Daily Productive Sharing 278 - What Can You Achieve by Writing a Book?

Daily Productive Sharing 278 - What Can You Achieve by Writing a Book?
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(下附中文版)

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What exactly is the purpose of writing a book? How much money can you really make? Loren Sands-Ramshaw, author of The GraphQL Guide, describes their publishing journey.

  1. the odds of making a lot of money from a book are slim, and very few authors sell as well as Matrin Kleppmann; Daily Productive Sharing 228 - 20210630
  2. the biggest benefit of publishing a book is that it builds a reputation and lays the foundation for a future career;
  3. the share of the book varies from platform to platform, with traditional books receiving a very small share and the various online platforms giving a much higher share;
  4. to sell well, it not only requires to write well, but also to spend a lot of energy on marketing.

This newsletter took one year and received paid support from 58 users. After stripping out the Stripe fee, there is $1033 lef. Using Ghost requires an annual payment of $180, leaving a net balance of $853. Based on the 270 recommendations published, the revenue per recommendation is about $3, which is barely enough to buy a cup of coffee. If you calculate that each recommendation takes half an hour, the hourly rate for creating this newsletter is almost $6, which is about the level of a housekeeping service.

If we calculate the pure economic benefits, this newsletter is a total loss so far. But when I think that it's worthwhile to deliver some value to people. So far, there are more than 600 subscribers (mainly free) on Ghost, more than 1900 on the Telegram channel, more than 1200 on the Telegram group, and more than 300 on the Minority column.

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写书到底为了什么?到底能赚到多少钱?The GraphQL Guide 的作者 Loren Sands-Ramshaw 介绍了他们的出版历程:

  1. 出书能赚大钱的概率很小,能像 Matrin Kleppmann 那样大卖的作者非常少;Daily Productive Sharing 228 - 20210630
  2. 出书最大的好处是能建立声誉,为今后的事业打下基础;
  3. 不同平台的分成比例不一样,传统之书的分成非常少,各家网络平台给的分成比例要高得多;
  4. 要想卖得好,光写得好没用,还要花大把精力在营销上。

本电子报历时一年,获得58位用户的付费支持。刨除 Stripe 手续费,剩 $1033,约等于6671元。使用 Ghost 需要年付 $180 ,净剩 $853,约等于 5509 元。按照发布的270篇推荐计算,每篇的收益大约是20.4元,勉强购买一杯奶茶。如果按照每篇推荐需要花费半小时计算,创作这份电子报的时薪差不多是40元,约等于家政服务的水平。

如果纯粹计算经济收益的话,这份电子报到目前为止是完全亏本的。但是转念一想,做了一年也或多或少带给大家一点价值,那也就值得了。目前为止,Ghost 上订阅(主要是免费)超过600位,Telegram 频道订阅超过 1900,Telegram 小组超过 1200,少数派专栏订阅超过 300。

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