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[Self-promotion warning] My blog that nobody read turned into a published book. An editor for a small publishing firm happened to come across my blog and though

[Self-promotion warning] My blog that nobody read turned into a published book. An editor for a small publishing firm happened to come across my blog and thought that it might be good as a book. He contacted me and after about a year of work (more than I expected) I finished the book and got it published. It's not that popular, but I'm very happy with it. My point is that you don't need a massive audience. If you can reach one person and make them laugh, or teach someone something new, or give someone hope when they really needed it, then your writing will be worth it.

rpunkfu 11mo ago
Looking forward to post about writing a book nobody reads ;)
EdwardDiego 11mo ago
I am now intrigued in your blog, if it's still online?
- ablob 11mo ago
  Its probably the Archive if you follow the link
- GMoromisato 11mo ago
  It was my old astrophotography blog: https://neurohack.com/Astrophotography/index.html https://neurohack.com/Astrophotography/index.html And the book it led to is 101 Amazing Sights of the Night Sky: https://www.amazon.com/101-Amazing-Sights-Night-Sky/dp/1591935571 https://www.amazon.com/101-Amazing-Sights-Night-Sky/dp/15919... Neither is very popular, but it was a lot of fun.
  - nivethan 11mo ago
    Picked it up :) The look inside was great, it reminds me of an old astronomy book that I was obsessed with a long time ago.
    - GMoromisato 11mo ago
      Awesome! Let me know what you think.
  - tristramb 11mo ago
    It always pleases me to see pictures of NGC 4216, the edge-on spiral galaxy with a star beside its nucleus. I used to use it as a pointer to the short-period contact binary star CC Comae Berenices back when I used observe eclipsing binaries with my Celestron 8.
    - GMoromisato 11mo ago
      Nice! I was never much of a visual observer--I never had the patience.
  - a_c 11mo ago
    Did not expect to see a book about night sky in this post. The book looks great. I'm getting one for my sons.
    - GMoromisato 11mo ago
      Hope they like it! Let me know what they think!
purplecats 11mo ago
congrats! fun little story. how much did you make from it?
- GMoromisato 11mo ago
  Not very much. Maybe $10K over 10 years. Do not quit your day job! But I'm hoping to make $2K from the Anthropic settlement, so I got that going for me.
  - DANmode 11mo ago
    What’d they do to you, since you brought it up? Thanks.
    - GMoromisato 11mo ago
      It's from the recent class action settlement. Anthropic used a pirated book database for training and got sued. The settlement awards some amount of money to each book in the database. Mine happened to be included. And because I love irony, Claude can tell us more: https://claude.ai/share/4ee7f444-e296-48ce-85eb-15d50dbd6c93 https://claude.ai/share/4ee7f444-e296-48ce-85eb-15d50dbd6c93
moron4hire 11mo ago
I have a friend who used to complain about wanting to publish a novel, not being able to finish, blah blah blah. So I made a bet with him that I would self-publish a book before he did. That night, I packed 3 years of blog posts into a PDF and pushed "submit" on Kindle Direct Publishing. It was the kick in the pants he needed to finally finish his manuscript.

rpunkfu 11mo ago

Looking forward to post about writing a book nobody reads ;)

EdwardDiego 11mo ago

I am now intrigued in your blog, if it's still online?

ablob 11mo ago
Its probably the Archive if you follow the link
GMoromisato 11mo ago
It was my old astrophotography blog: https://neurohack.com/Astrophotography/index.html https://neurohack.com/Astrophotography/index.html And the book it led to is 101 Amazing Sights of the Night Sky: https://www.amazon.com/101-Amazing-Sights-Night-Sky/dp/1591935571 https://www.amazon.com/101-Amazing-Sights-Night-Sky/dp/15919... Neither is very popular, but it was a lot of fun.
- nivethan 11mo ago
  Picked it up :) The look inside was great, it reminds me of an old astronomy book that I was obsessed with a long time ago.
  - GMoromisato 11mo ago
    Awesome! Let me know what you think.
- tristramb 11mo ago
  It always pleases me to see pictures of NGC 4216, the edge-on spiral galaxy with a star beside its nucleus. I used to use it as a pointer to the short-period contact binary star CC Comae Berenices back when I used observe eclipsing binaries with my Celestron 8.
  - GMoromisato 11mo ago
    Nice! I was never much of a visual observer--I never had the patience.
- a_c 11mo ago
  Did not expect to see a book about night sky in this post. The book looks great. I'm getting one for my sons.
  - GMoromisato 11mo ago
    Hope they like it! Let me know what they think!

purplecats 11mo ago

congrats! fun little story. how much did you make from it?

GMoromisato 11mo ago
Not very much. Maybe $10K over 10 years. Do not quit your day job! But I'm hoping to make $2K from the Anthropic settlement, so I got that going for me.
- DANmode 11mo ago
  What’d they do to you, since you brought it up? Thanks.
  - GMoromisato 11mo ago
    It's from the recent class action settlement. Anthropic used a pirated book database for training and got sued. The settlement awards some amount of money to each book in the database. Mine happened to be included. And because I love irony, Claude can tell us more: https://claude.ai/share/4ee7f444-e296-48ce-85eb-15d50dbd6c93 https://claude.ai/share/4ee7f444-e296-48ce-85eb-15d50dbd6c93

moron4hire 11mo ago

I have a friend who used to complain about wanting to publish a novel, not being able to finish, blah blah blah. So I made a bet with him that I would self-publish a book before he did. That night, I packed 3 years of blog posts into a PDF and pushed "submit" on Kindle Direct Publishing. It was the kick in the pants he needed to finally finish his manuscript.