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Comment by antidaily | Hacker News Reader

You can make $50k too. Just sign up for his free course.

Well I found it quite useful. I've been doing small updates to my book [1], (mainly adding additional links, small examples and tidying text) since it launched late last year. I'm currently working on a larger update (adding a new section on Raspberry Pi programming, and some bigger code exaples, plus an enhanced HTML version), and I was wondering on how best to position the updated version. My choice was to continue with my current marketing, or to do a relaunch like Nathan. The information he gave is quite enlightening.

[1] PHP Beyond the Web, http://www.leanpub.com/php

... and you just hijacked this discussion about self-serving advice as an opportunity to plug your own book :)

I think it's fine to plug oneself when it's at the end of an ostensibly useful article but a bit more jarring in a "me too" comment. I think the more socially acceptable thing to do is to put your book in your profile and mention that you're working on it. Those who are interested will find it easily. Opinions on this vary, of course.

This isn't reddit where you have to be ashamed of trying to make money or promote your hard work.

The thing people should avoid is only commenting to promote their stuff.

Nathan Barry posts are bad enough as it is without people in the comments doing the same thing.

Nathan's posts are very much on-topic for a site interested in startups and business. Far more so than the political post du jour. If you don't like them, don't read them.

I didn't say they were off-topic, they're ok content wise, but they're very thick on the 'buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing, buy my thing'.

They're blog-verts.

What's wrong with his posts? He gives tons of information away for free.

If it's relevant to the discussion, I don't see what's wrong with plugging your link. Others will upvote or downvote as necessary.

Or just read all the articles I put out for free. I bet you'd learn a lot.

No offense. None taken.

I initally got that vibe awhile ago, but Nathan is really open and transparent about all of his products and their successes/failures. Being honest seems to project scamminess these days, which is unfortunate.

(I haven't purchased any of his products, so I'm not here defending him for any particular reason. I'm just a fan.)

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