# How I Made $220,033.50 Self-Publishing a Book About Ruby on Rails

DevFeed: [How I Made $220,033.50 Self-Publishing a Book About Ruby on Rails](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/how-i-made-220-033-50-self-publishing-a-book-about-ruby-on-rails-40603.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://www.nateberkopec.com/blog/how-i-made-self-publishing-about-ruby-on-rails/>)

Published: 2017-03-10T07:00:00Z

Content type: article

Language: en

Sources: [Nate Berkopec](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/nate-berkopec.md>)

Topics: [Ruby on Rails](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ruby-on-rails.md>), [Rails](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/rails.md>), [Publishing](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/publishing.md>), [Programming](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/programming.md>)

Tags: [developers](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/developers.md>), [freelance-career](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/freelance-career.md>), [publishing](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/publishing.md>), [rails](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/rails.md>), [revenue](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/revenue.md>), [ruby](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ruby.md>)

## AI overview

A step-by-step account of creating and self-publishing The Complete Guide to Rails Performance, which the author says sold just over 1,800 copies and generated $220,033.50 in gross revenue. The article also describes how the product affected his freelancing career and lifestyle.

## Source excerpt

Did I mention how awesome it is to live 30 minutes from a ski lift? In March of 2016, I launched a course called The Complete Guide to Rails Performance. Since then, I have distributed just over 1800 copies, for a gross revenue of $220,033.50 (about $1000/week). Although I launched the course in March, I had worked on it for about 4 months. Releasing the course has been a lifechanging event for me. For the first time ever, I made more money over a year from product revenue rather than service revenue. Releasing the course nearly doubled my usual freelancing rate, allowed me to change my lifestyle by moving to a ski resort town in New Mexico, and turned me into something of a minor Thought Leader (tm) in the Ruby on Rails field. In this post, I'd like to share my process for creating The Complete Guide to Rails Performance (henceforth "the CGRP"), what I'd do differently in the future, and how creating a programming information product radically changed my freelance career. It would be immensely helpful to me if other programming authors (self-published or not) would email me to share their own experiences and results. I'm not sure if I'm an outlier or just the average case! The Path to Making Money While You Sleep I ain't programmin' here no mo'! I was on the first season of ABC's Shark Tank when I was only 18 years old. I think "product money" is the eventual goal for nearly all freelancers or solopreneurs. There's probably a lot of developers sitting on the sidelines too wishing they could tell their boss to take this scrum and shove it. And, now that I've made some product money, I can tell you it is pretty awesome. Waking up with more money than you went to bed with is a very, very good feeling. I've been trying to "start a business" since 2008 (you may know me from my appearance on ABC's reality show Shark Tank in 2009). It's always been a struggle for me to find the magical intersection in the theoretical Venn diagram of my interests/skills and what people wil