There’s usually little information about the key topic of how much authors make from their books being published, beyond “not much”. Author Justin Garrison shared that his co-authored title Cloud Native Infrastructure earned $11,554 in its first year – and without three unexpected sponsorships, that amount would’ve been $3.500. Conventional wisdom states you should not write a book for money, but for the other benefits like building your status as an expert in a domain, or exploring a topic in more depth. … The impact of a book is hard to know with certainty. When I publish a newsletter article or a podcast episode, the feedback is almost immediate: I get comments, emails, and mentions about the contents for a few days – perhaps a week or two. After that, I rarely hear feedback again. … Amazon has an unhealthy monopoly on the audiobook and ebook sectors. That Amazon has a take rate of 75% for audiobooks and 70% for Kindle ebooks (those priced above $10) and still controls most of the market, makes this segment look like a monopoly.
I love a look behind the curtain. And while this book did very well, it also benefited from a strong newsletter presence and just great content. Congratulations and thanks for sharing.
Also ps. No surprises on the numbers for Amazon. Almost feels like robbery.
Quote Citation: Gergely Orosz, “The Software Engineer’s Guidebook: a recap”, 2025-03-11, https://newsletter.pragmaticengineer.com/p/the-software-engineers-guidebook