Balkan Ruby 2024
Writing and marketing "Deployment from Scratch"

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Writing and marketing "Deployment from Scratch"

Josef Strzibny • June 07, 2024 • Sofia, Bulgaria

The video titled "Writing and Marketing 'Deployment from Scratch'" features Josef Strzibny, a seasoned Rails developer, freelancer, and author, sharing his journey in writing and successfully marketing his technical book. Josef reflects on his professional background, which began unexpectedly in Brno, Czech Republic, at Red Hat, a major employer known for its strong Ruby development team. During his talk, he addresses the primary theme of generating income through book royalties, emphasizing the realities and challenges of writing technical books.

Key Points Discussed:
- Background and Motivation: Josef shares insights into his career path, explaining how a decision to take a break from work due to health issues led him to write a book, initially expecting it would take about five months to finish.
- Book Writing Journey: He narrates the ups and downs of his writing process, from initial inspiration to the reality of prolonged writing timelines and struggles with maintaining motivation, detailing an engagement strategy that included creating a character named Tiger to add humor to the technical content.
- Marketing Strategies: Josef highlights the importance of validating demand for the material by gauging interest on platforms like Twitter and subreddit, which ultimately helped him build a mailing list of potential readers.
- Pre-sale Success: Utilizing feedback from early subscribers, he successfully conducted a pre-sale campaign, selling 80 copies initially, which validated market interest and provided financial encouragement.
- Sales Performance: He discusses the impressive gradual sales growth, culminating in approximately 1,100 copies sold since launch, and earning him around $900 per month through his ongoing marketing efforts and updates to subscribers.
- Technical Aspects of Publishing: Josef explains his choice of tools like Gumroad for sales processing and discusses his publishing experiences using tools such as Pandoc and Asciidoctor to streamline the writing process.
- Personal Reflection: He concludes with a reflection on the journey, noting how it has transformed his life, allowing him to prioritize his health while creating a sustainable income through his writing.

Overall, Josef Strzibny’s experience showcases the complexities and rewards of writing and marketing a technical book, emphasizing that perseverance and strategic planning are crucial for success in self-publishing.

Writing and marketing "Deployment from Scratch"
Josef Strzibny • June 07, 2024 • Sofia, Bulgaria

Josef is a longtime Rails developer, freelancer, and author of Deployment from Scratch. Previously he was a small startup CTO, senior Rails engineer, and a Linux packager at Red Hat. He now spends most of his time building a Rails starter kit Business Class while regularly watching Gordon Ramsay cooking shows.

He quit his job and went to write a book for 6 months. 2.5 years later he realized his book was not finished and he hadn't made any sales. But in the end, he made a book that brings in sales every month. Here's a story of ideating, starting, writing, finishing, marketing, promoting, and selling his book to 1000 sales as an independent author without a publisher.

Balkan Ruby 2024

00:00:08.440 I'm Josef. I was a Linux packager and I'm a longtime Ruby on Rails developer. Apparently, I'm also a retired serial author.
00:00:17.000 Yes, I changed my shirt for you so you could feel the relaxed, retired atmosphere.
00:00:24.119 I want to start my introduction by talking about my first job. Why my first job? Well, the first reason is that I am currently unemployed.
00:00:32.800 The second reason is that it all started in Brno, Czech Republic. I attended Masaryk University where I studied computer science.
00:00:38.879 Red Hat happens to be one of the biggest employers in Brno, and my story with Red Hat started completely out of the blue.
00:00:54.160 A friend of mine wanted to apply for an internship and encouraged me to apply as well. The night before the interview, we looked at the test.
00:01:02.640 The test was supposed to be a Linux test, and since I didn’t know much about Linux, we searched online for the test format.
00:01:12.640 As we looked, we found it was multiple-choice, so we thought we could just write something for the answers.
00:01:20.000 However, when we actually took the test, it turned out to be fill-in-the-blank, and I was quite unprepared for that.
00:01:30.000 Despite my limited knowledge, there was a programming section where I was able to write solutions in Ruby.
00:01:36.840 Apparently, they were looking to hire someone for their Ruby team, and I was invited for the second round.
00:01:47.439 This was the very first building that Red Hat constructed, and where I started my career. There's a nice terrace that isn’t visible in this picture.
00:02:01.160 I would often escape to it with my friend, both of us coffee lovers, enjoying our drinks while joking about the IBM folks in the adjacent building.
00:02:09.280 Little did we know that IBM would buy Red Hat a few years later.
00:02:15.000 Another interesting point is about Red Hat Enterprise Linux, which is sometimes mistakenly thought of as purely American.
00:02:22.640 In reality, the largest development center is in the Czech Republic, and every year they would build a new building and hire hundreds of developers.
00:02:33.360 While that was great for growth, it meant that meetings would often take place in Brno, and I hoped that maybe I would get to travel to the U.S.
00:02:41.959 However, that didn’t really happen. During my time at Red Hat, Ruby was quite popular, and many people don't know it, but Red Hat had substantial Ruby applications.
00:02:50.760 For example, OpenShift 2, a pure Ruby application, was succeeded by OpenShift 3, which is a Kubernetes distribution.
00:03:04.160 At one conference, I jokingly mentioned the big news that Aaron Patterson was joining Red Hat, but I didn’t even know at the time.
00:03:12.080 Despite working on the Ruby platform team, I never had the chance to meet or email him.
00:03:20.000 But let's move on to the main topic today, which is how to live off book royalties.
00:03:27.920 As a bonus, let’s also talk about the fun with the phrase 'prancing horse.'
00:03:36.680 Step one is obvious: you need to write a very popular book.
00:03:41.440 We’ve already heard about various successful series today, like Dune, and I've noticed children's books do really well too.
00:03:48.039 So that's a critical step, but there’s also step two: you absolutely must sell movie rights.
00:03:56.280 Don't underestimate this step.
00:03:59.560 If you get it right, that leads to profit and raises an interesting question: Do you want to drive Porsches or Ferraris?
00:04:07.880 Personally, I prefer Porsches, but look closely, and you'll see the horse logo is somewhat similar between the two.
00:04:15.760 You may not have thought about it, but I was curious, so I investigated why they look alike.
00:04:23.520 Porsche originates from the coat of arms of Stuttgart where they are produced, but what about Ferrari?
00:04:30.160 According to legend, the horse on the Ferrari logo is the same horse that was adopted by a famous Italian fighter pilot.
00:04:39.440 He had the idea to paint this horse after shooting down a plane from Stuttgart.
00:04:49.920 The official story, however, indicates that the horse was originally a banner from a former cavalry regiment.
00:04:59.560 His parents met Enzo Ferrari after a race, and his mother suggested adopting the horse as a lucky charm.
00:05:06.480 However, it's worth noting that the pilot died in WWII before reaching the age of 30.
00:05:15.440 So, I guess it's important to drive safely if you're in a Ferrari.
00:05:23.680 Now, let’s talk about the reality check: technical books do not sell movie rights.
00:05:30.800 Have you ever taken a date to see a movie called 'Rails 6 and a Pecker Pain'? Probably not.
00:05:37.440 Writing technical books is indeed a tougher sell.
00:05:45.520 Throughout my journey from starting to finish my book, I've earned a total of $44,000 in revenue since its inception.
00:06:01.080 This brings me to reality, as the entry-level Porsche starts at just under $70,000.
00:06:08.320 So, the retired part for me feels more like being tired of writing rather than enjoying financial freedom.
00:06:15.520 I wanted to gauge the interest of programmers about writing technical books on Twitter, and it seems they are keen.
00:06:23.080 There are reasons why you might want to write. You may want to feel more popular, showcase your book to your kids, or learn more about a particular topic.
00:06:34.000 For me personally, I had reached a point in my life where I was starting to deal with health issues, with nerve pain radiating from my back down to my leg.
00:06:42.680 I decided it was time to quit my job for a while and take a break, but I didn't want to squander my time.
00:06:48.960 So, I thought, why not write a book? It should be manageable in about five months, right?
00:06:58.520 The idea came to me while thinking about topics that both fit my background and were somewhat unique.
00:07:06.720 I wanted to avoid writing about common topics like Rails or other known frameworks. Instead, I focused on deployment, but using pure Bash.
00:07:14.640 This meant explaining the core basics of Linux, Bash scripting, and essential components.
00:07:25.280 Before diving in, I needed validation to ensure people would actually want to read the book.
00:07:32.080 As part of this, I wrote a blog post and shared it on the Ruby subreddit, asking if people would be interested.
00:07:40.480 To my surprise, I garnered around 50 subscribers to my mailing list, which seemed promising.
00:07:46.280 Encouraged by this response, I pressed forward with the project. I also wanted my book to be more engaging.
00:07:55.120 I thought many technical books can be a bit dry, so I created a character to lighten the tone: Tiger, the cat.
00:08:01.160 Tiger offers amusing commentary throughout the book. He introduces himself with a self-deprecating style, mentioning he likes to follow people on Twitter, coffee, and DevOps.
00:08:10.480 For example, he provides readers with early insights about how to register a domain name.
00:08:17.440 Though I initially had a solid kick-off, reaching subscribers was a long and arduous journey.
00:08:24.640 I was receiving about 300 visitors daily to my blog, which was negligible, and it took more than a year to accumulate just 200 email subscribers.
00:08:31.920 Even more daunting was the writing process. My day would begin with coffee and donuts, often leading to procrastination with shows on Netflix.
00:08:39.960 As a result, I often found myself tired by afternoon, which leads to a question:
00:08:47.000 How do you sustain the writing process over the long term?
00:08:54.240 The initial five months pass quickly, but keeping momentum is challenging.
00:09:02.640 I found myself in Colombia after those first five months, where the scenery provided a change of pace.
00:09:11.600 Colombia is known for various things that lift spirits, making book editing feel effortless.
00:09:19.960 Just to clarify, it's coffee, not the more commonly discussed recreational substances.
00:09:27.720 In fact, I visited an organic farm where I planted my first coffee sapling. Unfortunately, I won't be able to drink that coffee as it takes three years to grow.
00:09:36.440 Coffee became essential to my daily productivity while traveling. The change of scenery was invigorating.
00:09:45.080 Even with my newfound part-time job, I was allowed greater flexibility while on the road, though it limited the time I could dedicate to writing.
00:09:52.960 I waited patiently until I received a call that I needed to return home to celebrate my father's birthday.
00:10:01.480 Returning home meant I'd likely catch COVID-19 during the harshest lockdown in the Czech Republic.
00:10:10.920 Predictably, I caught it during my first week back home.
00:10:19.880 While it may sound uneventful since everything was closed, my illness prompted thoughts of escape.
00:10:28.560 So, I sought refuge in Albania, a neighboring country where fewer people adhered to strict regulations.
00:10:37.960 I settled in Durrës, a beautiful coastal city in Albania, just as winter began to fade.
00:10:45.320 This was my first experience that felt like a true beach vibe; I enjoyed waking up, sipping coffee by the beach, and enjoying life.
00:10:53.120 Interestingly, my brother was also in town and began writing a book, which served as motivation.
00:11:02.000 During lunch one day, he shared his achievement of raising $10 with a crowdfunding campaign, making me realize my struggles.
00:11:10.480 Here I was, 2.5 years into my own project without a finished book or any sales.
00:11:18.560 This was a wake-up call. I put together a pre-sale for my book, crafted the first ten chapters, and marketed them.
00:11:25.240 Utilizing the character of Tiger, I kicked off the pre-release campaign, selling the first 80 copies that month.
00:11:36.000 This initial success felt fantastic since it showed that someone was genuinely interested in my work.
00:11:43.920 In the months that followed, I earned around $700 monthly from my 600 subscribers, which was quite rewarding.
00:11:52.960 I consistently updated them and was able to generate additional sales from those communications.
00:12:01.640 One crucial aspect of the pre-sale was the feedback. Some readers printed my work, annotated it, and sent it back to me.
00:12:08.440 This engagement was invaluable. As someone who isn't a native English speaker, having editors is vital.
00:12:16.320 Since hiring a professional editor was not in my budget, I turned to Grammarly Pro to help refine my writing.
00:12:25.760 I would run each chapter through Grammarly to address any mistakes—much better than doing nothing at all.
00:12:35.840 After what felt like an eternity, my book was finally finished—three years later.
00:12:43.400 Upon launching, I sold a further 97 copies, gathering nearly $4,000 from the announcement on my blog.
00:12:52.760 I shared it on Reddit as well, highlighting my return after three years of commitment to complete my book.
00:13:01.800 This call-back to my original Reddit post generated excitement and led to consistent sales.
00:13:10.680 This period was enjoyable as I could check my sales while traveling, watching the numbers increase regularly.
00:13:20.560 I was lucky enough to go on safari in Tanzania, in Selous National Park, the largest game park in Africa.
00:13:29.680 It’s not as well-known as other parks, but it is vast, and I found a correlation to the ease of seeing lions.
00:13:38.480 For whatever reason, lions were easy to spot while on safari, juxtaposed with deer-like animals that would flee.
00:13:46.560 Lions, as apex predators, don't run away from vehicles. They view associated groups as singular threats.
00:13:55.040 As a result, you can approach much closer without fear. Additionally, lions are often well-fed and relaxed.
00:14:03.120 While in Tanzania, I decided it was time to ramp up my marketing efforts.
00:14:09.600 I crafted a post for Hacker News and was thrilled when it hit the front page.
00:14:18.560 This single post generated 10,000 visits in a day and pushed some sales.
00:14:26.880 This marked my third time featured on Hacker News throughout the writing process, and it significantly helped sales.
00:14:35.440 I was even invited to a podcast where I was able to discuss my work.
00:14:42.880 To date, I have sold approximately 1,100 copies without the support of a publisher.
00:14:49.440 I’ve solely used Gumroad for sales and have yet to explore other marketplaces.
00:14:57.760 Some may be wondering if sales wane after launch, but I make around $900 a month from my book.
00:15:04.880 This brings me to my forthcoming book, which at the time of applying was still in its infancy.
00:15:14.320 While in Albania, I felt like it was the right opportunity to dive into writing a sequel.
00:15:21.840 I decided this time I would approach it completely differently. Instead of taking three years, I aimed for five weeks.
00:15:29.920 Additionally, I didn’t bother with a homepage, mailing list, or art—just straightforward marketing via Twitter.
00:15:36.560 I launched a pre-sale without even a clear idea about the content. However, I did manage to achieve 115 pre-sales.
00:15:44.720 Before launching, I reached out to Don McBroom, a principal engineer at 37 Signals, to write the foreword.
00:15:52.240 He graciously agreed and provided it just in time for my launch.
00:15:59.680 In just five weeks, I managed to finalize the book and ultimately achieved over 400 sales worth $7,000.
00:16:07.680 Gumroad has been instrumental in my selling experience. Without it, I'm uncertain if I would have made any sales.
00:16:15.640 While they do take a 10% cut and a small processing fee, they handle a lot of local tax nuances, making things easier.
00:16:25.080 With multiple tiers and a built-in marketplace, they offer features that generate passive sales, even if you're limited in your promotion.
00:16:33.440 They even provide email marketing capabilities as part of their service.
00:16:41.920 Additionally, I bundled my two books together, leading to much higher sales than I'd initially expected.
00:16:48.960 My first book, 'Deployment from Scratch', is priced higher at $50 because it includes code examples.
00:16:56.960 In contrast, the K Handbook is shorter and priced lower, allowing for customer acquisition and maintaining a steady income.
00:17:06.320 It's addicting to receive a sales email from Gumroad. If I go a few days without one, I start to worry about potential issues.
00:17:16.560 Luckily, I've received mostly positive reviews, but I had one customer request a refund after using the book.
00:17:25.920 I initially offered a partial refund, but they insisted on a full refund, even escalating it to Gumroad.
00:17:35.480 Their complaint contained untrue claims about my book being 'disgusting,' which left me perplexed.
00:17:46.440 Though the refund was managed quickly, it seemed amusing since Gumroad does not display reviews from refunded customers.
00:17:54.360 As for my publishing process, I employed Pandoc and LaTeX for the first book specifically to allow for flexibility.
00:18:02.720 Creating Tiger’s character required intricate macros, while the second book was straightforward, using Asciidoctor.
00:18:10.560 To conclude, I’ve prioritized my health and no longer experience pain from the nerve issues.
00:18:19.600 In these three years, I’ve had many experiences, including being a guest on a podcast for the first time.
00:18:26.360 Despite the financial outcome not being enough for a Porsche, if I calculate based on average salary, it’s comparable.
00:18:35.760 I feel that I created my own job through this journey.
00:18:43.520 I missed out on some revenue because I spent time writing instead of working.
00:18:52.080 However, this experience has been invaluable and enjoyable, and meeting folks at the conference is a rewarding conclusion.
00:19:00.480 As for the future, I have not fully explored proper SEO for my book. I'd like to consider optimizing.
00:19:09.520 Right now, I'm feeling tired, and if you'd like to support me, consider buying a copy of my book.
00:19:16.160 Purchasing a copy would ensure I can enjoy lunch that day.
00:19:23.360 And just to finish on a high note, I received an email today from Gumroad confirming my payouts.
00:19:27.360 This payout includes sales from my other book as well, so who knows, maybe sales will keep coming in the future.
00:19:35.360 Thank you for your attention!
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