3 ms·

I look at it like buying a hybrid vehicle. I haven't checked lately, but when they first came out the hybrid model of a particular vehicle was often $10K more

by biot 16y ago

I look at it like buying a hybrid vehicle. I haven't checked lately, but when they first came out the hybrid model of a particular vehicle was often $10K more than the non-hybrid model. So there's a $10K opportunity cost in order to realize passive gas savings from then on. However, even the way gas prices are now you'd have to own the vehicle for 10 years just to recover your $10K investment. On top of that, in 10 years time you could have turned that $10K investment into $20K if you were able to average about 7% interest. Writing a book full-time seems to follow the same pattern. I'm not seeing how the investment ever pays itself off. Now, if he wrote the book by spending a few hours on evenings and weekends where his time was otherwise worth nothing then any money made is all profit. In that case the passive income, even if it's only a few hundred here and there, is all good.

petercooper 16y ago
On top of that, in 10 years time you could have turned that $10K investment into $20K if you were able to average about 7% interest. Could ;-) What "safeish" third party investment vehicle would average a yield of 7% per year after taxes over 10 years? (Putting aside the bubbly stock market of the 90s and the property market of the 00s.) Writing a book full-time seems to follow the same pattern. I'm not seeing how the investment ever pays itself off. In many cases, the exposure and experience pay their own dividends. More practically, though, it's not always possible or desirable for us to work every hour we can grab, so "cramming in a book" that we want to write on the side can get more out of our time that we might not otherwise profit from.