5 ms·

I'm the book author, so if you have any questions, let me know.

by vladmihalcea 6y ago

matthewhartmans 6y ago
Congrats on your book launch!
- vladmihalcea 6y ago
  Thanks. I pre-launched it in November 2015 and launched the final version in October 2016. By 2019, I had managed to sell over 5000 copies and make over 100k. I'm thinking of releasing a second edition in 2021 or 2022.
  - matthewhartmans 6y ago
    That’s incredible man!! All the best for your second book!
    - vladmihalcea 6y ago
      Thanks
paul_f 6y ago
If everything in the book was also in your blog posts, didn't that dampen sales of the book? This is my fear, if I give it away, no one will buy it.
- barry-cotter 6y ago
  Packaging, convenience, lack of redundancy and logical structure are worth a lot if your time is valuable. ConversionXL sell video courses for $600 each that have ~the same content as their endless series of blog posts. But the video course has a beginning, middle and end. It’s a polished finished product. The blog posts are raw material. Plenty of academics do similar things when writing books. There’s vanishingly little in any of Bryan Caplan’s that didn’t appear on his blog first but the books are far superior at conveying a theory, rather than more or less disconnected facts.
  - vladmihalcea 6y ago
    Exactly.
- YetAnotherMatt 6y ago
  I would assume that his blog posts are what convinced quite a few people to actually buy the book. That said, I'm not too familiar with the book sales industry. I am familiar with consulting. Initially I thought that giving all special knowledge away for free would be the worst thing I could possibly do. Boy was I wrong. Nowadays I give presentations detailing step by step exactly what people need to do in order to achieve some outcome, with as goal that they could do it 100% by themselves if they want to. My theory is that this leads to more sales due to me becoming more visible + it builds large amounts of trust + the best possible clients are going to be very busy + the best possible clients are aware that they could implement all my advice by themselves, but if having me on board as well increases odds of success by as little as 10% (or increases the total impact by as little as 10%), it is still going to be a win to have me on board as well.
  - vladmihalcea 6y ago
    That's true. My blog is thd front-end to every product or service that I'm selling. It's a very useful marketing tool.
  - jjk166 6y ago
    If you are good at something and the customer doesn't really understand the process then you can make it look easy, and no one wants to spend a lot of money to pay someone to do something easy. But if the customer knows what it actually takes to solve the problem, the real value of having someone else do it is much more evident. Even if you feel like what you do is easy, there are people out there who consider it indistinguishable from magic. The uninformed are impressed by the magic, the informed are impressed by the magician.
- vladmihalcea 6y ago
  No, that's not an issue at all. I have hundreds of articles on my blog that are also covered in the book: https://vladmihalcea.com/tutorials/hibernate/ https://vladmihalcea.com/tutorials/hibernate/ But reading the book is easier than browsing the articles because the book has a certain structure while the articles focus on a single topic only.
- pc86 6y ago
  Many in this space have made good revenue by literally just packaging blog posts together with a nice cover and no additional editing. Maybe a small intro for each group of related posts. If folks really like your content, they'll often pay for the book just to support you.
- munificent 6y ago
  I have the entire text of my first book available online for free. My sales have been way more than I ever expected, year after year. It accomplishes a few things: * While I was writing the book, I published each chapter online as I finished it. The top of each page has a link to my mailing list. This was a great way to build an audience. By the time the book was complete, I had a mailing list with thousands of people I could tell about it. * It lets readers try before they buy, which builds confidence. * It makes for a very effective web presence. People searching for the topic are likely to find it. * People really love it. Even if they never buy it, they become fans because they've been given something for free. That in turn makes them walking advertisers for the book. I've had people who read the entire book online buy a copy afterwards just to say thanks. * It enables people who can't afford it to still have access to the material. This may not make me more money, but it's important to me.
mac01021 6y ago
Thanks! Under what circumstances would you expect someone to discover your book (they can't buy it if they don't know about it). If I want to learn a particular software tool (Kafka, Kubernetes, git). I might go to Amazon or Google and search the name of tool, possibly with "book" appended. If I want to learn how to do functional programming, I'll search for "functional programming book" or something like that. What's a search term that I'd be likely to use that would lead me to your book? Or is there one?
- vladmihalcea 6y ago
  That's where my blog, https://vladmihalcea.com/blog/ https://vladmihalcea.com/blog/ or my StackOverflow answer, https://stackoverflow.com/users/1025118/vlad-mihalcea https://stackoverflow.com/users/1025118/vlad-mihalcea come into play. Most of my readers get to know me from these resources prior to knowing about my book.
hohenheim 6y ago
You mentioned publishers leave you with 10% of the sales. I can't wrap my head around that, how is that possible and acceptable by authors?
- ChrisLomont 6y ago
  Content is easy to get for publishers, and they have to often invest significant time and money to get the book to market. They often take a risk on printing X copies, and they don't sell, the publisher eats the cost. You can say to just print on demand, but that is costlier per book. They often have to provide editors to clean up the book, do marketing through their channels, and promote the book. Most authors don't do all this guy did. Most simply write the text and leave it there. Publishers do everything else this guy did to move the book. (I've written parts of several books, and have received small royalty checks for well over a decade)
  - samastur 6y ago
    We both seem to have direct experience of working with a publisher, but I think you are overstating the effort of most publishers these days. Too many books, even from reputable publishers, are of fairly low quality, which as a reader bothers me even more than stuff like this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/markos/49564386913/in/dateposted/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/markos/49564386913/in/datepost... Also, I don't see why them taking on a risk of printing upfront should be offloaded on the author through smaller fee.
    - ChrisLomont 6y ago
      When either party takes on more risk in a deal they want compensation. This is perfectly understandable. If an author wants access to the distribution network of a certain publisher, they must pay. Ever wonder why the biggest authors don’t simply run their own publishing houses? They understand the value provided. And they rarely if ever reach 50% in royalties (I’ve never heard it, in many decades of following professional writing). What I do find is authors generally have no idea of the value provided. In which case they’re welcome to self publish. But self-publishing rarely results in great sales either. Both avenues have pros and cons. That said, I’d likely still choose a publisher, since my time is also important, and I’d prefer not having to be average in a dozen skills when I can invest effort at being much better at a few.
distalx 6y ago
Thanks for sharing your process. it is very insightful. How did you found out that JAVA is your niche? edit: This might sound vague, I'm curious because I'm trying to figure out my own niche.
- vladmihalcea 6y ago
  I've been using Java since 2005 so it's the ecosystem I know best. When I started my blog, I tried various topics, but the Java Persistence and Hibernate got the most traffic. Since I liked the topic, I decided to write a book about high-performance data access with Java.
hn_check 6y ago
Just as a bit of cynicism, when people talk about how well they did in a field, or all the money they made, most of the time they are lying and doing the fake-it-till-you-make-it tactic. HN is famous for a few of these guys making their reputation on exactly this ruse. And yes, this will be auto-dead. Whatever.
justsomeuser 6y ago
What program did you use to actually write your book? Word/Pages? What did you use for the blog?
- vladmihalcea 6y ago
  I wrote the book in MarkDown using IntelliJ IDEA. The book is stored on GitHub and LeanPub fetches the files and renders it. My blog is running on WordPress.com. I'm using a Business plan so I can better customize the website. https://vladmihalcea.com/wordpress-business-plan/ https://vladmihalcea.com/wordpress-business-plan/

I'm the book author, so if you have any questions, let me know.

matthewhartmans 6y ago

Congrats on your book launch!

vladmihalcea 6y ago
Thanks. I pre-launched it in November 2015 and launched the final version in October 2016. By 2019, I had managed to sell over 5000 copies and make over 100k. I'm thinking of releasing a second edition in 2021 or 2022.
- matthewhartmans 6y ago
  That’s incredible man!! All the best for your second book!
  - vladmihalcea 6y ago
    Thanks

paul_f 6y ago

If everything in the book was also in your blog posts, didn't that dampen sales of the book? This is my fear, if I give it away, no one will buy it.

barry-cotter 6y ago
Packaging, convenience, lack of redundancy and logical structure are worth a lot if your time is valuable. ConversionXL sell video courses for $600 each that have ~the same content as their endless series of blog posts. But the video course has a beginning, middle and end. It’s a polished finished product. The blog posts are raw material. Plenty of academics do similar things when writing books. There’s vanishingly little in any of Bryan Caplan’s that didn’t appear on his blog first but the books are far superior at conveying a theory, rather than more or less disconnected facts.
- vladmihalcea 6y ago
  Exactly.
YetAnotherMatt 6y ago
I would assume that his blog posts are what convinced quite a few people to actually buy the book. That said, I'm not too familiar with the book sales industry. I am familiar with consulting. Initially I thought that giving all special knowledge away for free would be the worst thing I could possibly do. Boy was I wrong. Nowadays I give presentations detailing step by step exactly what people need to do in order to achieve some outcome, with as goal that they could do it 100% by themselves if they want to. My theory is that this leads to more sales due to me becoming more visible + it builds large amounts of trust + the best possible clients are going to be very busy + the best possible clients are aware that they could implement all my advice by themselves, but if having me on board as well increases odds of success by as little as 10% (or increases the total impact by as little as 10%), it is still going to be a win to have me on board as well.
- vladmihalcea 6y ago
  That's true. My blog is thd front-end to every product or service that I'm selling. It's a very useful marketing tool.
- jjk166 6y ago
  If you are good at something and the customer doesn't really understand the process then you can make it look easy, and no one wants to spend a lot of money to pay someone to do something easy. But if the customer knows what it actually takes to solve the problem, the real value of having someone else do it is much more evident. Even if you feel like what you do is easy, there are people out there who consider it indistinguishable from magic. The uninformed are impressed by the magic, the informed are impressed by the magician.
vladmihalcea 6y ago
No, that's not an issue at all. I have hundreds of articles on my blog that are also covered in the book: https://vladmihalcea.com/tutorials/hibernate/ https://vladmihalcea.com/tutorials/hibernate/ But reading the book is easier than browsing the articles because the book has a certain structure while the articles focus on a single topic only.
pc86 6y ago
Many in this space have made good revenue by literally just packaging blog posts together with a nice cover and no additional editing. Maybe a small intro for each group of related posts. If folks really like your content, they'll often pay for the book just to support you.
munificent 6y ago
I have the entire text of my first book available online for free. My sales have been way more than I ever expected, year after year. It accomplishes a few things: * While I was writing the book, I published each chapter online as I finished it. The top of each page has a link to my mailing list. This was a great way to build an audience. By the time the book was complete, I had a mailing list with thousands of people I could tell about it. * It lets readers try before they buy, which builds confidence. * It makes for a very effective web presence. People searching for the topic are likely to find it. * People really love it. Even if they never buy it, they become fans because they've been given something for free. That in turn makes them walking advertisers for the book. I've had people who read the entire book online buy a copy afterwards just to say thanks. * It enables people who can't afford it to still have access to the material. This may not make me more money, but it's important to me.

mac01021 6y ago

Thanks! Under what circumstances would you expect someone to discover your book (they can't buy it if they don't know about it). If I want to learn a particular software tool (Kafka, Kubernetes, git). I might go to Amazon or Google and search the name of tool, possibly with "book" appended. If I want to learn how to do functional programming, I'll search for "functional programming book" or something like that. What's a search term that I'd be likely to use that would lead me to your book? Or is there one?

vladmihalcea 6y ago
That's where my blog, https://vladmihalcea.com/blog/ https://vladmihalcea.com/blog/ or my StackOverflow answer, https://stackoverflow.com/users/1025118/vlad-mihalcea https://stackoverflow.com/users/1025118/vlad-mihalcea come into play. Most of my readers get to know me from these resources prior to knowing about my book.

hohenheim 6y ago

You mentioned publishers leave you with 10% of the sales. I can't wrap my head around that, how is that possible and acceptable by authors?

ChrisLomont 6y ago
Content is easy to get for publishers, and they have to often invest significant time and money to get the book to market. They often take a risk on printing X copies, and they don't sell, the publisher eats the cost. You can say to just print on demand, but that is costlier per book. They often have to provide editors to clean up the book, do marketing through their channels, and promote the book. Most authors don't do all this guy did. Most simply write the text and leave it there. Publishers do everything else this guy did to move the book. (I've written parts of several books, and have received small royalty checks for well over a decade)
- samastur 6y ago
  We both seem to have direct experience of working with a publisher, but I think you are overstating the effort of most publishers these days. Too many books, even from reputable publishers, are of fairly low quality, which as a reader bothers me even more than stuff like this: https://www.flickr.com/photos/markos/49564386913/in/dateposted/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/markos/49564386913/in/datepost... Also, I don't see why them taking on a risk of printing upfront should be offloaded on the author through smaller fee.
  - ChrisLomont 6y ago
    When either party takes on more risk in a deal they want compensation. This is perfectly understandable. If an author wants access to the distribution network of a certain publisher, they must pay. Ever wonder why the biggest authors don’t simply run their own publishing houses? They understand the value provided. And they rarely if ever reach 50% in royalties (I’ve never heard it, in many decades of following professional writing). What I do find is authors generally have no idea of the value provided. In which case they’re welcome to self publish. But self-publishing rarely results in great sales either. Both avenues have pros and cons. That said, I’d likely still choose a publisher, since my time is also important, and I’d prefer not having to be average in a dozen skills when I can invest effort at being much better at a few.

distalx 6y ago

Thanks for sharing your process. it is very insightful. How did you found out that JAVA is your niche? edit: This might sound vague, I'm curious because I'm trying to figure out my own niche.

vladmihalcea 6y ago
I've been using Java since 2005 so it's the ecosystem I know best. When I started my blog, I tried various topics, but the Java Persistence and Hibernate got the most traffic. Since I liked the topic, I decided to write a book about high-performance data access with Java.

hn_check 6y ago

Just as a bit of cynicism, when people talk about how well they did in a field, or all the money they made, most of the time they are lying and doing the fake-it-till-you-make-it tactic. HN is famous for a few of these guys making their reputation on exactly this ruse. And yes, this will be auto-dead. Whatever.

justsomeuser 6y ago

What program did you use to actually write your book? Word/Pages? What did you use for the blog?

vladmihalcea 6y ago
I wrote the book in MarkDown using IntelliJ IDEA. The book is stored on GitHub and LeanPub fetches the files and renders it. My blog is running on WordPress.com. I'm using a Business plan so I can better customize the website. https://vladmihalcea.com/wordpress-business-plan/ https://vladmihalcea.com/wordpress-business-plan/