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Why most non-fiction authors don't make any money

191 points by rjyoungling 5y ago

okareaman 5y ago
Shouldn't #5 be "not promoting your book effectively" because he's clearly promoting his book effectively. I think this is fine if fame and fortune are your goal, which is an unquestioned assumption for a lot of people, but there are other reasons to write a book, which he does not address.
- ghaff 5y ago
  In fact, I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people who write non-fiction books are absolutely aware that the royalties will likely be (maybe) beer money--assuming they don't have expensive tastes in beer. Rather they're reputational. In tech, being a published author on a topic often separates people from the pack as consultants but it can also easily differentiate you if you have an externally-facing role (especially) at a company. Personally, I've made a relatively trivial amount of money from the books I've written, but I have little doubt they've been good investments of my time--some of which has been work time. ADDED: I'd add that "promoting your book effectively" probably isn't free. Most authors aren't going to get a lot of publisher support so now you're hiring a publicist, paying for review copies, paying to travel (normally) to speak at events where you do book signings and promote your book, etc.
  - okareaman 5y ago
    Researching and writing help clarify your thoughts, which could pay dividends in other ways. I'm retired, don't need the money and am told old to care about fame, but I have several ideas for non-fiction books I'm working on. Now that I think about it, his blog post presents a strong case for not writing a non-fiction book for money. There are other ways to spend your time with a better chance of making money, unless you're clever self-promoter that is. "A 98% drop in sales after the first year, Seventy percent of traditionally published titles fail to pay out a single dollar in royalties, Vanishingly few nonfiction books sell even five hundred copies"
    - ghaff 5y ago
      That's a great point. It's not just about I have a book. But that, especially if it's through a publisher (which has pros and cons), I have sufficient knowledge of the topic either acquired day-to-day or through research that I'm capable of laying down at least 250 pages or so of coherent writing on said topic. The last book I did I was definitely already familiar with the area but I was certainly more so my the time I was done.
  - rjyoungling 5y ago
    I agree but you can't fake this. You still have to follow our process because a book that doesn't have strong word of mouth and doesn't resonate doesn't give you credibility. I.e. you can't just slap a book together and think you've got credibility. People see right through that. This is something Tendayi Viki of Strategyzer talked to us about: "HOW DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE BOOK AS A PRODUCT? In my line of work, credibility is very important. I can’t cold call companies and be like “Hey, you know that those innovation programs are very important? Well, we have the best one. You can buy it now for three easy payments of 599.” Reputation matters a lot. It’s so much easier if someone comes to you. If they already respect me before we start the conversation. Now, there are two ways to do that. You can deliberately be the snake oil salesmen. But that’s why those books don’t work because it’s so obvious what the person is trying to do. They write a book so they can say “I wrote a book”. Or, you can say “I actually have something authentic to share and let me share that.” That’s the approach I’ve taken. I know I need to build a reputation but I don’t want to build it on nothing. If people pull back the curtains, they can see substance." Notes I want to make it clear that I'm not accusing you of saying that. I'm merely adding to your comment. Reference https://writeusefulbooks.com/resources/Tendayi-Viki/ https://writeusefulbooks.com/resources/Tendayi-Viki/
- thomaslangston 5y ago
  The point of the article is explaining how a goal of a living wage can be earned directly off nonfiction writing, in addition to two different reasons that are explicitly stated at the beginning of the article as being commonly suggested. It also explicitly is calling out methods that do not require fame, nor does it espouse a goal of fortune (unless you treat a living wage as a fortune).
  - okareaman 5y ago
    He does so dismissively, not treating them seriously: "you should therefore embrace your book’s predestined doom by reframing it as either passion project or calling card."
    - rjyoungling 5y ago
      That sentence refers to the traditional method, not our method.
07121941 5y ago
Fantastic advice. Now all I've got to do is write
crecker 5y ago
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26831469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26831469
ed25519FUUU 5y ago
It seems to me that virtually everyone going into the creative fields (art, music, writing, acting) should enter that field without any expectation to make a living from it. We pay other people to do things that aren’t fun for us, not the other way around.
- ghaff 5y ago
  I'm not sure why the downvotes. That's absolutely a fair comment. There are some cases where creative work can benefit your day job through visibility and related skills. (A talented amateur actor is probably going to be better at presentations for example. And being that really good presenter at your company's user group event every year isn't going to hurt you.) But it seems a good point overall. Being great on some instrument probably isn't going to be a great argument for why you should get promoted at a non-music-related position.)
  - m463 5y ago
    I would also say, people make more money doing stuff that's hard. (and of course the bar goes up)
    - ghaff 5y ago
      I'd say "hard" is a necessary but not sufficient condition. People (individually or in the aggregate) also need to be willing to pay you specifically a lot of money for what you specifically bring to the table that, in many creative fields, requires being very top tier (and lucky). In the arts, the equivalent of a mid-tier developer makes jack squat.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - Invictus0 5y ago
    It's a bad comment because it totally misses the actual dynamics of the creative marketplace--that is, superstars-take-all. It has nothing to do with the "fun" of the work. The superstars in the creative industries are making 7-8 figures and everyone else is making 4-5 figures while trying to become a superstar.
ng12 5y ago
So 3/4 of the tips are: write a book people want to read?
- Finnucane 5y ago
  No clearly, the message is, write self-help books for wannabe writers.
  - xwdv 5y ago
    Self-help books for wannabe anythings is not a bad idea. Imagine a self help book for wannabe app developers.
  - amelius 5y ago
    During a gold rush, sell shovels.
- rjyoungling 5y ago
  If this was obvious advice, the mistake wouldn't be so prevalent in among non-fiction authors.
k__ 5y ago
Having the right publisher is probably the most important. I can recommend https://newline.co https://newline.co I wrote a book with them and made enough to pay my rent for over a year with the money I made.
Finnucane 5y ago
He doesn't seem to understand what a royalty is. He quotes himself saying "To compensate for their 85% share of the royalties, a publisher needs to sell at least 5x more copies for you to break even [compared to self-publishing]." As the lady on the tv says, that's not how any of this works. In trade publishing at least, the author's royalty is a percentage of the cover price of the book. In normal retail selling, the publisher gets maybe 50-55% of the cover price in revenue, out of which they have to pay you and also all of their costs of producing your book.
- 101008 5y ago
  As a publisher author of a non-fiction book with an established publisher, I had to stop reading after that first point because he is completely wrong.
  - Multiplayer 5y ago
    I think it makes sense. He's saying that if you get a 15% royalty, vs the 100% royalty minus costs of self publishing, you need to sell 5x more books via the publisher. It's oddly worded, but the math roughly works depending on your self publishing costs.
    - Finnucane 5y ago
      It is not oddly worded. It is wrong.
      - jimnotgym 5y ago
        Yes it is an error, but the underlying point is true. I also thought that, whilst it was easy to recognize the error, the point was still easy to understand. I think it is a good point, let's hope the author redrafts.
    - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
      It's very poorly worded. And if not wrong, then certainly very unclear. The math... depends. Not all publishers offer advances, and those that do offer advances with different strategies. Here is one strategy: a commissioning editor uses a sales modelling system to estimate the maximum possible advance against likely sales. At larger publishers, you can be sure the editor has a very good idea what the likely sales will be. Because that's what publishers do, and they have years, sometimes decades of data and experience to draw on. The editor will set the advance so the book never earns out. This gives you more money than you might expect for an advance. And you can usually haggle upwards from the initial offer. But of course you've just signed what is really a work for hire contract. You will not see any more money than the initial offer. Would you earn more self-pub? Possibly. That depends entirely on your ability to reach an audience and sell your book to them. Parking a title on Amazon isn't nearly enough. If you have good marketing skills and if you hit a desirable niche you can do very well - much better than trad pub. But if you miss - you've wasted maybe a few months, with not much to show for it. So it's a risk/reward calculation. If you know you can write the book, an advance is money in the bank. It's a known quantity. You don't have to do marketing too. Sometimes that's a workable deal, especially if you have a day job and marketing is not a strong competence. You won't early nearly as much as you would in dev, but - it's a book. With your name on it. And some cash. If you have the time to spare and either know or hope you can build an audience, and are sure the title really does fit a niche, by all means self-pub. But you should only do this if you've done the groundwork. Like any other business you have to think about product/market fit, and marketing, and finding your audience, and all of the usual hurdles. And unfortunately, marketing is a skillset in its own right. Of course you can learn it, but starting cold is challenging. Personally having been through this cycle a few times I wouldn't trad pub now. But I also wouldn't assume that all I have to do is write a book and it will automatically sell in reassuring quantities. I know it won't. There's more work to do, and I wouldn't want anyone to underestimate how hard it is.
Ronson 5y ago
I can't comment on the article but after a slow start this year, this HN Post has got me "reading" non-fiction audiobooks again. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26206712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26206712 I am a member of goodreads, it's just hard to find stuff sometimes and cut through the dross. Thank you pizzicato.
currymj 5y ago
how much are these numbers skewed by academic monographs? these are books that are basically going to be sold only to university libraries, which might explain why they sell <500 copies. there are many such books where no author ever expects to make money -- they have other incentives due to the way academia is organized.
- gxqoz 5y ago
  My impression is that even reasonably well-selling non-fiction books typically do not sell a lot of copies. To make it onto a best-seller list you only need to sell in the tens of thousands of books.
krmmalik 5y ago
I'm an author of a non-fiction book. I self-published. My book has a 5-star rating to date even though it was published nearly 5 years ago. My book meets most of the criteria laid out in this book. I even had both a publisher and distributor approach me and I had plenty leverage. Despite all that, I didn't get the book sales I wanted nor the PR. Everyone that reads my book is surprised to hear it's not topping the charts or plastered everywhere my audience hangs out. My book beat out all the competition when it came out in terms of reviews. While the points in this post are valid, I don't believe they get to the bottom of what holds back sales. Frankly, I don't know what the answer is -- I have a vague idea of what it could be but I haven't had a chance to try those things. Perhaps if my book had been in all airport bookstores a few years ago, it might have taken off (no pun intended) like Tim Ferriss' book but who knows.
- UperSpaceGuru 5y ago
  I just bought your book based on the post above. Maybe it’s marketing? Your book is also aimed a small niche(I’m on your target market!), maybe that’s it?
  - krmmalik 5y ago
    That's hilarious. Enjoy the book :) Marketing requires a huge budget in the VC age since you're competing with ever increasing ad prices. I have spent a lot of money on advertising regardless. One thing that has been a major sticking point for me however, ist hat distribution has been a huge issue. I wouldn't say my target market is that small. Most of the Middle East and Asia is quite ripe for my book but amazon doest operate it's self-publishing arm out there and the alternatives have not been that enticing.
    - kjksf 5y ago
      > Marketing requires a huge budget in the VC ag And yet the free source of marketing (your twitter account) doesn't have a link to the book. Neither does your HN bio. Your website is broken (expired SSL certificate). As far as I can tell you don't have a single page that tries to sell the book. A link to amazon is a bare minimum. https://writeusefulbooks.com/ https://writeusefulbooks.com/ is an example of a master class of marketing a book. It describes what the book is about and why one should buy it. It established the author as successful writer and therefore authority on the subject. He also wrote an article good enough to hit HN and be a driver to the website. That required 0 budget. Maybe your failure at marketing are a result of you being bad at it, not a universal truth that you can only be successful with "huge budget".
DubiousPusher 5y ago
> It’s because Hemingway’s Boat is broadly “about” a topic, whereas The War of Art promises—and delivers—an outcome. I certaintly don't know a damn thing about selling books. But I am an avid reader of nonfiction and this is exactly the opposite of how I shop for books myself. Other than the odd "how-to", I'm skeptical of any book promising me anything other than the author's diligent study and incisive distillation of a topic. I've read many books which caused my mind to grow and really excited me about the world but I've never read a book that "solved my problem". Of which, I assure you, I have many.
- ddorian43 5y ago
  > but I've never read a book that "solved my problem". Of which, I assure you, I have many. Curious of your unsolved problems.
  - DubiousPusher 5y ago
    Oh, mostly personal. How to be a kinder person. How to not take things for granted. How to contribute more to my community. How to accept that due to a drift in my world views, I will likely never have as close a relationship with my parents as when I was young. How to decide if one should withdraw from the world as much as possible or embrace it. How to view every person as valuable. How to respect every person even when they are creating problems for you. How to cope with long term illness in the family. How to feel about having amassed an amount of money that seems disproportionate to my contribution to society. How to disagree with people without resenting them (even when you believe the things they believe are hurting people). How to raise a kid who is curious and interested in things. How to raise a kid that shuns cruelty. How guide a kid away from traps you fell into yourself without taking over their life. How to show people you appreciate them. I'm not saying no book has helped with any of the above. But I have never read a book that fixed one of these problems or really even ever told me anything very interesting about them. What to do is mostly obvious. How to get oneself to do those things is the hard part. And I think that kind of change doesn't come from reading one book. It comes from many absorbed over a long period of time. It comes from daily devotions (not specifically of the Christian variety, though I have seen those guide people well too). Maybe I'm wrong but that's the best I've figured out.
SunlightEdge 5y ago
Unfortunately most writers of fiction make next to nothing too. Writers often are not happy writing either (unlike painters and video artists who seem to have a whale of a time). Sadly I toiled for 8 years on a novel (while working a day job). It was a massive effort. It might be hard for people to understand but I felt I had to write it (i.e. writers curse). I wish I had spent all that time on studying programming etc. Unfortunately humans are not fully rational. I actually like my novel. But it wasn't worth it. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Can-Get-Restart-Jack-Gowan-ebook/dp/B01BVJ1U5C https://www.amazon.co.uk/Can-Get-Restart-Jack-Gowan-ebook/dp... But hey that's life. Shrug. Writers should just write for the pleasure of writing and expect that the majority won't make it. It's about as likely as winning the lottery
- deleted 5y ago
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- jesselawson 5y ago
  Hey I know you're feeling like giving up, but you have to realize that you've only taken the first step--and the good news is, it's a step that only 10% of people ever make! So congratulations! You published your first novel! Only 10% of people ever finish "that novel" they have in their head that they feel the urge to write. I'm proud of you! Now for the next part, which no one like's to hear: the easy part is over. Yep, you heard that right: getting your first work finished and out there was relatively easy compared to the mountain you have set yourself on to climb. Yes, only 10% of people dare climb that mountain, and here you are--among the 10%. Now, as you look forward, I can tell you that at every major step, every major obstacle, and every major setback, only 10% of people keep going. You might think there's a secret to this writing thing, but there isn't. Just like when we're hiking up a mountain, the only thing that matters is putting one foot in front of the other. That's the only way you climb. So you HAVE to get back in there (mentally) and keep going! You just started on an amazingly difficult and frustrating and beautiful journey in life. You made it to where only 10% of people get to--and now you want to stop the journey? My friend, your journey has only just begun.
  - SunlightEdge 5y ago
gbourne 5y ago
I got a publishing contract with a larger publisher to write a book on Agile (10 years ago, didn't end up publishing, long story). I know that amazing feeling the author mentions of getting a "yes", while totally ignoring that at best I was going to make pennies. If I recall it was 10% after all publishing costs were paid for. However, I had a full time job, so this was for-the-love-of-it rather than as a real source of income.
- Multiplayer 5y ago
  I wrote a few books with a major publisher, but did it largely for the authority that it conveyed on my work and career at the time. Love works too. :)
fighterpilot 5y ago
Authors have the same problem as musicians. Their work has zero marginal replication cost, zero distribution cost, low barriers to entry and they're competing for finite attention. What invariably happens then is the top 0.1 percent of output is duplicated and sold to hundreds of millions of customers and that eats up all of the attention bandwidth for that vertical. It's the ultimate winner take all setup. Contrast this to the prospect of running a successful restaurant that is fundamentally limited by geography. No matter how well it serves region A, region B, C, D, etc is still up for grabs. A franchise can try to duplicate its success, but it's much more costly than a successful author making endless free digital copies of their work.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Authors have the same problem as musicians. And app developers.
  - ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago
    Sorry, but this applies only to non-fiction. You can always make a usable app or non-fiction book, so you have one extra dimension of objectively measured value of your product. The first one, common to software and art, is the quality of the implementation.
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      Applications just like music have a near zero marginal cost. This is why the app stores are littered with $1 apps.
- varispeed 5y ago
  The thing is that authors are too weak. They get maybe 10% of what is being made off of their work, probably much less. The publishing companies have strong leverage and can essentially extort money from the authors - they can say either you publish with us, or just put it back to your drawer and forget. It is now a bit easier to self publish, but still you are going to get pittance. In terms of music, as when artists realised to can just sidestep labels and publish themselves, the shops started using their advantage to take almost the whole pie - things like Spotify pay next to nothing for streams. It's just that artists are somehow not able to get together and force fair terms on whatever it is in the upstream, because they don't have money and any power. All they can do is to pull out their art, but there is 10x artists believing they can make it despite being scammed and they sign up.
yesenadam 5y ago
I enjoyed this, I thought it mostly made good points, and it linked to other articles I will look at. Yet.. I started reading a blogger who teaches how to make a successful blog, sells courses about it, etc. I soon realized her blog is just about her making money from promising to help you make money from your blog. A frighteningly vacuous operation. It seems a modern cousin to the old ad in magazines promising to reveal the secret to wealth for $20. When you write to the given address you get a letter back saying "Do as I do." It's a pyramid operation. Writing books about writing books seems similar. Selling the dream of high sales when you write on other topics, when their books are the same "making money from promising to help you make money" from your book seems a bit fishy, has a scammy element. It's more than a lil "Do as I do."
- throwaway1777 5y ago
  You've hit the nail on the head. It's the same for some other industries like courses teaching you how to trade stocks. The way they make money is the course, not the trading.
- nprateem 5y ago
  The article does read like that but he seems to have basically applied lean principles to writing books. And he says he's written 2 books that both make him $10k per month so it seems he's walking the walk.
- klelatti 5y ago
  It's a fine line but .... I've just bought an e-book online which is essentially about promoting your content online (so broadly aligned with what you're talking about). The book was relatively expensive but I'd say definitely worth it - contents are really well thought out and comes with a lot of supporting material. It also seems to have been pretty successful for the author. But the irony is that if this wasn't something that had been promoted successfully online then I'm not sure that the author would have had the credibility to be able to sell a product of this type. Why should I believe you if you're not doing it yourself?
- ramraj07 5y ago
  Isn't it the case with anyone doing anything for the most part? When Marques Brownlee tells me what motivated him to buy an iPhone it's always a gymnastic I need to play in my head on if I should even try to relate to a dude who buys/gets handed a couple devices or cars every week.
zrail 5y ago
The comments here are incredibly harsh. As someone who has self published two books, quite a lot of this resonates with me. First book addressed a timely topic but ultimately aged out very quickly and I got burnt out trying to keep up with updates. It made roughly $80,000 in lifetime sales, of which I kept 96% (credit card fees + hosting overhead). Second book addressed a broader niche but fell into several of the traps he describes and only made $3000. I will likely buy his book and try to apply it on either a revision of book two or something new.
- rjyoungling 5y ago
  Thanks. I'm glad you liked it!
cryptica 5y ago
The real reason why most non-fiction authors don't make a profit is because only scam topics which sell a dream but don't add any real value can make any profit in our current scam economy. Self-help gurus, spiritual charlatans, snake-oil salesmen, get-rich-quick con men, corporate consultants, slick marketing experts; these are the people who are making profit in our scam economy. Just focus your energy on a fucking scam and you will make money by the boatload. You don't need a long article to tell you that. Just open your eyes and look around. It's not just writing which is affected; every 'intellectual' industry is affected; art, music, science, politics, technology... All the successful people are scammers. That's why you can't find any good content anywhere these days. The shit always floats to the top. The media is concentrating all our attention on the shit and away from the good stuff. Also, the rich people who are running the show are morons with no taste and 0 intellect.
deleted 5y ago
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perlgeek 5y ago
Step 1: sell 10k copies of your book through self-publishing. Step 0: already be successful at marketing or be well-known. There are certainly some valid points, but his solution pre-supposes that you already know your marketing. So the actual steps would be: * consistently produce good content for several years, build an audience (and an email list, as quaint as it sounds) * write a book, self-publish it * promote the out of it * THEN try to get a publisher on board
- rjyoungling 5y ago
  You severely overestimate how well known Rob was before releasing The MOM Test. You've got the order wrong. He got "famous" because The MOM Test did well. It wasn't "He was famous and then The MOM Test did well." The danger with your line of reasoning is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If one truly believes the need to be famous, they can't ever succeed. However, our process is designed to show that's not the case and to help "normal people" succeed.
nottorp 5y ago
... because most non fiction books are wrote as a product to make money, not to communicate something useful to the reader?
strogonoff 5y ago
On #1 “Signing with a publisher before you have leverage”, a bit from an episode[0] of Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s Founder’s Field Guide podcast stuck with me. > If you ask questions of an industry and they won't tell you the answer, that's always a good sign that someone's getting very wealthy. In publishing, if you ask an author, ask any author, how much did it cost to print the book? What are your COGS? They will not know. Ask any literary agent that question and they'll think you're off your rocker. Ask any publisher to give you that information transparently and they will rip up your contract. > So call the printers in China, pick your favorite book, find out some print brokers here in the US, and say, "What did the printing of those books cost? Send me a spreadsheet." And when they do and you find out that a $50 retail book cost about $2 to print, and you're going to get 10% of [off?] cover price, they're requiring that you order 5,000 for your own list and they're going to give you a quarter of a million dollar advance, you realize that there's no way they've taken no risk at all. Interestingly, the person speaking was in the restaurant business… There’s quite a bit of insight in that episode. [0] https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/20135760/kokonas-know-what-you-are-selling?tab=transcript https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/20135760/kokonas-know-...
darthrupert 5y ago
I wrote a mediocre book on a popular programming language, and have gotten something like 10-20keuros. It took a year to write it, dunno how many hours, but probably not a very good hourly pay.
- galfarragem 5y ago
  It's based on anecdata but I think a non-fiction book - on average - still has a better ROI than a fiction book. While the outliers may make more money with fiction, the average writer will never make 10-20k from a fiction book. Probably an order of magnitude less.
- amelius 5y ago
  Did you self-publish or use an established publisher?
  - darthrupert 5y ago
    An established publisher.
mkoubaa 5y ago
All the money is in substack these days. Maybe there could be a startup that anthologizes substacks into print books with low margins but high volume
m01 5y ago
I enjoyed reading the article. However, I think the author is over-generalising a bit with targeting this at "non-fiction" authors. #1 & #2 are perhaps broadly aplicable, but #3 & #4 seem more geared towards self-help books, books about management and the like. I suspect people who read a memoir, an auto-biography, an eulogy or about true crime may well be interested in reading about a topic rather than looking for actionable advice?
- rjyoungling 5y ago
  >I suspect people who read a memoir, an auto-biography, an eulogy or about true crime may well be interested in reading about a topic rather than looking for actionable advice? Those don't classify as the type of non-fiction problem solving books we're talking about. All models and methods are an approximation of the world (excluding pure mathematics). That error in approximation creates problems when you don't respect the domain of validity of the theory. Right now, what you claim as over-generalising, I argue is you taking our theory outside its domain of validity. I agree that it breaks there, but that's only because it wasn't designed for that domain so it's kind of a strawman argument.

191 points by rjyoungling 5y ago

Shouldn't #5 be "not promoting your book effectively" because he's clearly promoting his book effectively. I think this is fine if fame and fortune are your goal, which is an unquestioned assumption for a lot of people, but there are other reasons to write a book, which he does not address.

ghaff 5y ago
In fact, I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people who write non-fiction books are absolutely aware that the royalties will likely be (maybe) beer money--assuming they don't have expensive tastes in beer. Rather they're reputational. In tech, being a published author on a topic often separates people from the pack as consultants but it can also easily differentiate you if you have an externally-facing role (especially) at a company. Personally, I've made a relatively trivial amount of money from the books I've written, but I have little doubt they've been good investments of my time--some of which has been work time. ADDED: I'd add that "promoting your book effectively" probably isn't free. Most authors aren't going to get a lot of publisher support so now you're hiring a publicist, paying for review copies, paying to travel (normally) to speak at events where you do book signings and promote your book, etc.
- okareaman 5y ago
  Researching and writing help clarify your thoughts, which could pay dividends in other ways. I'm retired, don't need the money and am told old to care about fame, but I have several ideas for non-fiction books I'm working on. Now that I think about it, his blog post presents a strong case for not writing a non-fiction book for money. There are other ways to spend your time with a better chance of making money, unless you're clever self-promoter that is. "A 98% drop in sales after the first year, Seventy percent of traditionally published titles fail to pay out a single dollar in royalties, Vanishingly few nonfiction books sell even five hundred copies"
  - ghaff 5y ago
    That's a great point. It's not just about I have a book. But that, especially if it's through a publisher (which has pros and cons), I have sufficient knowledge of the topic either acquired day-to-day or through research that I'm capable of laying down at least 250 pages or so of coherent writing on said topic. The last book I did I was definitely already familiar with the area but I was certainly more so my the time I was done.
- rjyoungling 5y ago
  I agree but you can't fake this. You still have to follow our process because a book that doesn't have strong word of mouth and doesn't resonate doesn't give you credibility. I.e. you can't just slap a book together and think you've got credibility. People see right through that. This is something Tendayi Viki of Strategyzer talked to us about: "HOW DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE BOOK AS A PRODUCT? In my line of work, credibility is very important. I can’t cold call companies and be like “Hey, you know that those innovation programs are very important? Well, we have the best one. You can buy it now for three easy payments of 599.” Reputation matters a lot. It’s so much easier if someone comes to you. If they already respect me before we start the conversation. Now, there are two ways to do that. You can deliberately be the snake oil salesmen. But that’s why those books don’t work because it’s so obvious what the person is trying to do. They write a book so they can say “I wrote a book”. Or, you can say “I actually have something authentic to share and let me share that.” That’s the approach I’ve taken. I know I need to build a reputation but I don’t want to build it on nothing. If people pull back the curtains, they can see substance." Notes I want to make it clear that I'm not accusing you of saying that. I'm merely adding to your comment. Reference https://writeusefulbooks.com/resources/Tendayi-Viki/ https://writeusefulbooks.com/resources/Tendayi-Viki/
thomaslangston 5y ago
The point of the article is explaining how a goal of a living wage can be earned directly off nonfiction writing, in addition to two different reasons that are explicitly stated at the beginning of the article as being commonly suggested. It also explicitly is calling out methods that do not require fame, nor does it espouse a goal of fortune (unless you treat a living wage as a fortune).
- okareaman 5y ago
  He does so dismissively, not treating them seriously: "you should therefore embrace your book’s predestined doom by reframing it as either passion project or calling card."
  - rjyoungling 5y ago
    That sentence refers to the traditional method, not our method.

07121941 5y ago

Fantastic advice. Now all I've got to do is write

crecker 5y ago

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26831469 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26831469

ed25519FUUU 5y ago

It seems to me that virtually everyone going into the creative fields (art, music, writing, acting) should enter that field without any expectation to make a living from it. We pay other people to do things that aren’t fun for us, not the other way around.

ghaff 5y ago
I'm not sure why the downvotes. That's absolutely a fair comment. There are some cases where creative work can benefit your day job through visibility and related skills. (A talented amateur actor is probably going to be better at presentations for example. And being that really good presenter at your company's user group event every year isn't going to hurt you.) But it seems a good point overall. Being great on some instrument probably isn't going to be a great argument for why you should get promoted at a non-music-related position.)
- m463 5y ago
  I would also say, people make more money doing stuff that's hard. (and of course the bar goes up)
  - ghaff 5y ago
    I'd say "hard" is a necessary but not sufficient condition. People (individually or in the aggregate) also need to be willing to pay you specifically a lot of money for what you specifically bring to the table that, in many creative fields, requires being very top tier (and lucky). In the arts, the equivalent of a mid-tier developer makes jack squat.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- Invictus0 5y ago
  It's a bad comment because it totally misses the actual dynamics of the creative marketplace--that is, superstars-take-all. It has nothing to do with the "fun" of the work. The superstars in the creative industries are making 7-8 figures and everyone else is making 4-5 figures while trying to become a superstar.

ng12 5y ago

So 3/4 of the tips are: write a book people want to read?

Finnucane 5y ago
No clearly, the message is, write self-help books for wannabe writers.
- xwdv 5y ago
  Self-help books for wannabe anythings is not a bad idea. Imagine a self help book for wannabe app developers.
- amelius 5y ago
  During a gold rush, sell shovels.
rjyoungling 5y ago
If this was obvious advice, the mistake wouldn't be so prevalent in among non-fiction authors.

k__ 5y ago

Having the right publisher is probably the most important. I can recommend https://newline.co https://newline.co I wrote a book with them and made enough to pay my rent for over a year with the money I made.

Finnucane 5y ago

He doesn't seem to understand what a royalty is. He quotes himself saying "To compensate for their 85% share of the royalties, a publisher needs to sell at least 5x more copies for you to break even [compared to self-publishing]." As the lady on the tv says, that's not how any of this works. In trade publishing at least, the author's royalty is a percentage of the cover price of the book. In normal retail selling, the publisher gets maybe 50-55% of the cover price in revenue, out of which they have to pay you and also all of their costs of producing your book.

101008 5y ago
As a publisher author of a non-fiction book with an established publisher, I had to stop reading after that first point because he is completely wrong.
- Multiplayer 5y ago
  I think it makes sense. He's saying that if you get a 15% royalty, vs the 100% royalty minus costs of self publishing, you need to sell 5x more books via the publisher. It's oddly worded, but the math roughly works depending on your self publishing costs.
  - Finnucane 5y ago
    It is not oddly worded. It is wrong.
    - jimnotgym 5y ago
      Yes it is an error, but the underlying point is true. I also thought that, whilst it was easy to recognize the error, the point was still easy to understand. I think it is a good point, let's hope the author redrafts.
  - TheOtherHobbes 5y ago
    It's very poorly worded. And if not wrong, then certainly very unclear. The math... depends. Not all publishers offer advances, and those that do offer advances with different strategies. Here is one strategy: a commissioning editor uses a sales modelling system to estimate the maximum possible advance against likely sales. At larger publishers, you can be sure the editor has a very good idea what the likely sales will be. Because that's what publishers do, and they have years, sometimes decades of data and experience to draw on. The editor will set the advance so the book never earns out. This gives you more money than you might expect for an advance. And you can usually haggle upwards from the initial offer. But of course you've just signed what is really a work for hire contract. You will not see any more money than the initial offer. Would you earn more self-pub? Possibly. That depends entirely on your ability to reach an audience and sell your book to them. Parking a title on Amazon isn't nearly enough. If you have good marketing skills and if you hit a desirable niche you can do very well - much better than trad pub. But if you miss - you've wasted maybe a few months, with not much to show for it. So it's a risk/reward calculation. If you know you can write the book, an advance is money in the bank. It's a known quantity. You don't have to do marketing too. Sometimes that's a workable deal, especially if you have a day job and marketing is not a strong competence. You won't early nearly as much as you would in dev, but - it's a book. With your name on it. And some cash. If you have the time to spare and either know or hope you can build an audience, and are sure the title really does fit a niche, by all means self-pub. But you should only do this if you've done the groundwork. Like any other business you have to think about product/market fit, and marketing, and finding your audience, and all of the usual hurdles. And unfortunately, marketing is a skillset in its own right. Of course you can learn it, but starting cold is challenging. Personally having been through this cycle a few times I wouldn't trad pub now. But I also wouldn't assume that all I have to do is write a book and it will automatically sell in reassuring quantities. I know it won't. There's more work to do, and I wouldn't want anyone to underestimate how hard it is.

Ronson 5y ago

I can't comment on the article but after a slow start this year, this HN Post has got me "reading" non-fiction audiobooks again. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26206712 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26206712 I am a member of goodreads, it's just hard to find stuff sometimes and cut through the dross. Thank you pizzicato.

currymj 5y ago

how much are these numbers skewed by academic monographs? these are books that are basically going to be sold only to university libraries, which might explain why they sell <500 copies. there are many such books where no author ever expects to make money -- they have other incentives due to the way academia is organized.

gxqoz 5y ago
My impression is that even reasonably well-selling non-fiction books typically do not sell a lot of copies. To make it onto a best-seller list you only need to sell in the tens of thousands of books.

krmmalik 5y ago

I'm an author of a non-fiction book. I self-published. My book has a 5-star rating to date even though it was published nearly 5 years ago. My book meets most of the criteria laid out in this book. I even had both a publisher and distributor approach me and I had plenty leverage. Despite all that, I didn't get the book sales I wanted nor the PR. Everyone that reads my book is surprised to hear it's not topping the charts or plastered everywhere my audience hangs out. My book beat out all the competition when it came out in terms of reviews. While the points in this post are valid, I don't believe they get to the bottom of what holds back sales. Frankly, I don't know what the answer is -- I have a vague idea of what it could be but I haven't had a chance to try those things. Perhaps if my book had been in all airport bookstores a few years ago, it might have taken off (no pun intended) like Tim Ferriss' book but who knows.

UperSpaceGuru 5y ago
I just bought your book based on the post above. Maybe it’s marketing? Your book is also aimed a small niche(I’m on your target market!), maybe that’s it?
- krmmalik 5y ago
  That's hilarious. Enjoy the book :) Marketing requires a huge budget in the VC age since you're competing with ever increasing ad prices. I have spent a lot of money on advertising regardless. One thing that has been a major sticking point for me however, ist hat distribution has been a huge issue. I wouldn't say my target market is that small. Most of the Middle East and Asia is quite ripe for my book but amazon doest operate it's self-publishing arm out there and the alternatives have not been that enticing.
  - kjksf 5y ago
    > Marketing requires a huge budget in the VC ag And yet the free source of marketing (your twitter account) doesn't have a link to the book. Neither does your HN bio. Your website is broken (expired SSL certificate). As far as I can tell you don't have a single page that tries to sell the book. A link to amazon is a bare minimum. https://writeusefulbooks.com/ https://writeusefulbooks.com/ is an example of a master class of marketing a book. It describes what the book is about and why one should buy it. It established the author as successful writer and therefore authority on the subject. He also wrote an article good enough to hit HN and be a driver to the website. That required 0 budget. Maybe your failure at marketing are a result of you being bad at it, not a universal truth that you can only be successful with "huge budget".

DubiousPusher 5y ago

> It’s because Hemingway’s Boat is broadly “about” a topic, whereas The War of Art promises—and delivers—an outcome. I certaintly don't know a damn thing about selling books. But I am an avid reader of nonfiction and this is exactly the opposite of how I shop for books myself. Other than the odd "how-to", I'm skeptical of any book promising me anything other than the author's diligent study and incisive distillation of a topic. I've read many books which caused my mind to grow and really excited me about the world but I've never read a book that "solved my problem". Of which, I assure you, I have many.

ddorian43 5y ago
> but I've never read a book that "solved my problem". Of which, I assure you, I have many. Curious of your unsolved problems.
- DubiousPusher 5y ago
  Oh, mostly personal. How to be a kinder person. How to not take things for granted. How to contribute more to my community. How to accept that due to a drift in my world views, I will likely never have as close a relationship with my parents as when I was young. How to decide if one should withdraw from the world as much as possible or embrace it. How to view every person as valuable. How to respect every person even when they are creating problems for you. How to cope with long term illness in the family. How to feel about having amassed an amount of money that seems disproportionate to my contribution to society. How to disagree with people without resenting them (even when you believe the things they believe are hurting people). How to raise a kid who is curious and interested in things. How to raise a kid that shuns cruelty. How guide a kid away from traps you fell into yourself without taking over their life. How to show people you appreciate them. I'm not saying no book has helped with any of the above. But I have never read a book that fixed one of these problems or really even ever told me anything very interesting about them. What to do is mostly obvious. How to get oneself to do those things is the hard part. And I think that kind of change doesn't come from reading one book. It comes from many absorbed over a long period of time. It comes from daily devotions (not specifically of the Christian variety, though I have seen those guide people well too). Maybe I'm wrong but that's the best I've figured out.

SunlightEdge 5y ago

Unfortunately most writers of fiction make next to nothing too. Writers often are not happy writing either (unlike painters and video artists who seem to have a whale of a time). Sadly I toiled for 8 years on a novel (while working a day job). It was a massive effort. It might be hard for people to understand but I felt I had to write it (i.e. writers curse). I wish I had spent all that time on studying programming etc. Unfortunately humans are not fully rational. I actually like my novel. But it wasn't worth it. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Can-Get-Restart-Jack-Gowan-ebook/dp/B01BVJ1U5C https://www.amazon.co.uk/Can-Get-Restart-Jack-Gowan-ebook/dp... But hey that's life. Shrug. Writers should just write for the pleasure of writing and expect that the majority won't make it. It's about as likely as winning the lottery

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jesselawson 5y ago
Hey I know you're feeling like giving up, but you have to realize that you've only taken the first step--and the good news is, it's a step that only 10% of people ever make! So congratulations! You published your first novel! Only 10% of people ever finish "that novel" they have in their head that they feel the urge to write. I'm proud of you! Now for the next part, which no one like's to hear: the easy part is over. Yep, you heard that right: getting your first work finished and out there was relatively easy compared to the mountain you have set yourself on to climb. Yes, only 10% of people dare climb that mountain, and here you are--among the 10%. Now, as you look forward, I can tell you that at every major step, every major obstacle, and every major setback, only 10% of people keep going. You might think there's a secret to this writing thing, but there isn't. Just like when we're hiking up a mountain, the only thing that matters is putting one foot in front of the other. That's the only way you climb. So you HAVE to get back in there (mentally) and keep going! You just started on an amazingly difficult and frustrating and beautiful journey in life. You made it to where only 10% of people get to--and now you want to stop the journey? My friend, your journey has only just begun.
- SunlightEdge 5y ago

gbourne 5y ago

I got a publishing contract with a larger publisher to write a book on Agile (10 years ago, didn't end up publishing, long story). I know that amazing feeling the author mentions of getting a "yes", while totally ignoring that at best I was going to make pennies. If I recall it was 10% after all publishing costs were paid for. However, I had a full time job, so this was for-the-love-of-it rather than as a real source of income.

Multiplayer 5y ago
I wrote a few books with a major publisher, but did it largely for the authority that it conveyed on my work and career at the time. Love works too. :)

fighterpilot 5y ago

Authors have the same problem as musicians. Their work has zero marginal replication cost, zero distribution cost, low barriers to entry and they're competing for finite attention. What invariably happens then is the top 0.1 percent of output is duplicated and sold to hundreds of millions of customers and that eats up all of the attention bandwidth for that vertical. It's the ultimate winner take all setup. Contrast this to the prospect of running a successful restaurant that is fundamentally limited by geography. No matter how well it serves region A, region B, C, D, etc is still up for grabs. A franchise can try to duplicate its success, but it's much more costly than a successful author making endless free digital copies of their work.

tonyedgecombe 5y ago
Authors have the same problem as musicians. And app developers.
- ZoomZoomZoom 5y ago
  Sorry, but this applies only to non-fiction. You can always make a usable app or non-fiction book, so you have one extra dimension of objectively measured value of your product. The first one, common to software and art, is the quality of the implementation.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Applications just like music have a near zero marginal cost. This is why the app stores are littered with $1 apps.
varispeed 5y ago
The thing is that authors are too weak. They get maybe 10% of what is being made off of their work, probably much less. The publishing companies have strong leverage and can essentially extort money from the authors - they can say either you publish with us, or just put it back to your drawer and forget. It is now a bit easier to self publish, but still you are going to get pittance. In terms of music, as when artists realised to can just sidestep labels and publish themselves, the shops started using their advantage to take almost the whole pie - things like Spotify pay next to nothing for streams. It's just that artists are somehow not able to get together and force fair terms on whatever it is in the upstream, because they don't have money and any power. All they can do is to pull out their art, but there is 10x artists believing they can make it despite being scammed and they sign up.

yesenadam 5y ago

I enjoyed this, I thought it mostly made good points, and it linked to other articles I will look at. Yet.. I started reading a blogger who teaches how to make a successful blog, sells courses about it, etc. I soon realized her blog is just about her making money from promising to help you make money from your blog. A frighteningly vacuous operation. It seems a modern cousin to the old ad in magazines promising to reveal the secret to wealth for $20. When you write to the given address you get a letter back saying "Do as I do." It's a pyramid operation. Writing books about writing books seems similar. Selling the dream of high sales when you write on other topics, when their books are the same "making money from promising to help you make money" from your book seems a bit fishy, has a scammy element. It's more than a lil "Do as I do."

throwaway1777 5y ago
You've hit the nail on the head. It's the same for some other industries like courses teaching you how to trade stocks. The way they make money is the course, not the trading.
nprateem 5y ago
The article does read like that but he seems to have basically applied lean principles to writing books. And he says he's written 2 books that both make him $10k per month so it seems he's walking the walk.
klelatti 5y ago
It's a fine line but .... I've just bought an e-book online which is essentially about promoting your content online (so broadly aligned with what you're talking about). The book was relatively expensive but I'd say definitely worth it - contents are really well thought out and comes with a lot of supporting material. It also seems to have been pretty successful for the author. But the irony is that if this wasn't something that had been promoted successfully online then I'm not sure that the author would have had the credibility to be able to sell a product of this type. Why should I believe you if you're not doing it yourself?
ramraj07 5y ago
Isn't it the case with anyone doing anything for the most part? When Marques Brownlee tells me what motivated him to buy an iPhone it's always a gymnastic I need to play in my head on if I should even try to relate to a dude who buys/gets handed a couple devices or cars every week.

zrail 5y ago

The comments here are incredibly harsh. As someone who has self published two books, quite a lot of this resonates with me. First book addressed a timely topic but ultimately aged out very quickly and I got burnt out trying to keep up with updates. It made roughly $80,000 in lifetime sales, of which I kept 96% (credit card fees + hosting overhead). Second book addressed a broader niche but fell into several of the traps he describes and only made $3000. I will likely buy his book and try to apply it on either a revision of book two or something new.

rjyoungling 5y ago
Thanks. I'm glad you liked it!

cryptica 5y ago

The real reason why most non-fiction authors don't make a profit is because only scam topics which sell a dream but don't add any real value can make any profit in our current scam economy. Self-help gurus, spiritual charlatans, snake-oil salesmen, get-rich-quick con men, corporate consultants, slick marketing experts; these are the people who are making profit in our scam economy. Just focus your energy on a fucking scam and you will make money by the boatload. You don't need a long article to tell you that. Just open your eyes and look around. It's not just writing which is affected; every 'intellectual' industry is affected; art, music, science, politics, technology... All the successful people are scammers. That's why you can't find any good content anywhere these days. The shit always floats to the top. The media is concentrating all our attention on the shit and away from the good stuff. Also, the rich people who are running the show are morons with no taste and 0 intellect.

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perlgeek 5y ago

Step 1: sell 10k copies of your book through self-publishing. Step 0: already be successful at marketing or be well-known. There are certainly some valid points, but his solution pre-supposes that you already know your marketing. So the actual steps would be: * consistently produce good content for several years, build an audience (and an email list, as quaint as it sounds) * write a book, self-publish it * promote the out of it * THEN try to get a publisher on board

rjyoungling 5y ago
You severely overestimate how well known Rob was before releasing The MOM Test. You've got the order wrong. He got "famous" because The MOM Test did well. It wasn't "He was famous and then The MOM Test did well." The danger with your line of reasoning is that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. If one truly believes the need to be famous, they can't ever succeed. However, our process is designed to show that's not the case and to help "normal people" succeed.

nottorp 5y ago

... because most non fiction books are wrote as a product to make money, not to communicate something useful to the reader?

strogonoff 5y ago

On #1 “Signing with a publisher before you have leverage”, a bit from an episode[0] of Patrick O’Shaughnessy’s Founder’s Field Guide podcast stuck with me. > If you ask questions of an industry and they won't tell you the answer, that's always a good sign that someone's getting very wealthy. In publishing, if you ask an author, ask any author, how much did it cost to print the book? What are your COGS? They will not know. Ask any literary agent that question and they'll think you're off your rocker. Ask any publisher to give you that information transparently and they will rip up your contract. > So call the printers in China, pick your favorite book, find out some print brokers here in the US, and say, "What did the printing of those books cost? Send me a spreadsheet." And when they do and you find out that a $50 retail book cost about $2 to print, and you're going to get 10% of [off?] cover price, they're requiring that you order 5,000 for your own list and they're going to give you a quarter of a million dollar advance, you realize that there's no way they've taken no risk at all. Interestingly, the person speaking was in the restaurant business… There’s quite a bit of insight in that episode. [0] https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/20135760/kokonas-know-what-you-are-selling?tab=transcript https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/20135760/kokonas-know-...

darthrupert 5y ago

I wrote a mediocre book on a popular programming language, and have gotten something like 10-20keuros. It took a year to write it, dunno how many hours, but probably not a very good hourly pay.

galfarragem 5y ago
It's based on anecdata but I think a non-fiction book - on average - still has a better ROI than a fiction book. While the outliers may make more money with fiction, the average writer will never make 10-20k from a fiction book. Probably an order of magnitude less.
amelius 5y ago
Did you self-publish or use an established publisher?
- darthrupert 5y ago
  An established publisher.

mkoubaa 5y ago

All the money is in substack these days. Maybe there could be a startup that anthologizes substacks into print books with low margins but high volume

m01 5y ago

I enjoyed reading the article. However, I think the author is over-generalising a bit with targeting this at "non-fiction" authors. #1 & #2 are perhaps broadly aplicable, but #3 & #4 seem more geared towards self-help books, books about management and the like. I suspect people who read a memoir, an auto-biography, an eulogy or about true crime may well be interested in reading about a topic rather than looking for actionable advice?

rjyoungling 5y ago
>I suspect people who read a memoir, an auto-biography, an eulogy or about true crime may well be interested in reading about a topic rather than looking for actionable advice? Those don't classify as the type of non-fiction problem solving books we're talking about. All models and methods are an approximation of the world (excluding pure mathematics). That error in approximation creates problems when you don't respect the domain of validity of the theory. Right now, what you claim as over-generalising, I argue is you taking our theory outside its domain of validity. I agree that it breaks there, but that's only because it wasn't designed for that domain so it's kind of a strawman argument.