{"id":1997,"date":"2018-04-10T12:18:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-10T17:18:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/?p=1997"},"modified":"2018-04-10T12:21:04","modified_gmt":"2018-04-10T17:21:04","slug":"value-simple-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/?p=1997","title":{"rendered":"The Value of Simple is a Success!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Way back when I was getting ready to launch <em>The Value of Simple<\/em>, I set some definitions for success. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/?p=1287\">I hit &#8220;not-failure&#8221; pretty quickly<\/a>, but have only just reached &#8220;success&#8221;: I&#8217;ve made minimum wage (at least, a rounded-down amount that approximates what minimum wage was back in 2014 and ignoring all post-publication effort) on the time taken to write it! <\/p>\n<p>Now, it&#8217;s <em>felt<\/em> like a success for far longer than that. Seeing that it&#8217;s actually helped people invest, is getting good reviews, and seeing people wholeheartedly recommend it to their friends made the whole endeavour feel worthwhile. But I still had that first monetary definition in the back of my mind&#8230; so hitting it still feels like an added accomplishment.<\/p>\n<p>I had also said that that was about the point at which I might consider doing the whole grind again. As it happens, I <em>do<\/em> actually have an idea for another book that I might do next&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;But I don&#8217;t think I will go anywhere with it, at least not in the near term.<\/p>\n<p>Getting VoS done was a personal triumph in working hard\/side hustling\/project management\/etc., and a personal best for productivity. But burnout is a thing. These days my inbox and to-do lists are filled with <em>small<\/em> side projects that I can&#8217;t get around to completing on time (that tax video doesn&#8217;t look like it&#8217;s going to happen before taxes are due, for example) &#8212; I&#8217;m not in a hurry to dive into a major one.  <\/p>\n<p>Anyway, a big thanks to everyone that helped make this a success: people who bought copies, recommended it to their friends, took the time to write reviews, read beta versions, and more that I&#8217;m sure I&#8217;m forgetting!<\/p>\n<p><!--<small>Postscript: <em>wait, you're telling me that after 3.5 years of selling what appears to be a modestly popular niche book you're barely making minimum wage?!<\/em> Yes, most authors don't do it for the money -- a few make a living at it, a few create a universe with wizarding schools that captures the imagination of millions and make hundreds of millions, but most barely do much better than a bit of a little bonus on top of their day job.--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Way back when I was getting ready to launch The Value of Simple, I set some definitions for success. I hit &#8220;not-failure&#8221; pretty quickly, but have only just reached &#8220;success&#8221;: I&#8217;ve made minimum wage (at least, a rounded-down amount that approximates what minimum wage was back in 2014 and ignoring all post-publication effort) on the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1997"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1998,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1997\/revisions\/1998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.holypotato.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}