# Foojay Podcast #67: Writing a book and fame and fortune! > I invited several guests to share their knowledge about book writing! - URL: https://foojay.io/today/foojay-podcast-67/ - Published: 2025-02-24 - Authors: Frank Delporte, Trisha Gee, Wim Deblauwe - Categories: Books, Podcast Let me share a personal story. I started experimenting with Java on a Raspberry Pi about five years ago and blogged a few articles about it. But the more I experimented, the more I wrote down, and eventually, I had written a book… I worked on it for six months in a row, every evening and a lot of weekends. But the moment I received the box with my author copies was an incredible feeling. Holding a paper book with your name is a special moment. Fast forward to now. The 1000 paper copies are sold out. I have the last 10 copies in case you still want one 😉 But as I self-published the ebook, it's still for sale on Leanpub, and I keep updating it. That's one of the first significant differences between publishing a paper book and an ebook…. As an author, I got about 2 euros per paper book from the publisher, and LeanPub pays 80% royalties. Don't forget that I have to pay taxes on what I earn. So, if you do the math, you'll understand that the book didn't make me rich. But yes, it helped me in my career and was one of the reasons I became a Java Champion. So, we can argue about the "becoming famous". But that's only my story. I invited several guests to share their knowledge about book writing: * Marián Varga is finishing a book and tells about publishing a book with a publisher. * Wim Deblauwe wrote a few books and has much experience with self-publishing. * Len Epp is the co-founder of Leanpub, so he can tell us a lot about ebooks. * And we start with Trisha Gee, who wrote a lot of books! ## Video {{< youtube xhEiXA8ImJo >}} ## Podcast Apps You can listen and subscribe to the Foojay Podcast on: * [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/show/6CpTfgn9LirzJGAtc4ICdQ) * [Apple Podcasts](https://podcasts.apple.com/be/podcast/foojay-io-the-friends-of-openjdk/id1652281304) * And most others... ## Guests ### Trisha Gee * * * * ### Len Epp * * * ### Wim Deblauwe * * * * * ### Marián Varga * * * ## Links ### Book by Frank * * ### Books and links by Trisha Gee * * * * * [https://youtu.be/RzaNJzz5jW8](https://youtu.be/RzaNJzz5jW8?feature=shared) * [https://learning.oreilly.com/search/?q=trisha%20gee\&rows=100\&language=en\&language=es](https://learning.oreilly.com/search/?q=trisha%20gee&rows=100&language=en&language=es) ### Books by Wim Deblauwe * * * ### Book by Marián Varga * * ### Leanpub * * * * [https://www.instagram.com/leanpub](https://www.instagram.com/leanpub%20) * [https://bsky.app/profile/leanpub.bsky.social](https://bsky.app/profile/leanpub.bsky.social%20) ### Lulu * [https://www.lulu.com/](https://www.lulu.com/%20%20) ## Content 00:00 Introduction of the topic and guests 01:53 Books by Trisha Gee 02:24 Trisha's motivation for writing books 04:13 Difference between publisher and self-publishing 09:53 Publishers are looking for authors and course creators 12:55 How long do you work on a book? 17:35 Can we expect a new book by Trisha? 21:00 Automating the writing process 24:50 Len Epp about Leanpub and how it started 27:18 On Leanpub, you can publish a book-in-progress 27:51 Different publishing processes with Leanpub 30:20 You can use LeanPub to generate your book, but you don't need to sell it on Leanpub 32:57 80% of the selling price goes to the author 40:09 How to market your book 45:35 Let an expert handle the payments... 50:55 Books by Wim Deblauwe 51:45 Wim's motivation for writing books 53:15 Earning back the time spent on the writing 54:37 How to sell paper books on Lulu 57:19 Tools used to write a book 58:34 Wim's author-plans for the future 59:42 How the books influenced Wim's career 01:00:02 Marián Varga about the topic of his book 01:03:07 Current status of the book 01:04:03 The book is a teamwork with a publisher 01:07:06 Organizing the work between multiple authors 01:09:17 Time worked on the book 01:10:40 Feedback from the community for the content 01:12:13 What Marián wants to achieve with the book 01:14:38 Conclusion