出版与作家生涯2014blog.leanpub.com编辑精选
自出版一年学到的经验
Lessons learned from a year as a self-published author
导读
这是 Leanpub 博客上的一篇客座文章，作者回顾了自己自出版第一年的经历，并公开了销售数字。评论区把讨论集中在两点：邮件列表才是自出版真正的引擎，以及成功案例背后可能存在的幸存者偏差。对写作者来说，这篇文章值得读，因为它把“写完书之后怎么办”这件常被忽略的事讲得很具体。
可以直接用的写作要点
- 01
把邮件列表当作发布的起点：有节奏地持续发送真正有意思的邮件，比一次性群发有效得多。
- 02
好邮件是手工维护、不可规模化的苦工；名单质量比名单规模更重要。
- 03
给电子书加一个第二价格档（例如含视频和附加内容的课程版，定价 50–100 美元），收入往往能翻倍。
- 04
看到自出版成功故事时要警惕幸存者偏差： quietly 放弃的人不会写复盘博客。动笔前先想清楚自己的读者是谁。
HN 评论精选
邮件列表是自出版的核心资产，靠手工维护高质量内容而非群发。
恭喜！Leanpub 很有意思，我越来越想用它出下一本书。这类故事我很爱读。很多成功案例都有一个共同主题：邮件营销即便不是最重要的，也至少是首要的。你的名单是发射台，也是你的教堂——客户和关注者在这里被点燃，再走出去替你传播；它还是你的客服生命线，是一份值得反复分析的宝贵数据。我见过的自出版、博客和众筹项目里，最成功的几乎都有节奏良好、真正有趣的邮件更新。（一位很成功的博主说过：“我不是在写博客，我是在写邮件列表，博客只是引流。”）邮件营销有时因为让人联想到垃圾邮件而名声不好，但好邮件不是垃圾邮件，也不是自动群发，而是对你亲手培育的受众的重要沟通。一个规模不大但质量高的名单，胜过一个更大却低质量的名单。好的邮件营销是不可规模化的苦工。
jonnathanson查看英文原文
Congratulations! Leanpub seems really interesting, and to a greater and greater extent, I'm itching to try it out for my next book. I love reading stories like these. A consistent theme that comes up in many of these success stories is the importance -- if not quite the all-importance, then perhaps the primary importance -- of email marketing. Your list is your launchpad. It's also your church: it's where your customers and followers are inspired, and from which they go out into the world to evangelize. It's your customer support lifeline. It's a compelling data set, to be analyzed frequently. It's all of these things. By and large, the most successful self-pub, blogging, and Kickstarter projects I've seen have been those with well-cadenced, legitimately interesting email updates. (As a very successful blogger once put it: 'I'm not writing a blog; I'm writing a mailing list. The blog is lead-gen.') Email marketing sometimes gets a bad rap because of its vague associations with spam. Good emails are not spam. They're not auto-blasts. They are important communications to a base you have been cultivating and nurturing by hand. If you've got a modest, but high-quality list, and you're sending high-quality emails, you're in a better position than someone shotgunning crap at a larger, lower-quality list. Good emailing is non-scalable, hard work.
成功案例可能只是幸存者偏差，动笔前要评估自己作品的现实前景。
最近这类文章冒出来很多。我很好奇：大家觉得随便一个软件工程师或别的专家都能凭自己的领域知识出书，并有机会取得这样的成功吗？还是说这些都是自我筛选出来的幸存者——少数真赚到钱、于是写博客分享而不是悄悄放弃项目的人？我甚至已经草拟过一本书的目录大纲，但始终不知道它有没有机会起飞，还是大概率默默无闻。
wikwocket查看英文原文
I have seen a lot of articles like this pop up recently. I'm curious; do people think that any given software guy or other specialist can just decide to launch a book based on their domain knowledge, and have a shot at success like this? Or are these all the self-selected outliers, the minority of self-publishers that actually make a buck and so decide to blog about it instead of quietly abandoning the project? I've gone so far as to draft an outline table of contents for a possible book myself, but I never know if it would have a shot at taking off, or just be likely to flounder in obscurity.
增加一个高价档（课程版、附加内容）是提升自出版收入的有效做法。
恭喜 Josh！很高兴能给你一点启发。谢谢你愿意把数字分享出来，让后来人受益。在邮件、Twitter 和其他销售渠道上，我的经验和你一致。一个想法：如果你加一个第二价格档（比如含视频和附加内容的课程版，定价 50–100 美元），你的收入会翻倍。
nathanbarry查看英文原文
Congrats Josh! Happy to have been a small part of the inspiration for you. Thanks for paying it forward by sharing your numbers. My experience matches yours when it comes to email, Twitter, and other sales channels. One thought: If you add a second price tier (a course with videos and add-ons at $50-100) your revenue will double.
同类还值得读
写书：值得吗？
Writing a book: is it worth it?
Martin Kleppmann（《设计数据密集型应用》作者）复盘写书到底值不值：金钱回报低、耗时极长，但带来了可见度、信任和职业机会。
出版与作家生涯2020 · 642 分 · 287 评4 条写作要点编辑精选写书并不是个好主意
Writing books is not really a good idea
这篇文章讨论靠写书谋生的现实难度，评论区从版税数学、收入预期和写作目标三个角度补充了作者视角。
出版与作家生涯2021 · 577 分 · 609 评4 条写作要点编辑精选如何自助出版一本书：实用资源清单
How to self-publish a book: A handy list of resources
这是一份关于「如何自助出版一本书」的资源清单帖，涵盖从编辑、排版到 ISBN、销售渠道的实操工具与花费。
出版与作家生涯2018 · 558 分 · 88 评4 条写作要点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
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。
出版与作家生涯2017 · 539 分 · 175 评4 条写作要点编辑精选石黑一雄警告年轻作家因“恐惧”而自我审查
Sir Kazuo Ishiguro warns of young authors self-censoring out of 'fear'
石黑一雄提醒年轻作者因“恐惧”而自我审查，即这条帖子讨论的核心。
出版与作家生涯2021 · 396 分 · 641 评5 条写作要点编辑精选