Computing from the Command Line: sales report
I've previously written about events and strategies that led to increased ebook sales during the last quarter of 2021.
Very pleased to inform that I continue to see more than expected sales during release week. My 13th ebook Computing from the Command Line was published on November 1st. Here's how the sales looked on Gumroad during the first ten days:
I used to offer my ebooks for free on release. For the past few releases, I have also added heavily discounted ebook bundles which seems to be the major factor in increased paid sales I'm seeing. Luck certainly plays a role too in reaching users through social media. Here are some of the ways I promoted my latest ebook:
- Announcement post on Gumroad and sending an email to existing readers (1000+ users opened the email as per Gumroad analytics)
- Pinned tweet — more than 300 link clicks as per Twitter analytics
- Posting on /r/commandline/, /r/linux/, /r/linux4noobs/ and /r/FreeEBOOKS/
- Show HN post on Hacker News — wasn't lucky this time to reach front page
- Promo video on youtube
- Mentioned in my learnbyexample weekly newsletter
- And of course, I wrote a release post on this blog and also mentioned it on my GitHub Readme
Apart from Gumroad, 400+ readers downloaded the ebook from Leanpub and I got a few paid sales as well. I wrote about pros and cons of Gumroad/Leanpub here.
PS: Make sure to read the rules and be a regular user before self-promoting your content on the social media platforms mentioned above.