The “help us choose the next Simple Programmer book cover” poll I ran a couple of weeks ago surprised the heck out of me. When the smoke cleared, one of my *least* favorite covers was the one our audience rated the highest. The second place finisher wasn’t one I personally liked all that much either. […]
Continue readingLast week I blasted out an email to the entire Simple Programmer list to take their temperature on the new book cover we’re having designed. I linked out to a poll where subscribers could assign star ratings to each of 8 different cover designs. There were a couple of things that really surprised me about […]
Continue readingIn our quest to launch the best-selling software development book of all time, my business partner John and I have spent a ridiculous amount of time on designing the perfect cover. This might seem like one of those gigantic time-wasters, kinda like the way first-time business owners spend their first 12 weeks designing a logo […]
Continue readingFew weeks back I sent out a survey asking whether you had any questions about launching and marketing a book. I happened to be traveling the day the email went out. Heh. Pro-tip: Don’t ask your list for replies when you’ll be away from your computer. Took me *days* to dig out from that. But […]
Continue readingWendy is an author who writes and publishes indie fiction on Amazon. Her husband Josh, a loyal reader, is giving her a hand with marketing. Over the last year they’ve built up a healthy email list—and now Josh finds himself at a crossroads. Because selling Kindle books for $2.99 isn’t the path to a sustainable […]
Continue readingThe other day I was on a call with my business partner John, scheming about the upcoming launch of his second book. As an aside I asked him how much revenue he was earning from his first book, “Soft Skills: A Software Developer’s Life Manual.” I won’t disclose the details here, since that revenue is […]
Continue readingComes a question from a fellow Josh: Love your emails and I occasionally listen to the Entreprogrammers podcast. I’m actually in a mastermind group with Wes Bos too 🙂 I’ve been working on my wife’s marketing, she writes and indie publishes fiction books on Amazon (http://wendyowensbooks.com). I’ve been using drip for the past two months […]
Continue readingSubscriber Claudio is a programmer who wants to make a name for himself by building a thriving blog and email list, and writing a book. He’s bouncing around in his own head, though, and can’t get traction: I run a personal blog since 2008. I haven’t posted consistently, there were periods where I posted 2 […]
Continue readingUnemployment really messes with your head. While some guys end up sitting on the couch and binge-watching TV in a depressive funk, geeks like me tend to focus their frustration into some weird obsession. Back in 2008-09 I spent 6 months “between jobs,” and I threw myself into… Bladesmithing. The art of forging steel to […]
Continue readingI have no idea if anyone will ever buy the book I’m working on right now. This is entirely my own doing. And you know what? I’m fine with that. There’s a right way and a wrong way to find book topics. The right way involves picking an audience, then studying that audience to discover […]
Continue readingTo meet my ambitious publishing goals for the year, I’m going to have to step up my game. By this time next year, I plan to publish four non-fiction books in the 20,000- to 30,000-word range. Last year I spent about six months working on a book to get to around 15,000 to 18,000 words, […]
Continue readingI’ve set big writing goals for myself several times in the past. This year, my goal was to publish 100,000 words between books and blog posts. Prior to that, I’d tried setting daily word count goals, like writing 500 words a day, and time-based goals, like writing for one hour every morning. But I’d never […]
Continue readingWhen I sit down to start writing a new app, I don’t agonize over what files to create and what to call them. I don’t start at an empty project in my editor and wonder where to start. No, I click File | New Project in a menu, or I run a console command, and […]
Continue readingIf you search DuckDuckGo for “how to write a book,” you might be tempted to just give up on the whole idea. The top-ranking results are littered with words and phrases like “torture,” “horrible experience,” “didn’t make any money.” The conventional wisdom is that writing books is an arduous process and one that’s not really […]
Continue readingI’m writing my ebook in the least efficient way possible: Every day, I publish an update of at least 100 words. And you know what? It’s working great. Publishing 100-word chunks throws the “writing process” out the window Writing involves several discrete steps: organization and outlining, research, writing the first draft, editing the final draft, […]
Continue readingAugust, 2012: I’m pounding out pages for an ebook about Sublime Text. The book is growing steadily, and with it, a sense of panic: What happens when I’m done? My entire promotional strategy consists of pushing the publish button! I’m a programmer, not a sales wizard. Marketing seems like black magic. The thought of my […]
Continue reading