I'm writing a book right now with Manning publishing, and I had considered self-publishing as an alternative. In my experience: - $2-$3 per book for the author

I'm writing a book right now with Manning publishing, and I had considered self-publishing as an alternative. In my experience: - $2-$3 per book for the author and 2000-3000 copies sounds right. I have heard if your book sells 5000+ copies it is a "very successful" book. As a comparison, my book has sold 1000 copies in the pre-sale so far. - I've heard that on average if you publish the traditional route, you can expect to make $10k. If you self-publish, you can expect $50k (no data to back up these figures though) Overall as an author you do get paid very little. I have thought about publishing my next book on the web like this. The biggest advantage I see is allowing reader comments for every paragraph similar to Medium. Thanks for the writeup! After reading this, I don't think I would put a book online for free. Charging even a little bit seems to be more effective.