出版与作家生涯2017nateberkopec.com编辑精选
我自助出版一本Ruby on Rails书，赚了7万美元
How I Made $70k Self-Publishing a Book about Ruby on Rails
导读
这是一篇 Ruby 开发者自述：他把一套 Rails 性能课程（书＋视频＋答疑）自出版，一年毛收入约 7 万美元，并总结了选题、定价、营销等经验。评论区补充了更完整的图景——自出版的收入上限远高于传统出版，但标题里的"书"其实是课程；对写作者而言，真正的关键是内容质量、清晰结构与独特声音，而非出版形式。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
自出版的收入天花板远高于传统出版的分成，但代价是自己承担编辑、校对、营销的成本与风险。
- 02
写技术内容时，先做研究、找到自己的声音、写读者真正关心的话题，形式（自出版或传统出版）是次要的。
- 03
走自出版也要请技术审稿人、开发编辑和文字编辑，成品质量会明显提升。
- 04
独特风格能让内容在"废话"中脱颖而出，但不能牺牲清晰的结构与循序渐进的讲解。
HN 评论精选
自出版收入上限远高于传统出版，但要自己承担编辑、营销的成本与风险。
我觉得人们严重低估了自出版能赚多少钱，这要怪传统出版公司和旧习惯。我妈是图书编辑，他们出版的最好的作者也就卖一万本，作者分成约每本 2 美元，收入两万。所以我决定自出版一本关于增长黑客的书：更麻烦，得自己找编辑付钱、自己做营销；好在营销我擅长，也找到我妈的老关系来编辑，并且先在 Kickstarter 众筹，如果失败我提前就知道。Kickstarter 卖了 6.6 万，Indiegogo 又卖 4.4 万，之后在 gumroad 卖了约 2 万，总共约 2000 本（我们定价比多数出版社高，也因此进不了亚马逊等渠道）。如果有出版合约我大概只能拿 5000 美元，自出版则净赚 13 万减去成本费用，保守算 10 万。现在我每天看几次 gumroad，平均每天 800 美元销售额，几乎比我的全职工作赚得还多。
austenallred查看英文原文
I think people severely, severely underestimate the amount you can make self-publishing. I blame it on traditional publishing companies and old habits. My mom was a book editor, and the very best authors they published would sell 10,000 books. Their cut was something like $2/book, they'd pull in $20k. So when I decided to write a book on growth hacking (https://www.secretsaucenow.com), I decided to self-publish. This was more difficult, I had to find an editor and pay them, had to market it myself, etc. Luckily I'm pretty good at the marketing part (hence the book) and I found old contacts of my mom's to edit, but we launched on Kickstarter, so I figured if it flopped I would know in advance. We sold $66,000 on Kickstarter, then went on to sell another $44,000 on Indiegogo while we finished it up. Since then we've sold around $20,000 on gumroad. In total it's something like 2,000 copies (though we charge a lot more per copy than most book publishers do, and that keeps us out of Amazon, etc.) If I had a publishing deal I would make about $5,000 from that. But because I self-published I took home $130,000 minus costs and fees, so we'll conservatively say $100,000. Now I sit back and check gumroad a couple times a day; I average $800 in sales per day, and almost make more from the book than I do from my (well-paying) full-time job. If I can keep this rate up I will replace my salary (or, rather, double it)
收入主要来自课程而非书本身，标题称"书"略有误导，普通技术作者难以复制这个数字。
"课程"这个强调是我加的。看起来大部分收入来自完整课程，也就是视频和问答网络研讨会。我不想说这是标题党，但标题里写"书"有点误导——包括 Douglas Crockford、John Resig 在内的大多数技术作者，无论自出版还是交给 O'Reilly 这样的出版社营销，都不太可能在 12 个月里拿到 7 万美元。话虽如此，恭喜你做出了人们愿意付费的内容，你的数字似乎比 Pluralsight、Lynda 单门课程的作者版税还好。
jasode查看英文原文
>, I launched a _course_ called The Complete Guide to Rails Performance. Since then, I have sold just over 500 copies, for gross revenue of $70,714.20 ($1350/week). (The emphasis on "course" was mine.) It looks like much of the revenue was the full course which means videos and Q&A webinars. I'm not going to say it's clickbait but it's slightly misleading to put "Book" in the article's title since most tech authors including Douglas Crockford, John Resig, etc will not be able to pull $70k in 12 months whether they self-publish or let a traditional publisher like O'Reilly market the book. That said, congratulations on producing content that people want to pay for. Your numbers seem to be better than the author royalties from Pluralsight/Lynda for a single course.
独特风格让人记住，但清晰的结构和循序渐进的讲解同样重要，花哨表达可能劝退读者。
我不确定那是个好例子。我学 Ruby 时，网上人人都说"去读那本 _why 指南，超棒"。它一团糟，我什么都学不到。里面可能有干货，但穿插的手绘很差的漫画和胡言乱语般的跑题让人根本跟不上。也许对某些人很棒，但完全不适合我的学习方式。我期待的是朴素的入门、清晰的控制结构、数据类型、关键字、变量、常量、运算符的顺序讲解、每章末尾的简明回顾、书末的结构化参考——也就是一本中规中矩的《Pragmatic Programmer》或 O'Reilly 风格指南。"独特的嗓音是让内容在海量废话中脱颖而出的最重要的事之一"——这点我同意，它确实令人难忘。
ryandrake查看英文原文
> My favorite example of this (from the Ruby community, of course) is Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby. If you're a Rubyist, you already know what this is, but if you're not, it's a legendary tome in the Ruby community. Not sure that's a great example, in my view. I remember when I was learning Ruby, and everyone online was "Read that _why guide it's great!!" It was a mess. I couldn't learn anything from it at all. There was probably good content in there, but the interspersed poorly drawn comics and nonsense asides/tangents made it impossible to follow. Maybe it was great for some people but it did not fit my learning style at all. I expect a vanilla introduction, a clear progression through control structures, data types, keywords, variables, constants, operators, etc. and a concise review at the end of each chapter, structured reference at the end, etc. In other words, a plain vanilla "Pragmatic Programmer" or "O'Reilly" style guide. > Having a unique voice is one of the most important things you can do to make your content stand out in a sea of "blah". It's what will make readers remember you and keep coming back. Agreed that it's memorable though...
核心是写出高质量技术内容；自出版也要请审稿和编辑，或选择五五分成的合作出版换取专业支持。
这篇文章关于如何写书（无论自出版还是给别人出）的建议很棒。我写了 10 本书，其中 9 本给 Pragmatic Bookshelf，做了很多他列出的同样的事，靠书赚了不错的副业收入。这与其说是自出版，不如说是如何写优秀的技术内容。披露一下：除写作外我还是 Pragmatic Bookshelf 的开发编辑，但我自己的书仍交给他们出，因为他们两全其美——五五分成，同时全程有编辑合作，发行、销售、计费、文字编辑、排版等都由他们负责。重要的是以高质量的方式把你的信息传递出去，就像文章说的：做研究、找到自己的声音、写人们关心的话题。如果走自出版，请找技术审稿人、雇开发编辑和文字编辑，最终成果会好得多。
bphogan查看英文原文
This article is full of great advice on how to write a book, whether you publish for yourself or for someone else. I have written 10 books. 9 for the Pragmatic Bookshelf. I've made a nice side income on my books by doing many of the same things he lists. This isn't so much about self-publishing as it is about writing great technical content. Full disclosure - in addition to writing, I am a development editor for the Pragmatic Bookshelf. But I publish my own books with them because they offer the best of both worlds. They split the profits with you 50/50, but you get an editor to work with throughout the process, and they take care of a lot of other things, like distribution, sales, billing, copy-edit, typesetting, etc so you don't have to. But the important thing is to get your message out there to people in a quality way, like this article suggests. Do the research, find your voice, write about something people care about. If you go the self-published route, get technical reviewers, hire a development editor, and get a copy editor. Your end results will go far. [edited to clarify value add for publisher]
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