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The second biggest driver was a link in Ruby Weekly. [..] Not to mention, the amount of money I would get from direct sales is vastly more than I would get from

The second biggest driver was a link in Ruby Weekly. [..] Not to mention, the amount of money I would get from direct sales is vastly more than I would get from the same number of sales if I were getting royalties. I'm always happy to link to good stuff, but I must admit, if I'm not making any money out of it, I never push anything particularly hard. This makes me wonder if I partnered with or acted as a publisher to indie writers like this, I could quite easily offer a 50-75% "royalty" yet push it more frequently and heavily to my audience and everyone wins. Indeed, I believe this is what Pragmatic Bookshelf does when it takes on previously written indie books(?)

zrail 13y ago
That sounds kind of like an affiliate program. I bet you could make it work with the kind of niche audiences you've got.
- petercooper 13y ago
  Sort of. I've done affiliate stuff before but I don't like the vibe it gives off. Selling the products directly in a more publisher-esque way feels more honest, although I'm not entirely sure why.
  - nathanbarry 13y ago
    I think "affiliates" may have a bad vibe, but you could message it in a way that wouldn't. I know Gumroad is coming out with some functionality along those lines and they call it "tastemakers" or something similar. I bet you could significantly increase your revenue by working directly with authors—though if you try to republish their books it would be more work for them. Just work with one author a month, whose book you have carefully vetted, and promote it to your lists for a commission.
    - clarky07 13y ago
      I'm planning on releasing a book soon and have been strongly considering gumroad. I couldn't find anything about an affiliate program (now or coming soon). Do you have a link for this, or is it just from your talks with them?
vidarh 13y ago
You could probably do quite well with it, as long as you take great care to ensure it is quality stuff that reflects well on your brand. Given the amount of traffic I'm getting for even my rather esoteric compiler articles from your sites (including a steady trickle of visitors still coming from your Ruby Inside article a couple of years ago), you must be delivering quite substantial traffic to more "mainstream" Ruby related sites.

zrail 13y ago

That sounds kind of like an affiliate program. I bet you could make it work with the kind of niche audiences you've got.

petercooper 13y ago
Sort of. I've done affiliate stuff before but I don't like the vibe it gives off. Selling the products directly in a more publisher-esque way feels more honest, although I'm not entirely sure why.
- nathanbarry 13y ago
  I think "affiliates" may have a bad vibe, but you could message it in a way that wouldn't. I know Gumroad is coming out with some functionality along those lines and they call it "tastemakers" or something similar. I bet you could significantly increase your revenue by working directly with authors—though if you try to republish their books it would be more work for them. Just work with one author a month, whose book you have carefully vetted, and promote it to your lists for a commission.
  - clarky07 13y ago
    I'm planning on releasing a book soon and have been strongly considering gumroad. I couldn't find anything about an affiliate program (now or coming soon). Do you have a link for this, or is it just from your talks with them?

vidarh 13y ago

You could probably do quite well with it, as long as you take great care to ensure it is quality stuff that reflects well on your brand. Given the amount of traffic I'm getting for even my rather esoteric compiler articles from your sites (including a steady trickle of visitors still coming from your Ruby Inside article a couple of years ago), you must be delivering quite substantial traffic to more "mainstream" Ruby related sites.