TL;DR: Published two programming ebooks, wrote several blog posts, recorded plenty of Youtube videos, newsletter prospered, improved Twitter audience, read 100+ novels, and so on. Had an excellent year in terms of ebook sales 😇


Books published🔗

  • Vim Reference Guide — concise learning resource for beginner to intermediate level Vim users, published in March
  • Computing from the Command Line — Linux command line tools and Shell Scripting for beginner to intermediate level users, published in November

Programming books published in 2022


Workshops🔗

Offline workshops were back on menu this year. I got only one offer though. Surprisingly, it was for Python basics, despite students already having had a course in their first year. It was a nice experience for me, thanks to the enthusiasm shown by the students.

And it was good to see BarCamp Bangalore being organized again. Gave a talk about my ebook publishing experience (I had also written a blog post on this topic last year).


Blog posts🔗

Here are my favorite posts I wrote this year:

I continued posting weekly programming tips (Python, Linux, Vim) that are short and easy to digest and wrote some mini blog posts as well.


Tools🔗

During the last two months of the year, I learned a bit of Textual and wrote a couple of TUI apps:

I found the framework much easier to use compared to my experience with Tkinter.


Youtube🔗

While working on the Vim Reference Guide, I felt that some of the commands really needed video demos for easier understanding. So, I gave myself another chance at recording videos. I kept them simple and short, and with consistent practice I did better than my attempts a few years back. I then extended my new found enthusiasm to programming tips, ebook promo videos, etc. Visit my youtube channel for interesting tech nuggets.

Here are some of the tools I use:

  • SimpleScreenRecorder — recording video, really simple to use
  • auto-editor — removing silent portions from video recordings
  • FFmpeg — video processing, padding for example (FFmpeg is also a major part of the auto-editor solution)
  • Canva — video thumbnails (I also use this app for ebook covers)

Book sales🔗

Revenue from ebook sales were almost 50% higher than last year!! As I wrote in the 2021 was a wild ride post, I've been paying more attention to marketing and seems like my efforts are paying off. Here's my Gumroad revenue chart for 2022:

Gumroad sales in 2022

The peaks were during the two ebook releases. Additionally, I had less than half the above revenue from Leanpub. Last year, sales from Leanpub and Gumroad were nearly the same.


Newsletter🔗

Last November, I started learnbyexample weekly newsletter. I've managed to send an email every Friday without fail so far and I'm proud of that. Sometimes I had to schedule issues a week ahead. Currently about 600 subscribers and some readers are even paying me monthly despite being a free newsletter.


Building Twitter audience🔗

As part of marketing efforts last year, I started building my Twitter audience as well. Follower count was less than 400 in July and about 1100 in December last year. Now it has crossed 2900. I'm not focused on increasing follower count with plethora of engagement inducing tweets. Just trying to be consistent and promoting all sorts of interesting links I come across. That said, I'd like to try creating cool infographics (probably using Canva) next year.

Follow me on Twitter for interesting tech nuggets 😉


Fictional reading🔗

I enjoy reading fantasy and science-fiction novels. I read 100+ SFF books this year and recently wrote a post listing my favorites.

I also got a chance to beta read Tongue Eater, Soul Relic, The Umbral Storm and The Book of Zog. I find these a good way to give back to the writing community, having myself received plenty of support from strangers.


Goals for 2023🔗

I met most of my goals this year, so that's a nice feeling. Contributing to open source projects needs a lot more focus in the coming year. I'm not likely to publish a new ebook in 2023. Instead, I'm planning to update my existing books and that will probably take more than a year. Apart from catching up to new features and improving existing examples/exercises, I'll also focus on changing book titles and cover images. And, I'll likely create interactive apps for exercises.

I need to also find something other than books to keep me creatively busy. It has been more than 4 years since I first published an ebook and 6 years since I started writing programming tutorials.


Here's wishing you a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2023 👍 😇