Re:Monetizing hobbies
by ghaff on Saturday April 23, 2022 @03:48PM
(#31137786)
I've published a few non-fiction books in the tech space--one through a major publisher and couple independently.
Certainly some people do well but, in the main, the finances don't really work. I've never done a serious marketing push beyond book signings at some industry events (with someone else paying for the book copies) but I'm not at all confident that incremental sales would cover significant PR/marketing activities.
What it has done in my case is a likely pretty significant enhancement to my visibility/stature professionally. Which has been very beneficial.
I did shareware for a while too back in the 90s (MS-DOS mostly). I enjoyed doing it for a time, liked interacting with my testers and other users, was part of the shareware community, etc. And made reasonable side hobby business money. But certainly not at my day job level.
Certainly some people do well but, in the main, the finances don't really work. I've never done a serious marketing push beyond book signings at some industry events (with someone else paying for the book copies) but I'm not at all confident that incremental sales would cover significant PR/marketing activities.
What it has done in my case is a likely pretty significant enhancement to my visibility/stature professionally. Which has been very beneficial.
I did shareware for a while too back in the 90s (MS-DOS mostly). I enjoyed doing it for a time, liked interacting with my testers and other users, was part of the shareware community, etc. And made reasonable side hobby business money. But certainly not at my day job level.