出版与作家生涯2016medium.com
我如何靠自助出版每月赚到400美元被动收入
How I make $400 a month in Passive Income by Self-Publishing
导读
这篇文章讲作者靠自助出版一本关于大学申请（常春藤升学）的书，每月获得约 400 美元收入，并把它称作“被动收入”。评论区则冷静地拆解了这个说法：收入其实是靠发布期主动推广换来的，是营收而非利润，也难以持续。对写作者来说，它是一堂关于自助出版真实成本、题材选择和平台内容过剩的清醒课。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把“被动收入”还原成“主动推广的短期营收”：新书发布期的宣传决定了销量，停止营销后收入多半会下滑。
- 02
算利润而不是算营收：封面设计、编辑、校对、平台抽成都是成本，写作的时间也要计入。
- 03
题材决定付费意愿：选一个有明确需求、信息门槛高的小众市场（如升学流程），比泛泛而谈更容易卖出。
- 04
别指望平台自然曝光：上传内容的人只会越来越多，靠评论和算法筛出好作品的能力跟不上供给速度，推广得自己来做。
HN 评论精选
逐条拆穿“被动收入”说法：其实是主动营销换来的历史营收，且未扣除成本。
三个纠正：一是“主动”而非“被动”——按文中所述，这笔收入来自新书发布时的主动推广；二是“过去”而非“未来”——这是基于主动营销的历史收入，不再营销的话未来很难维持；三是“营收”而非“利润”——那个漂亮的封面设计如果作为参考范例，别人是要花钱买的，但这项成本没被算进去。总之，他并没有每月被动赚 400 美元（实际是 360 美元），未来也不太可能。
dilemma查看英文原文
1. Active, not passive: This is income made by actively promoting the book upon its release as stated in the post. 2. Past, not future: This is historical revenue based on active marketing. It is unlikely that it will bring the same income in the future without marketing. 3. Revenue, not profit: The nice cover design is something others would need to pay for if this is to serve as reference, but this cost isn't taken into account. TLDR: He isn't making $400 ($360) in passive monthly income and it is unlikely he will in the future.
内容供给过剩会让“被动收入”趋零，平台的择优机制追不上上传速度。
我把话放这儿：这种模式长不了。iTunes、Play 商店、Steam、Newgrounds，几乎所有允许用户上传内容换钱或换广告收入的网站都经历过。我称之为“用户生成内容的根本问题”：在当前的预期回报下，很快人人都来上传自己的书，质量无关紧要；最终内容洪流会远超消费者能消费的量，单个创作者的预期被动收入会趋近于零。这些平台都承诺做创作者的 meritocracy（择优机制）——你只管创作，评论自然会来，好内容自然赚更多钱，不用靠请公关公司之类的手段。但现实是：只要有钱可赚，人们就会蜂拥而入，直到无钱可赚。我们区分良莠的机制，扩展速度远远赶不上数字内容分发的经济学。不信？去 Steam Greenlight 看看，有多少游戏看着有意思，每天上传多少，你跟得上吗？再去应用商店的新品区看看。
IIAOPSW查看英文原文
Mark my words this won't last. It has happened to Itunes, Play Store, Steam, New Grounds and basically every website that let's users upload content for sale / ad money. I call it the fundamental problem of user generated content. At the current expected payoff, soon every schmuck will be uploading his book. Quality won't matter. Eventually the torrent of content for consumers will be more than consumers can hope to consume, and the expected passive income for a given creative person will go to zero. The thing all these sites have in common is that they promised to be a meritocracy for creative types. You simply make your work and then reviews come in and its judged fairly. Better content gets more money. No need to revert to tricks like paying a PR firm to market it. The reality is that when there is money to be made, people will rush in until there is no longer money to be made. Our mechanisms to separate the wheat from the chaff don't scale nearly as well as the economics of digital content distribution networks. Don't believe me? Go to Steam Greenlight. Tell me how many games look interesting. Tell me how many uploads are happening per day. Can you keep up with it? Go to the app store. How much stuff is in the new section? How much looks good.
真实的自助出版账本：编辑耗时巨大、单本利润极薄、月销个位数，但学到了流程。
我曾给一本彻头彻尾的“屎帖”大部头当编辑和出版人（4chan 的 /lit/ 版集体创作）。总得有人真把它出版出来，我接下了这活儿，大概花了 20 小时编辑（帮写的工夫还远不止这些）。至今卖出 650 本，大部分每本利润不到 1 美元，因为我觉得向参与创作的人赚钱不太合适。后来我提了价，现在每本约 2.5 美元，每月卖 5 到 10 本。亚马逊上的定价远高于 Lulu（我们选的出版平台），因为亚马逊显然要抽成。这个项目最大的好处是让我搞懂了怎么自助出版——后来我还送给伴侣两本关于她的纸质诗集，很受欢迎。
runj__查看英文原文
I was the editor and publisher of this tome of a shitpost: https://www.amazon.com/Hypersphere/dp/132978152X http://www.lulu.com/shop/anonymous/hypersphere/paperback/product-22517627.html The 4chan /lit/ board wrote Hypersphere as a collaborative writing project but someone needed to actually publish it, something I undertook as a project, I must have spent something like 20 hours editing it (plus way more helping to write it). It has so far sold 650 copies, most of which I sold with a profit of less than a dollar in profit per book since it didn't feel right selling it for a profit to the people that helped write it. I've since bumped the price and I'm getting something like ~$2.5 a book, and it's currently selling 5-10 copies a month. The Amazon price is far higher than the Lulu one (which was the publishing platform of choice) since they obviously want a cut. The biggest pro of the project was that it helped me understand how to self-publish: I've given my partner two physical poetry collections about her since: something that was pretty appreciated.
赚钱的关键是题材踩中需求，而不是“自助出版”这个形式本身。
自助出版胜过传统出版，当然，但这非常取决于书的内容。我实际接触过 College Confidential 这类社区，一本关于该主题、写得专业的书能赚钱，我一点也不意外；但写它需要知识和时间。你不能想写什么就写什么——作者幸运地掌握了一个市场看好的题材：痴迷常春藤的家长和孩子，面对流程中那么多细枝末节，很乐意为一本书掏钱。
adjkant查看英文原文
Self-publishing over publishing, sure, but this is very based on the content of the book. As someone who actually interacts with College Confidential and the like, an educated book on the subject making money doesn't surprise me in the slightest, but it takes knowledge and time to write. You can't just write whatever you want - the author was lucky enough to know about a subject in a favorable market - parents and kids who are Ivy-obsessed will easily pay for a book on the subject given how many small in's and out's there are in the process. Edit Note: More info on why the market is favorable for the subject
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