What's New: Balancing indie hacking with a full-time job

(from the latest issue of the Indie Hackers newsletter)

Are you indie hacking while working full-time?

• Maintaining a full-time job along with building a startup can be a juggling act. Founders weigh in below with tips on balancing it all.
• Traditional publishers act as gatekeepers, and have historically decided what does and does not get published. Dru Riley illustrates how self-publishing makes it easier for you to publish books while keeping more control and cash.
• Founder Bhanu Teja Pachipulusu hit $843 in monthly revenue in 2.5 months with his Notion-based blogging platform, Feather. Here's how he convinced his (initially extremely reluctant) first 15 users to give the product a try!

Want to share something with nearly 100,000 indie hackers? Submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter. —Channing

📝 Balancing Indie Hacking With a Full-Time Job

by Fernando

I’ve been working on my startup, Resume Maker.Online, while holding down a full-time job for years now. It hasn’t been easy, but it’s doable. I wanted to take a moment to reflect on all that I’ve learned during this time. If you're struggling to balance a full-time job and a personal project, check out the tips below!

A quick, dirty list

1. Block out time: Assign time for work, leisure, taking care of your health, and even doing nothing! The best ideas come to me when I’m bored. I keep a calendar and set notifications so I'm not pulling all-nighters or skipping the gym. You can't recover sleep, and that neat new feature can wait.
2. Make sacrifices: If you feel like you don’t have enough time, it’s probably because you’re not focusing on the right things. There will always be more things to do than you have time for. You won’t be able to do everything. You’ll have to pick and choose what’s most important.
3. Plan ahead on Sundays: Sit down on Sunday (or any chosen day) and think about what you want to accomplish in the week ahead. It will help you focus and make the most of your time by preventing decision paralysis. If you have a plan, you can execute it without wasting time or mental energy on decisions.
4. Stick to your framework: It wasn’t easy for me to find a system that worked, but once I did, I stuck to it. Your system might be different. The important thing is to find something that works for you!
5. Take breaks: If you feel like you're starting to burn out, take it easy and unplug for a little while. It may not seem like it, but sometimes the most productive thing you can do is to take a break.
6. Be part of a community: It can be helpful to be an active member of Indie Hackers or other similar communities. Many people are on the same journey as you are, and it can be great to be motivated by others who understand the challenges. You are not alone.

Remember, it's totally okay to have a full-time job while indie hacking! There's a romanticism about going full indie that, in my opinion, is misplaced and based on survivorship bias. There's nothing wrong with lowering your risk profile and taking it slowly. Not everybody hates their full-time gig. Here in Sweden, work life balance is great, we get four weeks of vacation, and we get many benefits. Right now, I actually love my full-time job! But it seems like it's a bit taboo to say so in the startup scene.

Follow my #buildinpublic journey!

Work or celebrate

Zack Bruce chimes in:

It's a cruel myth we tell ourselves that if you're not doing something full-time, you're not doing it right. I'm a lifelong musician, and did it full-time for about 10 years. Now that I'm working on my startup, my relationship to music is better and more fulfilling than ever.

Here's some great advice that someone once gave me: Everything you spend time on should be either working towards a goal that comes from your true self, or celebrating the achievement of that goal.

Spark happiness

Paul Hart adds an extra point:

Find energy, joy, and happiness in all of the struggles, learnings, and successes. Recognize those moments and let them feed you.

What are your tips for juggling indie hacking with a full-time job? Share below!

Discuss this story.

📰 In the News

🤳 Eight photo-centric photos sites that are not Instagram.

🤝 The Hustle's tips to finding a startup cofounder.

🛩 United Airlines just made a deposit on flying taxis.

🌤 With the Inflation Reduction Act, the US is bringing climate goals within reach.

💋 The sex wellness industry is exploding with opportunity.

📕 Trend Alert: Self-Publishing

from the Trends.vc newsletter by Dru Riley

Why it matters

Gatekeepers have historically decided what gets published.

Problem

Traditional publishers act as gatekeepers. They pick what you read.

Solution

Self-publishing makes it easier for you to publish "long-tail" books with more control and upside. See:

• Philip Kiely made $35K with Writing for Software Developers.
• Jon Sherman made $25K with 101 Mistakes All Golfers Make.
• Alex Ellis made $10K in one month with Serverless for Everyone Else.

Players

Self-published authors:

• Michael Gill: Maker Minions focuses on developing efficient work processes.
• Sherry Walling: The Entrepreneur's Guide to Keeping Your Sh*t Together focuses on stress management for founders.
• Rob Hope: Landing Page Hot Tips focuses on landing page design and conversion.
• Steph Smith: Doing Content Right focuses on creating, writing, and scaling blogs and newsletters.
• Steve Schoger and Adam Wathan: Refactoring UI focuses on designing user interfaces.

Self-publishing tools:

• Gumroad: Publish and sell e-books.
• Hemingway: Check the complexity of your writing.
• Grammarly: Check your grammar and spelling.
• Scrivener: Create, manage, and publish your writing.
• Ulysses: Writing app with built-in proofreader and editing assistance.
• Magic Author: Write, translate, and format your books.
• Typora: Minimalist markdown editor.

Self-publishing services:

• Foster: Get help from writers, editors, and experts.
• Scribe Media: Write, edit, publish, and market your books with premium guidance.
• StreetLib: Distribute your e-books, audiobooks, comics, and more.
• Reedsy: Find editors, designers, marketers, ghostwriters, and more.
• PrintNinja: Print hardcover and paperback books.

Predictions

• AI will streamline book creation. This helps you automate mundane tasks. Speechki and Murf turn text to speech. GPT-3 performs a lot of natural language tasks. Marlowe gives a high-level analysis of your writing.
• Traditional publishers will become amplifiers. They will bet on potential or proof to minimize risks. Seth Godin got picked by Portfolio after selling 10K copies of Purple Cow. J.A. Konrath got picked by Kensington after selling 2M+ self-published e-books. Andy Weir self-published and sold 35K copies of The Martian before he got picked by Random House and 20th Century Fox for the film.
• Authors will launch communities for their readers. This makes your message stickier and helps keep readers in your ecosystem. Phil Sturgeon launched a free community for Build APIs You Won't Hate readers. Teresa Torres launched a paid community for Continuous Discovery Habits readers. Rob Fitzpatrick launched Robfitz in progress with early ideas, daily struggles, and Q&As.

Opportunities

• Write in public. Crowdsource ideas, get feedback, and build early readership. Michele Hansen wrote Deploy Empathy in public to get honest feedback. Arvid Kahl wrote The Embedded Entrepreneur with the help of 500+ founders.
• Create audio versions of your books. Use Podcastle, Findaway Voices, and ACX to create audiobooks and boost the total addressable market for your message.
• Use podcasts to market books. Borrow trust from podcast hosts and build connections with potential readers.
• Publish revised editions. Turn readers into repeat customers, and cover fast-moving areas such as programming tools and frameworks. Tony Redmond co-authored the ninth edition of Office 365 for IT Pros. Robin Wieruch wrote four programming books and updated them as needed.
• Pre-sell books. Validate demand and find people ready to support you when the book launches. Tracy Osborn earned ~$5K pre-selling Hello Web App. Marc-André Giroux pre-sold Production Ready GraphQL before its official launch.

Risks

• Launching to crickets: You'll launch into the void if you don't market the book before publishing.
• Competitor risk: It's hard to stand out among ~1.7M self-published books per year.
• Platform risk: You're subject to the platform's terms and fees.

Key lessons

• Small books can be successful too. Sacha Greif wrote Step by Step UI Design, a 40 page book that generated $6,663 in 48 hours, and $25K in a month.
• Self-publishing leads to higher royalty rates. Traditional publishers pay 10% royalties on average. Self-publishers can get up to 70% when selling on marketplaces, and up to 97% when selling directly.
• Self-publishing helps authors take full control over their books. This unlocks creative control, higher revenue, and rights licensing. Self-publishing unlocks long-tail ideas. Without gatekeepers, we experiment more, fail more, and succeed more.

Hot takes

• Writing books is largely a charitable act. Don't write to make money. Write to get a message out.
• We'll see entire comics or graphic novels generated with DALL-E 2. Julian Glander used DALL-E 2 to generate art, and GPT-3 Playground to generate text for Frog Comic.

Haters

"Self-publishing transfers the responsibilities of traditional publishers to authors, which I don't want."

You can control the production process as a self-published author. It can be wise to take the traditional route if you prioritize writing over publishing, if you get permission to.

"Traditional publishers invest their own money, not mine."

With great risk comes great reward. Traditional publishers do risk their money, be it in nonrefundable book advances or publishing costs. That's why they keep up to ~90% of yours.

"Self-publishing has led to more noise. These days, everyone's an author."

We can't blame people for following their dreams. With 1% acceptance rates, traditional publishing is a tough field to stand out in.

"Traditional publishers signal quality."

Traditional publishers are experts at picking and publishing quality books, but their judgment is not error-free. Amanda Hocking received rejections for nine years. She went the self-publishing route, sold 1.5M books, and signed a $2M deal with St. Martin's Press.

Links

1. Looking for self-published authors: The tweet behind this report.
2. Print On Demand 101: Steven Spatz talks about how to self-publish books with print-on-demand.
3. Amazon International Markets Explained: Dave Chesson talks about selling Kindle books internationally.

Related reports

• Digital Products: E-books are a type of digital product.
• Pre-sales: Pre-selling helps you validate demand for your books.
• Personal Brands: People buy from authors that resonate with them.

More reports

Go here to get the Trends Pro report. It contains 200% more insights. You also get access to the entire back catalog and the next 52 Pro Reports.

Discuss this story, or subscribe to Trends.vc for more.

🌐 Best Around the Web: Posts Submitted to Indie Hackers This Week

💻 100+ websites to submit your startup. Posted by Riten.

💡 Profitable SaaS idea: Host open-source software? Posted by Darko.

📚 The best books for founders. Posted by Aesop.

🧐 Why do most YC startups go nowhere? Posted by Londoner.

📩 Tell us about your last SaaS subscription. Posted by Mustafa Ergisi.

🛠 Why developers are building so many side projects. Posted by Maaike.

Want a shout-out in next week's Best of Indie Hackers? Submit an article or link post on Indie Hackers whenever you come across something you think other indie hackers will enjoy.

🪶 Bhanu Teja Pachipulusu Hit $10K ARR in 2.5 Months

by Bhanu Teja Pachipulusu

Hello, everyone! I'm Bhanu Teja Pachipulusu, founder of Feather, a Notion-based blogging platform. I launched on Twitter back in May, and I've grown to $10K ARR in the nearly three months since then.

Currently, Feather has 87 paid customers and is at $843 MRR. My main user acquisition channels have been Twitter and word-of-mouth. I launched directly to my waitlist. I was confident that I could build something in one month, so I started building while growing a waitlist.

AMA!

How did you come up with your idea?

I started blogging when I was working on my first startup. Since it was the first time I was building a complete product from scratch, I started blogging on Hashnode about all of the new things I was learning.

My workflow looked something like this:

• I would write my content in Notion.
• I would export the Notion content to markdown.
• Adding the markdown content to my Hashnode blog came next.
• Finally, I'd re-upload all the images and change the image URLs to the new ones.

It took a good amount of time to do this process again and again. So, when I started looking for a new product to build, I decided to solve my own problem. I wanted to build my own blogging platform, but I really liked the Notion editor and its vast capabilities and integrations.

So, I decided to use Notion as the editor for my blogging platform instead of building my own editor. You can check out more on how Feather came to be here!

How did you use Twitter to attract users?

I got attention by building in public. Several users replied to my tweets saying that the only thing stopping them from using Feather was the time and effort it would take to migrate their content from a WordPress blog to Feather.

So, I offered to do it for them. Some of them agreed, but some of them didn't reply back.

I went ahead and did it, and showed it them after the migration. Once the migration was done, even the people who didn't reply back liked it, and migrated to Feather. These first few users were the hardest to get. I spent hours and hours on the migration. But once I got those initial 15 customers, the rest of the journey was pretty smooth.

Do you charge?

I opened up a beta for a few days while the product was still in development, and it was free during that time. But I made it clear that it would eventually be a paid product, and that there would be no free version.

Although a lot of people tried the product during the free beta, only two or three converted to paid customers. However, those users have helped shaped the initial product so much.

How did you differentiate Feather?

There are a lot of Notion builders popping up these days. For Feather, my main focus is blogs. Since Feather is a blogging platform, this singular focus allows me to hone in on things that are important to blogging, rather than being a generic Notion website builder.

I think that my main differentiator is that Feather is a niche within a niche. Other than that, my product roadmap is mostly driven by my customers. So, I just build things that they are looking for, or I build things that I think can be useful to them.

Discuss this story.

🐦 The Tweetmaster's Pick

by Tweetmaster Flex

I post the tweets indie hackers share the most. Here's today's pick:

🏁 Enjoy This Newsletter?

Forward it to a friend, and let them know they can subscribe here.

Also, you can submit a section for us to include in a future newsletter.

Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Fernando, Dru Riley, and Bhanu Teja Pachipulusu for contributing posts. —Channing