As someone writing a book, I can tell you I care a lot about the quality of the finished product but it takes far too much time to not care about the financial

As someone writing a book, I can tell you I care a lot about the quality of the finished product but it takes far too much time to not care about the financial return as well. (I'm literally breaking off from proof reading to write this comment.) The up front costs are negligible for most programmers in the Western world. $2K is a few days work for a contractor. If you've gone through University, as most of us have, you'll have been drilled in the rules of writing and probably know people who excel at the written word. In my case my colleagues are assisting with the proof reading. Not everyone has the cash, connections, or training for sure, but most of us do. Finally the sales model should be very different for a self published technical book. Best practice is to offer bundles, like the Rails Tutorial does, which fall under the "don't give a shit" threshold for individuals and companies. See: https://www.railstutorial.org/ https://www.railstutorial.org/ Your average income per sale should be more like $100 than $1.20.