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Why a failure? As you say this is a niche topic and if the info is correct on Amazon, it has only been out a year and a half.

I am an author of a robotics book in an even more niche topic and I doubt our royalties totaled more than ~$5000 in the 4 years its been out (no upfront payment). I've always considered it as something to put on the CV more than anything else.

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I assume he means failure from a financial perspective, given the OP was asking about writing books specifically as a form of income. I have largely the same story, I wrote a tech For Dummies book that sold a few copies but was largely a flop. Overall it was definitely worth it from a CV perspective and as something I can say I've done in my life. But we only got a small advanced (I cleared $4.5k) and then never made enough in royalties to get out of the advance hole. So if looking at things purely from an income level it was a complete failure. But of course there are a lot of decent reasons to write a book besides the money.

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