Open bebraw opened 9 years ago
ariddell
commented
9 years ago I wonder if there isn't a role for an umbrella organization to provide legal non-profit cover for these projects. Some kind of organization for authors who want to produce books where the purpose is not for profit. Something analogous to the Software Freedom Conservancy which could accept donations on your behalf?
DanielKehoe
commented
9 years ago @bebraw suggests I believe writing guides to complement actual open source software projects might be one way to help funding them. I've actually supported myself working full-time on my open source project by writing tutorials to accompany the software applications. I've described my approach in issue #24.
freakboy3742
commented
9 years ago @brebraw If you're open to sharing details, I'd be interested in hearing how financially viable book writing has been for you.
I know a number of people in the Django community that have written books, none of them have made money from the experience compared to the time they put in. If they've gone with a commercial publisher, they get an advance, but the royalty cheques rarely amount to anything significant; those that have published privately have rapidly discovered how much effort publishing a book really is.
$16k may sound like a lot, but unless you're able to completely turn out a book, edited and marked up for the printer, in less than 2 months, it isn't paying a wage - and everyone that I know that has written a book as taken much longer than 2 months.
I'm not saying the process isn't worthwhile - they're all valuable community resoureces. Plus ,some of those authors have been able to use their position as "published author" and pivot that into other lines of revenue, like an improved consulting profile. The book acts as a loss-leader for other, more lucrative income sources.
freakboy3742
commented
9 years ago @ariddell I agree, this would be an interesting space to fill - a not-for-profit publisher who can build up expertise on typesetting, producing for a tech audience, providing editor services, and so on.
getify
commented
9 years ago Ready for some radical transparency? :)
The YDKJS book series took me 2 years to complete (6 books, 1100 pages). I probably spent about 1200 hours total on the first editions.
Yes, the kickstarter got me $16,400 in theory, but in practice, over $2k of those pledges didn't come through. Then kickstarter and amazon took their 5% each (10% total). I ended up with about $11,500 IIRC. That's about $9.50/hr if you figure it that way. But then I had the kickstarter rewards (shirts, stickers, shipping of the books), which I've to date spent about $3500 on. So that brings the hourly rate down to $6.67/hr.
Since they've come out though, IIRC I've made approximately $50k in royalties. So that brings the equivalent to about $48/hr.
And they've also been lead generators for my corporate trainings. I've probably booked ~20 trainings where I can directly attribute the lead to someone who read the books, and roughly those trainings have probably brought in about $150k.
If you then factor in my time performing those trainings (let's say 600 hours), that brings my effective hourly rate across these ventures to $115/hr.
Writing books isn't easy money by any stretch. You don't get rich and you don't retire. But you can parlay the experience into decent money if you work hard at it. I'm glad I did it.
freakboy3742
commented
9 years ago @getify Thanks for being so open. If I'm reading you right, you're pretty much confirming what I've heard from others - writing books isn't profitable in itself, but it can be a nice loss-leader for other revenue sources (and, of course, yields a nice resource for the community).
I also have a new set of books to put on my wish list... :-)
getify
commented
9 years ago Depends on how you define "profitable". $48/hr is below my normal bill rate (so is $115) but that doesn't mean I necessarily "lost" money on those hours.
I think something that's easy to miss is that it was an investment, not just a hourly exchange for money. I invested all that time, and now I have a marginally steady source of revenue (obvs not permanent) that's paying me every month. So I "lost" time back then, but I'm getting money now that trickles in, and that definitely helps supplement my other income in a nice way.
Producing streams of residual income takes a lot of work, but they're investments that pay off in the long run.
bebraw
commented
9 years ago @freakboy3742 When starting this little venture, my personal goal was to hit $100 income per every day. I'm hitting that goal consistently now. Not every day but very often. In terms of sales I've sold approx. 450 copies. I've priced myself at ~$20 per copy. That gives you a maximum. Early sales were priced lower as I believe in pricing based on value.
Considering time spent, the investment hasn't been worth it so far. But as @getify mentioned, it's a long term investment. There are things I can do to hit my personal goal. Rather than depending on individual contracts, I have a different kind of source of income now to take some financial pressure out of me. I consider that a huge plus.
I think the challenge is in finding valuable niches to fill. I got a little lucky in that I managed to find an underappreciated niche. I know the big dogs are coming to the market soon. Given it's a growing market, there's likely something for everyone there. Essentially we're growing the market for each other. My offering will stand out in its own way given it has been out there for a while and you can access a large part of the content for free. That's something the competitors won't do for obvious reasons.
Pretty much the only advantage of working small (without publisher behind you) is that you are agile. You can move very fast. You can also be very personal. Open approach allows you to interact directly with your market and iterate your product to the right direction faster than through a conventional route. As far as I understand, the process real publishers use is heavier (gets to agile vs. waterfall). I'm not saying it's worse. It's just a different way to think.
It all comes down to the basic forms of capital always. Essentially you have social, monetary, and knowledge capital. To get started, you'll need at least one type. Preferably lots of it. In my case, I had a bit of knowledge capital to start with. Through my efforts I've managed to grow it and convert it to the other types. I feel this basic framework is a good way to think about business even if it's a little rough way to put it.
Writing is not easy. I wouldn't recommend it as a career path for the most people. There are outliers that do well, sure. But especially when it comes to tech, you'll find other parts of the market more lucrative in terms of money. Fortunately I'm not that much into money myself. I just want to dig a basic income out of this to allow me to focus on growing my own personal capital while being useful to the community as a whole.
ariddell
commented
9 years ago It seems like this is a hard problem and that risk pooling (the way publishers do it) probably would be useful.
Before considering risk pooling, I think one would want to pursue gathering donations. If you look at not-for-profit magazines like The Nation or N+1, they do benefit from some supporters giving large donations or voluntarily paying way above the normal purchase price. Also, when one looks at projects supported by Patreon/Kickstarter, what's clear is that a great deal of what is being gathered is a donation (or very donation-like).
As a first time author myself, dealing with funding is something that I've had to deal with myself. Given most people fail with their first book, I've been rather fortunate in comparison. It hasn't been easy, though, and I've had to learn some lessons the hard way.
I started by going completely open. Since then I've had to backpedal a bit and keep a part of the content behind a paywall. I'm not sure if that's a good long term solution, though, and I'm still experimenting.
Finnish Constraints
Given I'm a Finn, I have a couple of additional constraints:
Possible Models
The way I see it, there are a couple of basic ways to approach funding open source books. Note that by an open source book I mean a book that has its content open, not a book about open source per se. This means using somewhat permissive licensing and providing access to the content.
The biggest advantage of this has been that it has encouraged the community to collaborate with me. Given I'm using a self-published approach, this has been a huge boon for me. I believe this has contributed to the quality of the book immensely. I even managed to attract an editor for my book and have gained many valuable contacts as a result beyond financial gain.
I've tried to list models I'm aware of below:
Crowdfunding
Probably the best example of this is @getify's You Don't Know JS. The project managed to raise over $16k through Kickstarter alone.
Obviously for crowdfunding to work you will need some PR presence and a suitable legislation. The topic has to be interesting enough for a suitable amount of people. I don't expect you can target niche topics through this approach. I believe it's a valid option for some, though.
Self-funded
This is the approach I took with my book. @nzakas seems to have taken a similar approach with his Understanding ECMAScript 6.
The idea is that you fund the development by selling your book while developing it. Platforms, such as Leanpub work well, although there are other options.
In some cases this may lead to an actual publication deal. The greatest benefit of this option is that openness makes your work available to many. This likely cuts into potential income (why to buy if your offering is free?) but it's a good way to reach a wider audience without having to sell. In addition you'll get a nicer royalty (around 85% through Leanpub, more is possible) than through a conventional publisher.
The downside is that you'll have to perform all tasks a publisher would normally do for you. You may contract other people to help you. It is also possible volunteers will appear. The open approach is conducive to this.
There are a couple of additional models related to self-funding. The trick is in finding a nice balance between open and closed. You can, for instance, sell your book using the following hooks:
Of course self-publishing approach can lead to other opportunities in form of consulting, training and so on. It might be just the means to reach your actual customers. Therefore optimizing for income may not be the right approach as that would hurt the reach and therefore your real business.
Conclusion
Perhaps some of these ideas are applicable to open source development in general. In the end you are playing with some of the basic concepts to provide value for your paying customers. Providing some form of exclusivity is a good starting point for example.
It would be very interesting to hear about your experiences. I know technical publishing is hard. There are certain fundamentals that are hard to work around. A lot of these things run on reputation. Especially as a first time author that's something you have to develop amongst other capabilities.
I believe writing guides to complement actual open source software projects might be one way to help funding them. This is the way Packt, Apress, and such operate after all. What if the initiative came from the projects themselves instead? That would allow them to capture more of the profit while helping to fund the development. You would likely have to collaborate with technical authors but I don't see this as a bad way myself. There's something to gain for everyone involved after all.