Ask HN: How are you making money online in 2024

Nassim Taleb also suggests to not predict the future from past events. Why? Because we are not almighty and all-knowing, but we seem to collectively pretend that we are.

Some people (Munger? Buffet?) believe The Coca-Cola Company will continue to exist, because it existed for that long (Lindy effect), so it must continue to exist. Why “must”? The problem is right here, you cannot reliably predict the future. Who knows what will happen by 2060?

Therefore, things like Kondratiev waves might be a new form of modern coffee cup reading.

I don't have much advice on that front since that is one thing I've never actually had an issue with (unlike literally everything else about it, from craft to marketing).

Ideas tend to come for me all the time, _but_ I noticed they sometimes flow even more aggressively when I read other fiction books as well as when I go for a walk out in nature. I think consuming stories just generates more stories.

For my last novella, I actually brainstormed it with ChatGPT. I already had a general idea and theme, but needed to brainstorm some plot points, character motivations, etc. I found using ChatGPT as a more advanced rubber ducky helped spark the imagination and flesh out the plot. At one point I even did it through ChatGPT voice on my phone while on a bus, and actually _talking_ through it in some ways seemed even more effective.

I write under a pen name, but I've published about ten sci-fi romance books so far across a couple of different series.

I got started with short stories and later moved on to novellas, then novels. Now I write a mix of novellas (25000-ish words) and novels (up to 120000 words). I started publishing only on Amazon (in their Kindle Unlimited program, which pays you per page read) and later moved to wide (no longer liked the idea of Amazon exclusivity).

I picked a genre (science fiction romance) and stick within it, but am still not "narrowed down" enough from a business perspective. This takes longer to build traction. There are so many different niches in this genre, that if I could stick to just one of them I'd get momentum faster. But the reason I started doing this was only partly profits - mostly I just wanted to write cool stories - so I don't mind it taking longer.

Perfectionism can be tough to overcome, but I think of it like this: If I don't put out more books and see how they perform, I will never get as close to perfect as I could be. That feedback loop (reviews, profits, rank, whatever measure you care about) is a driver of improved quality and presentation. I always put real effort into my stories of course, but now I look back at the first thing I published and cringe. But if I didn't publish it and learn from it for the next thing, I'd still be writing at that level.

I have not used it myself, but know others who do. I think technically it works just fine.

For me, one hesitation would be sharing my WIPs with Google. I'd rather just not have _another_ company have more copies of my work when they don't need to. Additionally, I write steamy romance and have heard of Google blocking access to docs based on contents before. They may never do that for what I'm writing, but I'd rather not take the chance of losing access to a whole manuscript.

Personally when writing on a laptop I use Scrivener or Word. But anything that can handle your length of text will work. One benefit of Scrivener is it also provides extensive formatting options (eg to export your manuscript in epub format with desired fonts, spacing, etc). However, if you're going the way of paid software already (which Scrivener is as you know) I'd suggest actually checking out a separate software for formatting and export. Some options:

* Vellum (expensive, but gold standard for Mac. Exports beautiful files for different formats including print)

* Atticus (have not tried it, but some consider it a Vellum replacement - also not Mac-exclusive like Vellum is)

I _have_ used Scrivener for both writing and formatting and export before and it worked just fine! But now I use Vellum and it's just much better for that final formatting step.

You can also export in epub format in Word or alternatively use Calibre to customize and export a book. Those are more fiddly options that may not produce as beautiful results without more hands-on work. BUT if you're just starting out and want to "flip your first pancake" quickly without much or any investment, these totally work.