Have you published a book yet?

No, but on the consumer side I heavily rely on books. I have much greater confidence in the material of a book that someone has dedicated months or years to creating versus your average blog post. SEO spam has ruined our ability to rely on the web for quality information. It is out there, but finding it is the real challenge.

I've published eight novels. It's hard to earn money on fiction, unless you're good at marketing and you're writing a series in a genre that has a lot of binge readers (like romance, mystery, thriller). I do it mainly to satisfy an itch. I get an idea, and I want to get it out on paper.

Non-fiction is easier to sell, if it provides value. You can charge higher prices for programming books than for mysteries, and people will pay because the knowledge they gain from the book will be worth the money.

If your goal is to earn money from writing, please know that even if you produce excellent work, marketing is key. Identify your audience and find ways to connect to them. Have at least a minimal marketing plan in place before you publish.

The post mentioned by surprisetalk, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34250688, was posted about the same time as yours. That guy had a (very) minimal marketing plan, and it worked out pretty well for a first book.

I'm currently writing a novella. I also have plans for a non-fiction work.

I'm also publishing free content at https://taylor.town

> I don't think it's worth it to publish free content anymore

If "worth it" means "make you rich", I wouldn't recommend pursuing writing :)

If "worth it" means "provides meaning to yourself and others", books and blogs will continue to be enriching!

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EDIT: Just noticed a new thread describing the 2022 earnings of a self-published book of "4 years worth of SRE blog posts": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34250688

AI can’t write books?