5 ms·

Ebook is the most recommended, I know a lot of people that wrote books and got something out of it. Even if it didn't sell well, they learned a lot while writin

Ebook is the most recommended, I know a lot of people that wrote books and got something out of it. Even if it didn't sell well, they learned a lot while writing said technical topic. The other two requires a lot of marketing and business development more than programming. The HN posts about side projects make it look like it's as easy as `git push heroku master` and 'post on HN', but it's not. The successful ones are outliers rather than the norm. Don't get me wrong, you'll also learn a lot while writing your own game/SaaS. Finishing a game/SaaS on its own is a big achievement no matter how small, but you did ask for a "Best passive income method".

dante9999 10y ago
> I know a lot of people that wrote books and got something out of it. did they self-publish or went with some known publisher? what kind of money can you make on ebooks?
- acesubido 10y ago
  > did they self-publish or went with some known publisher? My former boss self-published a book on Leanpub. For the "known publisher", I'm a little acquainted with the author of "Docker High Performance" (Packt). For the leanpub one, it was organically easy to get the word out through local meetups and clients. Packt reached out to the "Docker High Performance" guy, he reviewed a few books for them then they emailed him. > What kind money can you make on ebooks? For the people I mentioned, I can't say. But if you do get a good book out with a good following you can hit Nathan Barry's numbers: - http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-stats/ http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-stats/ - http://nathanbarry.com/designing-web-applications-2nd-edition/ http://nathanbarry.com/designing-web-applications-2nd-editio...
- geerlingguy 10y ago
  Self-pub, through Leanpub and eventually Kindle, Createspace, and iBooks, I'm up to around 100-200 sales/month (ASP ~$10, net ~$7), mostly by keeping my book updated with the latest version of the software I write about (so my book is the only one that's constantly relevant, unlike the ones from the major publishers). I spend maybe 2-4 hours/month updating the book, running tests and fixing things.
duiker101 10y ago
Is there an actual request for new books? I feel like most of the topics are already covered so the only thing would be jumping on new technologies and the risk is that the writing would be sub-optimal. I am extremely ignorant in matter of books to be honest. What is the average knowledge level of someone that can write a decent book? Would it be better to have more knowledge or be a better writer?
- dorfuss 10y ago
  My experience is that all/most of the programming books are based on trivial examples and solving dull problems, which is perfectly fine when you know nothing and you are just starting the programming adventure, but when you are getting your second or third language and you want something more serious, then all the 50-150 loc examples are just... not enough. So I'd love to see more books when you are given something in the range of 10k< loc and the examples and tasks being more complicated. Traditional publishing did not allow that, because you could not provide long code base. But today there are no such limits. Especially GUI guides are ratcher simplistic, you don't want to draw just triangles and squares on the screen. There are no really good resources for Direct3D or OpenGL, WGL, SDL etc. It's like learning architecture by looking at bricks and not at finished buildings. This is also the reason why people recommend working on open-source projects, because this is where the real thing happens. But I would say it's an intimidating experience. There should be something in the middle. (And it would be nice if there was a mentoring site where you could pick a language, pick your level, and be mached either with a person/team to work on something together or with a mentor who could just guide you twice a month. Say, you pay 100 bucks for registration, the website owner gets $10, and the mentor $90. Even if you get just a couple of "students" it's still a safier bet than much more risky SaaS/e-book business. And how to start it - make a web site about one language that is your stronges and focus on that. If you get others interested in mentoring, check their stack and then expand the offering. If you have 10 deals a month, there will be 100 passive bucks more to your name. Has anyone tried that? And to get the initial traction combine it with some publishing, blog, some language-specific, industry-informed (not necessary programing related, but project-management, team integration, tasks division, feedback, code reviewing) problems that would prove your expertise. PS: One difficult project you could explore is business process modelling - there are a couple of different notation standards, such as BPMN. The project would be to create one program (like Bizagi) in which you can design processes but in different notations, smoothly (that's the most difficult) convert between them, and then integrate with industry class software such as Appian, IBM BPM, Amodit, SharePoint, Alfresco etc. It's a million dollar project, but f* hard to solve.
wlievens 10y ago
I'm a generalist, and while I enjoy working with new technologies I no longer get a kick out of knowing every itty bitty detail inside out. I've worked in several industries in engineering roles (compiler design, geographic information systems, fabless semiconductor device production and testing). I think writing a technical book could be very enjoyable for me. I'm good at explaining technical stuff, or so I'm told. But I have absolutely no idea with the profile above what I could possibly write a book about that adds to the state of the art. "Wafer Database Schema Design For Dummies"?
- thewhitetulip 10y ago
  I am also good at explaining stuff, wrote a book on Go, made it open source because I haven't contributed anything to the FOSS community :) 0 income. Not the best business plan eh?
  - amouat 10y ago
    You could probably keep it open-source but charge for the print copy and pay-what-you-want for the PDF.
    - thewhitetulip 10y ago
      That is a good idea, how do I the pay-what-you-want thing? currently the book is on github and gitbooks, so I doubt if anyone would pay for the pdf :-)
      - cdnsteve 10y ago
        I think learnpub does this. Minimum price and suggested price.
        thewhitetulip 10y ago
        Thanks :) Started making a book on leanpub. https://leanpub.com/antitextbookGo/ https://leanpub.com/antitextbookGo/
dschiptsov 10y ago
The tech books written by authors who know nothing but English and "learning a lot while writing" is exactly what ruined the book business. No one needs this kind of crap. Books ought to be written by experts and talents. Just think of the likes of SICP, OnLisp, AIMA or PAIP compared to some Java for Dummies crap. I wouldn't even start about fiction and guys like Nabokov, Wilde or Orwell.
- 3chelon 10y ago
  I'm intrigued now. What does Nabokov have to do with this discussion?
  - dschiptsov 10y ago
    Talent.

dante9999 10y ago

> I know a lot of people that wrote books and got something out of it. did they self-publish or went with some known publisher? what kind of money can you make on ebooks?

acesubido 10y ago
> did they self-publish or went with some known publisher? My former boss self-published a book on Leanpub. For the "known publisher", I'm a little acquainted with the author of "Docker High Performance" (Packt). For the leanpub one, it was organically easy to get the word out through local meetups and clients. Packt reached out to the "Docker High Performance" guy, he reviewed a few books for them then they emailed him. > What kind money can you make on ebooks? For the people I mentioned, I can't say. But if you do get a good book out with a good following you can hit Nathan Barry's numbers: - http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-stats/ http://nathanbarry.com/app-design-stats/ - http://nathanbarry.com/designing-web-applications-2nd-edition/ http://nathanbarry.com/designing-web-applications-2nd-editio...
geerlingguy 10y ago
Self-pub, through Leanpub and eventually Kindle, Createspace, and iBooks, I'm up to around 100-200 sales/month (ASP ~$10, net ~$7), mostly by keeping my book updated with the latest version of the software I write about (so my book is the only one that's constantly relevant, unlike the ones from the major publishers). I spend maybe 2-4 hours/month updating the book, running tests and fixing things.

duiker101 10y ago

Is there an actual request for new books? I feel like most of the topics are already covered so the only thing would be jumping on new technologies and the risk is that the writing would be sub-optimal. I am extremely ignorant in matter of books to be honest. What is the average knowledge level of someone that can write a decent book? Would it be better to have more knowledge or be a better writer?

dorfuss 10y ago
My experience is that all/most of the programming books are based on trivial examples and solving dull problems, which is perfectly fine when you know nothing and you are just starting the programming adventure, but when you are getting your second or third language and you want something more serious, then all the 50-150 loc examples are just... not enough. So I'd love to see more books when you are given something in the range of 10k< loc and the examples and tasks being more complicated. Traditional publishing did not allow that, because you could not provide long code base. But today there are no such limits. Especially GUI guides are ratcher simplistic, you don't want to draw just triangles and squares on the screen. There are no really good resources for Direct3D or OpenGL, WGL, SDL etc. It's like learning architecture by looking at bricks and not at finished buildings. This is also the reason why people recommend working on open-source projects, because this is where the real thing happens. But I would say it's an intimidating experience. There should be something in the middle. (And it would be nice if there was a mentoring site where you could pick a language, pick your level, and be mached either with a person/team to work on something together or with a mentor who could just guide you twice a month. Say, you pay 100 bucks for registration, the website owner gets $10, and the mentor $90. Even if you get just a couple of "students" it's still a safier bet than much more risky SaaS/e-book business. And how to start it - make a web site about one language that is your stronges and focus on that. If you get others interested in mentoring, check their stack and then expand the offering. If you have 10 deals a month, there will be 100 passive bucks more to your name. Has anyone tried that? And to get the initial traction combine it with some publishing, blog, some language-specific, industry-informed (not necessary programing related, but project-management, team integration, tasks division, feedback, code reviewing) problems that would prove your expertise. PS: One difficult project you could explore is business process modelling - there are a couple of different notation standards, such as BPMN. The project would be to create one program (like Bizagi) in which you can design processes but in different notations, smoothly (that's the most difficult) convert between them, and then integrate with industry class software such as Appian, IBM BPM, Amodit, SharePoint, Alfresco etc. It's a million dollar project, but f* hard to solve.

wlievens 10y ago

I'm a generalist, and while I enjoy working with new technologies I no longer get a kick out of knowing every itty bitty detail inside out. I've worked in several industries in engineering roles (compiler design, geographic information systems, fabless semiconductor device production and testing). I think writing a technical book could be very enjoyable for me. I'm good at explaining technical stuff, or so I'm told. But I have absolutely no idea with the profile above what I could possibly write a book about that adds to the state of the art. "Wafer Database Schema Design For Dummies"?

thewhitetulip 10y ago
I am also good at explaining stuff, wrote a book on Go, made it open source because I haven't contributed anything to the FOSS community :) 0 income. Not the best business plan eh?
- amouat 10y ago
  You could probably keep it open-source but charge for the print copy and pay-what-you-want for the PDF.
  - thewhitetulip 10y ago
    That is a good idea, how do I the pay-what-you-want thing? currently the book is on github and gitbooks, so I doubt if anyone would pay for the pdf :-)
    - cdnsteve 10y ago
      I think learnpub does this. Minimum price and suggested price.
      - thewhitetulip 10y ago
        Thanks :) Started making a book on leanpub. https://leanpub.com/antitextbookGo/ https://leanpub.com/antitextbookGo/

dschiptsov 10y ago

The tech books written by authors who know nothing but English and "learning a lot while writing" is exactly what ruined the book business. No one needs this kind of crap. Books ought to be written by experts and talents. Just think of the likes of SICP, OnLisp, AIMA or PAIP compared to some Java for Dummies crap. I wouldn't even start about fiction and guys like Nabokov, Wilde or Orwell.

3chelon 10y ago
I'm intrigued now. What does Nabokov have to do with this discussion?
- dschiptsov 10y ago
  Talent.