- kalid 17y agoYeah unfortunately there's a steep learning curve, but worth it for anything math-related. Here's a sample chapter laid out with LaTeX: http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://betterexplained.com/ebook/MathBetterExplained.Preview.pdf http://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://betterexplained.com... The #1 rule is to not use the default styles unless you want your book to look like a master's thesis.
- citrik 17y agoQuick, Someone write an E-book on LaTex ;)
- varikin 17y agoI am impressed with the fact that he made $6k. A few years ago, I took a writing class that was taught by a published author. At the time, she had 4 books published, all Sci-Fi, by a New York publisher. She told the class that she got an advance of $5k for her first book. When that sold well enough to cover costs for the publisher, she started receiving royalties. At the time, she had gotten about another $5k. So for about 1 years worth of work and over 5 years time, she made about $10k. I know fiction is a different market than programming, but just the number comparison is interesting.
- lsc 17y agoyeah. uh, so far I've made less than that on the book of xen[1] and the publisher has said that it is selling 'surprisingly well' - he (my publisher) warned me going in that writing technical books doesn't pay as well as most things a qualified person can do. But then, I get a real kick when I walk into Fry's and see my book. [1]http://nostarch.com/xen.htm http://nostarch.com/xen.htm
- varikin 17y agoI dream of being a published author one day and walking into a book store and secretly signing my books :) I have heard that technical books don't sell well, but then again, this author is not very well known and her books don't sell well either. She said that every agent and publisher takes on new authors hoping they become the next William Gibson (or other huge name). Most authors barely survive off of writing.
- prawn 17y agoI co-wrote a book ('Web-Graphics for Non Designers') and later tracked it down in a Borders/similar store in London and got my photo taken with it there. Certainly a novel experience for anyone who's not a f/t author, but not so exciting that I'd be dreaming about it! I was writing to a very difficult deadline, fried my brain in the process and it was hardly lucrative. From my experience, I'd be hard-pressed to be convinced to do it again. I got a few thousand as an advance for writing three of the books ten chapters and it involved research, a plan, fleshing out the content, providing supplementary assets and then a couple of rounds of editing. I've done better out of non-spammy MFA sites in terms of return on time invested.
- brc 17y agoDid you consider using DRM or is it just a freely distributable PDF?
- abl 17y agoDo you worry about people pirating your eBook, or worse yet - infringing your copyright by taking the information in the eBook, and publishing it as their own? It seems that by going with a publishing agency, one would have a lot more legal protection in that regard?
- macournoyer_ 17y agoNo I'm not worried. I'm just trusting people buying the book like they are trusting me by buying it. I hate penalizing everyone for what some people might do. Also, it's a pretty small niche and it got good exposure when it came out. I think it would be hard to copy and sell it to the same market again.
- cadr 17y agoHow did you choose the price point?
- macournoyer_ 17y agoBased on other similar package/eBooks around at that time and the price it cost me to run AdWords for 1 day. The initial market research w/ AdWords can also help choosing a price. According to my tests, I guessed I could sell one book per day w/ ads, which cost ~50$/day. I thought $50 was too much, so cut it back to $40.
- acangiano 17y agoYour approach to the whole thing was very much affiliate/internet marketing oriented: list building via PPC, squeeze page, product sold through ClickBank, generous kickbacks to affiliates, high price for low page count, artificial urgency created through a limited time offer, and so on. Here is what I admire: * You managed to do all this without pissing off geeks, who are very sensitive to bullshit and tend to have an holier than thou attitude towards these techniques. * I didn't buy the book, but I suspect it's rather high quality, compared to most junk sold on ClickBank. * Your landing/squeeze page is surprisingly classy. It manages to accomplish a good CRT, despite the lack of autoplaying audio/video, exit popups, and the typical centered column look. In short, good job.
- macournoyer_ 17y agoThx a lot! I'm also surprised by the low quality of most products on ClickBank & other sites. That's why I'm talking openly about it, I'm sure most geeks here could do way better then everything on those sites.
- nailer 17y agoIn the 'Creating Passionate Users' sense, you made something that helps your audience be awesome - which is the best possible thing to create. Communicating that properly helps, but the product is king. PS. I'm interested in buying your book now too, because I believe it will personally make me awesome.
- bemmu 17y agoThe landing page is really sweet. What do your adwords ads look like?
- zackattack 17y ago1. Who did the design and how much did it cost? 2. Can you show me your landing page for the initial adwords exploration campaign? How much was your CPC? How much did you bid? What was your quality score? (Thank you SO much)
- macournoyer_ 17y ago1. I did everything myself, except reviewing 2. Sorry the old page is gone, it was a very crappy 2 colors page w/ a box in the middle w/ bullet points. My idea was, if I get decent CR on this, I'm guaranteed to sell some. I don't remember the CPC and the bid, but I spent 50$/day for 2 days on just a few keywords (about 10 iirc).
- ananthrk 17y agoFWIW, review of this eBook in HN earlier http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813133 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=813133 Edit: In the comments, you can actually see the author asking advice to improve the copy of the landing page :)
- coolb 17y agodo you use any other marketing tools/techniques other than clickbank?