So you want to self-publish books and courses on programming

Recently, John Resig and I independently published our GraphQL book. While many resources detail how to self-publish books and online courses, guidance on the why and whether is scarce. This post shares my experiences, revenue data, and insights from others who've successfully self-published tech content, weighing the pros and cons of this approach.

Financial Returns

Let's address the elephant in the room: profitability. Initially, I pitched my book to traditional publishers. However, John and I ultimately chose self-publishing. His prior experience with two successful JavaScript books and a blog post critiquing traditional publishing for programming books influenced this decision. His post highlighted:

• Low sales for programming books: Most rarely exceed 4,000 copies.
• Modest earnings: He earned $7,500 from his first 4,000 copies, with a 10% royalty on print and 20% on digital sales.

Randall Kanna's perspective on traditional publishing revenue is blunt: "Nothing comes from a tech book. Just the credibility." While exceptions exist, they're rare. Martin Kleppmann's highly successful machine learning book (O'Reilly's second best-seller in 2019) generated $478,000 in its first three years (108,000 copies sold, 10% print royalty, 25% digital royalty).

The Pragmatic Bookshelf stands out with its 50% gross profit royalty structure. In their first decade, 42% of their authors earned over $50,000, and 12% exceeded $100,000.

Self-publishing offers significantly higher royalty rates:

• Amazon: 70% (e-books); 60% minus printing costs (print books)
• Leanpub: 80%
• Gumroad: 96.5% ($10 monthly membership fee)
• Personal Website: 97%

This potential for higher earnings is evident in successful examples. Discover Meteor generated approximately $500,000 (9,000 copies) between 2013 and 2018 (before becoming free). This success stemmed from significant marketing efforts (detailed in their Gumroad case study) and its status as the go-to resource within the Meteor community. Refactoring UI by Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger is another standout, reportedly surpassing $2 million in sales by 2020. Their success is attributed to effective marketing and addressing a widespread need among front-end developers.

Video courses present different avenues:

• Publisher platforms (e.g., O'Reilly)
• YouTube (e.g., Florin Pop's $4,500 first-year ad revenue from 1.6 million views and 74,000 subscribers)
• Video course platforms (e.g., Egghead, Frontend Masters, Pluralsight, LinkedIn Learning, Udemy – Udemy offers a 97% royalty rate on referred customers and 37% on platform-referred customers)
• Individual services (e.g., Wes Bos's WBaaS model)
• Self-hosting (paywalled content on your own site)

Self-published courses also demonstrate substantial earning potential. While Level Up Tutorials, Kent C. Dodds, and Wes Bos don't publicly share revenue figures, their significant reach (Wes Bos, for example, has sold to over 140,000 individuals) suggests considerable income.

However, these are exceptional cases. Most self-published resources generate significantly less. Consider the comparatively lower earnings of other self-published GraphQL books.

The potential for high returns exists, but it's not guaranteed.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Self-Publishing

The pros and cons discussed below apply primarily to books, but are largely relevant to self-published courses as well, given the shared opportunities and challenges.

Book or Course?

Choosing between a book and a course is highly dependent on individual circumstances.

Reasons to Self-Publish:

• Income Generation: Create a passive income stream.
• Positive Impact: High leverage; a single creation benefits many learners.
• Reputation Enhancement: Boosts credibility and career prospects.
• Personal Learning: Deepens understanding of the subject matter.
• Personal Fulfillment: Enjoyment of the creative process.

Factors Influencing the Decision:

• Writing Proficiency: Clear, concise explanation of complex topics is crucial.
• Marketing Commitment: Active promotion is essential.
• Personal Value: Align the effort with personal motivations and goals.
• Opportunity Cost: Consider alternative uses of time and resources.

My experience demonstrates that while writing the book involved an opportunity cost (lower income compared to consulting), it yielded positive impact, increased knowledge, reputational benefits, and personal satisfaction. The positive feedback from readers is incredibly rewarding.

Acknowledgements: Chris Coyier, Geoff Graham, Sacha Greif, Robin Wieruch, Mandi Wise, Sebastian Grebe, Julian Mayorga, and Rachel Lake provided valuable input for this article.

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