3 ms·

TLDR; the books on specific tech is lighly sold, gets out of date fast and publishers are ripping off authors by throwing them 10% revenue share. Because we co

TLDR; the books on specific tech is lighly sold, gets out of date fast and publishers are ripping off authors by throwing them 10% revenue share. Because we co-authored the book we each got 5% of revenue for physical books and 12.5% for ebooks and digital access (10% and 25% for individual authors). So far I have received $539 over 5 months. On average, the book has sold 222 copies per month which is greatly skewed by the first month which had 930 sales. The last month (March) had 34 physical book sales. I suspect that number will go down even more over the next few months.

darkkindness 9y ago
Isn't the typical rate for royalties around 10%? Given that it's 'specific tech' that is not likely to be sold as much, 10% is pretty good.
- vesak 9y ago
  No, more like 15-20%. If you're getting 10%, you're being ripped off.
- sytelus 9y ago
  Typically I expect 70:30 split between creators and distributors for the information products. Information product typically have negligible manufacturing cost and most of the price is paid by the customer is purely the information value. Less than half of other way around is ripping off creators in my view.
neolefty 9y ago
Missed the most important points. For example: I’m extremely happy with the how things have turned out. We’ve got a lot of great feedback and some average reviews on Amazon (please leave us a review!). I’m grateful that people are reading it and I hope it’s helping them in some way. We worked hard and wanted to help engineers get better at running infrastructure. And My April 2018 statement (sales from December — March) says I’ve made $11,554.15 which roughly breaks down to $23 per hour for the estimated 500 hours of work. Without the three sponsorships that would have been $5.29 per hour. Luckily that number only gets better with time. I’ve heard 2nd editions are a better rate per hour because they have less time investment with similar sales as the original, but I don’t have any experience.
gmiller123456 9y ago
Any idea how this works for subscription services? E.g. if someone subscribes to Safari Books Online and read your book, how much of the subscription fee goes to the authors?

darkkindness 9y ago

Isn't the typical rate for royalties around 10%? Given that it's 'specific tech' that is not likely to be sold as much, 10% is pretty good.

vesak 9y ago
No, more like 15-20%. If you're getting 10%, you're being ripped off.
sytelus 9y ago
Typically I expect 70:30 split between creators and distributors for the information products. Information product typically have negligible manufacturing cost and most of the price is paid by the customer is purely the information value. Less than half of other way around is ripping off creators in my view.

neolefty 9y ago

Missed the most important points. For example: I’m extremely happy with the how things have turned out. We’ve got a lot of great feedback and some average reviews on Amazon (please leave us a review!). I’m grateful that people are reading it and I hope it’s helping them in some way. We worked hard and wanted to help engineers get better at running infrastructure. And My April 2018 statement (sales from December — March) says I’ve made $11,554.15 which roughly breaks down to $23 per hour for the estimated 500 hours of work. Without the three sponsorships that would have been $5.29 per hour. Luckily that number only gets better with time. I’ve heard 2nd editions are a better rate per hour because they have less time investment with similar sales as the original, but I don’t have any experience.

gmiller123456 9y ago

Any idea how this works for subscription services? E.g. if someone subscribes to Safari Books Online and read your book, how much of the subscription fee goes to the authors?