Oct 18·edited Oct 18Liked by Alejandro Piad Morffis
I think it's a fantastic business model, and I'm happy to see it working out for you. I think this would work pretty well for fiction, too, if you turn it into a serialized novel and publish chapter-by-chapter.
Another benefit is that it breaks the process down for you and makes it feel more manageable - instead of having everything in place before you publish, you get to release beta versions regularly and get valuable live feedback with each chapter feeling less daunting on its own.
Appreciate this Alejandro! I flirted with writing technical books early in my career; guessing about your age. The model back then was the consulting company made all the $$ and got all the recognition and you got your name on a chapter or two. Since I’ve been writing here over a year, I have thought it would be nice to assimilate everything in an organized way so I would also be interested in why gumroad and what the 20% publishing tail looks like. Fun fact - you have any O’reilly books on your bookshelf? They are in the next town over from where I live! I happened to drive by it the other day. From their website it looks like they are more about online learning now hmm
Thanks for the comments! Gumroad was simply the fastest way to be able to set-up the whole thing, they aren't publishers, they're a payment processor, and take 10% of whatever you sell. They don't care what you sell unless it's something illegal. And it's pretty well known so I figured the UX would be nice, and it is. Super simple to add a new product and send updates to past buyers.
Thank you for sharing this actionable advice. I’m here to write about AI and I haven’t seen many insights about publishing technical books. This approach lines up with what I’ve been thinking for the 3 AI books I have in draft. I’d love to hear more about how you chose Gumroad and are using it!
I think it's a fantastic business model, and I'm happy to see it working out for you. I think this would work pretty well for fiction, too, if you turn it into a serialized novel and publish chapter-by-chapter.
Another benefit is that it breaks the process down for you and makes it feel more manageable - instead of having everything in place before you publish, you get to release beta versions regularly and get valuable live feedback with each chapter feeling less daunting on its own.
Great point. It definitely makes it the whole thing much easier.
I started implementing this model after I read the first version of this article in the Tech Writers Stack. That was two months ago. Here I stand with over 50 sales for my book on graph theory: https://albegr.gumroad.com/l/competitive-programmer-graphs-handbook
I cannot thank you enough for sharing all your substack (and general) wisdom with us.
I'm super happy for you, man.
Hey, I bought that graph theory book!
Thank You Sir.
This is a great lecture in Technical Writing.
This is a smart approach, Alejandro. I've seen some writers pull it off successfully. Tom Critchaw, the strategy consultsnt, comes to mind.
Good advice. Can I translate part of this article into Spanish with links to you and a descripción of your newsletter and books?
Sure!
Many thanks, I will send you the link.
Hi, Alejandro, it is here (let me know if you want I change anything):
https://humanidades.substack.com/p/convierte-tu-substack-en-un-libro
It's perfect, thanks 👍👍
Great !!!
Appreciate this Alejandro! I flirted with writing technical books early in my career; guessing about your age. The model back then was the consulting company made all the $$ and got all the recognition and you got your name on a chapter or two. Since I’ve been writing here over a year, I have thought it would be nice to assimilate everything in an organized way so I would also be interested in why gumroad and what the 20% publishing tail looks like. Fun fact - you have any O’reilly books on your bookshelf? They are in the next town over from where I live! I happened to drive by it the other day. From their website it looks like they are more about online learning now hmm
Thanks for the comments! Gumroad was simply the fastest way to be able to set-up the whole thing, they aren't publishers, they're a payment processor, and take 10% of whatever you sell. They don't care what you sell unless it's something illegal. And it's pretty well known so I figured the UX would be nice, and it is. Super simple to add a new product and send updates to past buyers.
Thank you for sharing this actionable advice. I’m here to write about AI and I haven’t seen many insights about publishing technical books. This approach lines up with what I’ve been thinking for the 3 AI books I have in draft. I’d love to hear more about how you chose Gumroad and are using it!
200 books sold is fantastic! Congratulations!
Thanks!