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Comment by okareaman | Hacker News Reader

Shouldn't #5 be "not promoting your book effectively" because he's clearly promoting his book effectively. I think this is fine if fame and fortune are your goal, which is an unquestioned assumption for a lot of people, but there are other reasons to write a book, which he does not address.

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In fact, I strongly suspect that the vast majority of people who write non-fiction books are absolutely aware that the royalties will likely be (maybe) beer money--assuming they don't have expensive tastes in beer. Rather they're reputational. In tech, being a published author on a topic often separates people from the pack as consultants but it can also easily differentiate you if you have an externally-facing role (especially) at a company.

Personally, I've made a relatively trivial amount of money from the books I've written, but I have little doubt they've been good investments of my time--some of which has been work time.

ADDED: I'd add that "promoting your book effectively" probably isn't free. Most authors aren't going to get a lot of publisher support so now you're hiring a publicist, paying for review copies, paying to travel (normally) to speak at events where you do book signings and promote your book, etc.

Researching and writing help clarify your thoughts, which could pay dividends in other ways. I'm retired, don't need the money and am told old to care about fame, but I have several ideas for non-fiction books I'm working on. Now that I think about it, his blog post presents a strong case for not writing a non-fiction book for money. There are other ways to spend your time with a better chance of making money, unless you're clever self-promoter that is.

"A 98% drop in sales after the first year, Seventy percent of traditionally published titles fail to pay out a single dollar in royalties, Vanishingly few nonfiction books sell even five hundred copies"

That's a great point. It's not just about I have a book. But that, especially if it's through a publisher (which has pros and cons), I have sufficient knowledge of the topic either acquired day-to-day or through research that I'm capable of laying down at least 250 pages or so of coherent writing on said topic. The last book I did I was definitely already familiar with the area but I was certainly more so my the time I was done.

I agree but you can't fake this. You still have to follow our process because a book that doesn't have strong word of mouth and doesn't resonate doesn't give you credibility.

I.e. you can't just slap a book together and think you've got credibility. People see right through that.

This is something Tendayi Viki of Strategyzer talked to us about:

"HOW DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE BOOK AS A PRODUCT? In my line of work, credibility is very important. I can’t cold call companies and be like “Hey, you know that those innovation programs are very important? Well, we have the best one. You can buy it now for three easy payments of 599.” Reputation matters a lot. It’s so much easier if someone comes to you. If they already respect me before we start the conversation.

Now, there are two ways to do that. You can deliberately be the snake oil salesmen. But that’s why those books don’t work because it’s so obvious what the person is trying to do. They write a book so they can say “I wrote a book”.

Or, you can say “I actually have something authentic to share and let me share that.” That’s the approach I’ve taken. I know I need to build a reputation but I don’t want to build it on nothing. If people pull back the curtains, they can see substance."

Notes I want to make it clear that I'm not accusing you of saying that. I'm merely adding to your comment.

Reference https://writeusefulbooks.com/resources/Tendayi-Viki/

The point of the article is explaining how a goal of a living wage can be earned directly off nonfiction writing, in addition to two different reasons that are explicitly stated at the beginning of the article as being commonly suggested.

It also explicitly is calling out methods that do not require fame, nor does it espouse a goal of fortune (unless you treat a living wage as a fortune).

He does so dismissively, not treating them seriously: "you should therefore embrace your book’s predestined doom by reframing it as either passion project or calling card."

That sentence refers to the traditional method, not our method.

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