Tuesday, June 30, 2020

My new bestseller

I've self-published the second edition of my book on public transportation in Paris on Amazon.  The previous (first) edition was published last year: it had 35 pages and sold perhaps half a dozen copies. There's not a lot of demand for guides to the Paris subway.

The new edition includes some additional material, updates, and notes. I don't expect it to fly off the shelves any faster than its predecessor.

This started out as just a sheet of instructions that I gave to coworkers visiting from the States three decades ago. It evolved over time, until I finally formatted it as a book. I put it on my web site. Much more recently, with the advent of easy, no-cost self-publishing, I published it to Amazon as an eBook and paperback, just to improve its availability. The Kindle version only costs a dollar (the lowest price I was allowed to set).

In theory sales should earn royalties for me. But I spent more money registering the copyright than I'm ever likely to earn from sales of the book.