Reflecting on Software Engineering Handbook

One year. May 2024. Back then, we were riding high, celebrating the launch of this Software Engineering Handbook with an amazing trip to Iceland. Five days of glaciers and waterfalls, finally enjoying the fact that we finished up a two year project. We thought we’d cracked it, pouring our hard won experience into a guide for anyone navigating the software engineering business. Our book was born from the trenches, covering everything from job offers to handling conflicts, managing projects to recovering from the inevitable screw-ups. We thought we were giving people the map we never had.

Fast forward a year, and the reality check hits harder than a Reykjavik winter. Never been there in winter but assuming it’s cold. Let’s skip the bullshit and dissect why this thing didn’t exactly become the bible of software engineering we envisioned. But first off, let’s see a few hits and misses.

Hits and Misses

Let me be fair.  The book wasn’t without its merits. We were genuinely humbled and encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive feedback from a few readers, especially regarding the content. People genuinely found it valuable. Here’s a review that made me really happy.

I finished the book and really enjoyed it. It’s packed with essential, practical insights that you wouldn’t typically find collected in one place. It reminded me of ‘Crucial Conversations,’ but more comprehensive. Just having the ‘Contents’ alone would be useful to anyone looking to learn these topics. Great job, it turned out really well!

However, two key issues emerged that, in hindsight, were significant headwinds:

1. The “Handbook” Misnomer: We called it a “Handbook,” but the final product evolved into something much more substantial – definitely more of a full guide than a quick reference. Despite our best efforts to trim it down during writing and editing, its length contradicted the title, potentially setting the wrong expectation.
2. A Generic Title Problem: While the main title resonated, the overall name felt a bit too generic. In the incredibly crowded marketplace of technical books, standing out is crucial, and our generic name likely hindered that.

So, while the content itself held up and was appreciated by those who read it, these initial structural and naming decisions were definite drawbacks. The data, as always, is brutally honest. Let’s take a look.

The Hard Numbers

The data from these charts lays it out pretty clearly what happened and when. 

First, the vanity numbers: Units Share By Marketplace. Google‘s “winning” with 48.7%, Amazon trailing slightly at 47.7%. Apple‘s a rounding error at 3.5%. Looks like we moved some copies, right? Wrong.

Then, the only metric that actually pays the bills: royalty shares by marketplace. Amazon coughs up $434. Apple manages $63. Google? A pathetic $49. That massive unit share on Google smells, no?

The monthly royalty chart tells the real story of our fleeting moment in the sun. That initial spike in July 2024? That wasn’t just the official launch; it was the immediate, albeit small, wave from our initial LinkedIn posts and whatever other noise we made. We saw around 40 quick sales. Then, reality hit, and it nosedived. The smaller bump in November ’24 was likely the Hacker News echo. After that? A flatline, with Amazon barely keeping the lights on.

Looking at top countries by market place, Turkey is bizarrely dominant on Google. The US comes in second, a more balanced spread. You might say this isn’t a surprise given that both authors are Turkish. Perhaps. Perhaps. Perhaps.

But top countries by royalty paints a different picture. The US is the only country that generated any real (and I use that term loosely) income, mostly through Amazon. Turkey? Nada. This Google situation is clearly a red herring.

Software Engineering Handbook monthly total units sold

The monthly total unit sold chart confirms the initial small burst in June 2024 (reflecting those immediate post-launch sales), followed by the July peak. Then, the slow bleed. Those smaller December bumps, coinciding with Turkey’s Google unit spikes, point to something specific.

The punchline? That massive Google unit share, especially in Turkey around December, generated zero revenue. We handed out discount codes to Bilkent University students. This is the university we both studied at. Charity, not actual market demand. Those initial 40 or so sales post-launch were the closest we got to organic traction before the long, slow decline.

So, the truth is stark: the initial small ripple from our immediate network quickly died. The only real sales channel was Amazon, and even that was underwhelming. The Google numbers are a misleading artifact of a student discount.

The brutal truth? We paid out $1500 to our editor, Courtney Goldsmith (who, to be fair, did a damn good job polishing this book), and we’re nowhere close to seeing that money back. That’s the bottom line. All this talk about units and royalties? It hasn’t even covered the basic cost of getting the damn thing edited. So, yeah, excellent editing, zero return on investment so far. Let that sink in.

Marketing Attempts

We went into marketing with little experience and honestly hoped we could just wing it. That, in short, did not work. Here’s a breakdown of our less-than-successful experiments.

Amazon Ads

We gave Amazon ads a solid try and made some tweaks. Despite getting plenty of impressions for a $50 budget, they ultimately resulted in selling just one book. The return on investment was effectively zero.

To make matters worse, Amazon’s ad formatting completely messed up the image, making the ad look off and unprofessional. The awkward cropping and low-quality rendering give off bad vibes right away. I even reached out to Amazon support, but guess what. They said they can’t do anything about it. Here’s how it looked like.

Amazon Ad Software Engineering Handbook

To top it all off, we even put effort into creating a sleek, professional landing page to make the book more appealing. But if people aren’t clicking through from the ad, the landing page’s quality doesn’t really matter.

Amazon Page Software Engineering Handbook

This whole experience taught us a simple truth: You can polish your landing page, fine-tune your content, and put your best foot forward, but if your ad doesn’t catch the right attention or worse, turns people off, you’re just burning money.

Reddit Ads

I had really high hopes for Reddit. After all, I could specifically choose the subreddits, and I did, targeting communities like r/coding, r/programming, and r/softwareengineering. I expected it would resonate with software engineers. The ad got over 21,000 impressions, but only 59 clicks, a click-through rate of just 0.28%. I spent around €30 on the campaign, with a CPC of €0.51 and an eCPM of €1.41.

But the real kicker? People just didn’t give a fuck. The ad got downvoted to oblivion, and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe it felt too promotional, or maybe it didn’t hit the right note with the community. Either way, the numbers clearly show that Reddit wasn’t the right platform. At least, not the right approach.

LinkedIn

We gave LinkedIn a solid shot. We had a decent following around ~9k(myself and Ender) combined. We even managed to grow the book page to about 2.5k followers. But did it actually help sell books? Not really. Here’s sample post.

Linkedin Post Software Engineering Handbook

The problem is, LinkedIn has almost turned into another Instagram. It’s flooded with influencer bullshit. People post success stories that feel more fabricated than real, dishing out shallow advice as if they’re seasoned experts when, in reality, they probably just graduated last year. It’s like everyone’s playing the same game: polished, catchy content with zero depth. And somehow everyone has a shit ton of advice.

Honestly, I’ve become more distant from LinkedIn than ever. It just doesn’t feel like a place for genuine professional growth anymore. At this point, I don’t even feel like I need it. If I want to work for a company, I can just reach out directly. I don’t need a platform full of wannabe thought leaders to do that.

Expectations vs. Reality

I knew from the outset that writing a technical book wasn’t a guaranteed path to substantial income unless it achieved exceptional status. Martin Kleppmann’s Designing Data-Intensive Applications is a prime example of that rare success. In his blog post, Kleppmann reflects on the unexpected financial and professional rewards of his book, pointing out that while most technical books yield modest returns, his work exceeded expectations due to its depth, clarity, and relevance to a broad audience.

To be honest, Kleppmann’s book is one of the best books I’ve ever read. It genuinely inspired me to write Designing Big Data Platforms because of how it set the standard for what a technical book could be insightful, practical, and exceptionally well-organized. I wanted to create something with a similar impact, but from a different angle. Well, unfortunately, Wiley didn’t promote the book enough. And honestly, it’s far far from Kleppmann’s book. 

Alright, let’s get back to our expectations. In the beginning and while writing, we thought we were onto something similar but from a different perspective. Looking at the contents, we saw a gap in the market. There’s plenty of material on hardcore technical skills, and lately, there’s been a surge in soft skills. But what about the overall life of a software engineer? That’s the piece we wanted to capture, blending technical insights, soft skills, and real-life challenges into one comprehensive guide. We genuinely believed that addressing this underrepresented aspect would make the book resonate.

A more comparable book might be Gergely Orosz’s The Software Engineer’s Guidebook. It also tackles practical, career-focused topics, but the difference is that Orosz has been a prominent tech influencer from the start. His established presence and massive reach made it a whole different game. In contrast, we didn’t have that kind of built-in audience or influencer clout.

In hindsight, while the idea seemed promising, the reality hit hard. Just because there’s a perceived gap doesn’t mean it will automatically translate into sales, especially when competing with authors who already have a massive following or just real deal. That’s the tough part of writing a book without an established platform.

Postmortem

Let’s use the “5 Whys” technique to dig into the root cause of the book’s underperformance from a marketing perspective:

1. So, why didn’t this Software Engineering Handbook become the bible of software engineering we genuinely thought it could be? Straight up, it just didn’t find its audience in a big way. Sales were minimal beyond that first tiny ripple from people we knew directly, not even a drop in the bucket towards making it a real landmark book.
   
2. Alright, so why did it fall flat after that initial blip? Why no real traction to speak of? A few key things, looking back. Our marketing efforts were, let’s just say, not where they needed to be. Calling it a “Handbook” when it grew into a pretty substantial guide probably set the wrong expectations from the get-go. And the main title itself was a bit too generic to really stand out in a crowded marketplace. Plus, unlike some established names, we weren’t starting with a massive built-in audience ready to jump on it.
   
3. Why was our marketing on the weaker side, the naming a bit of a misstep, and our platform pretty much non-existent? Well, we’re engineers first and foremost, not marketing professionals. A lot of the standard marketing playbook felt a bit… off to us, sometimes downright cringey, especially the kind of self-promotion that floods platforms like LinkedIn. Those early decisions on the “Handbook” label and the general title were ours, and in hindsight, they didn’t help us break through. As for building a huge following before the book? Honestly, we were head-down, completely absorbed in actually writing the thing for two solid years.
   
4. And why didn’t we pivot harder on marketing, push through the awkward parts, or find a way to build that platform once the book was out? Truth is, we were seriously burned out. Two years of intense writing and development takes a massive toll. By the time the book launched, our energy reserves were low. That, combined with the disappointing early sales numbers and a genuine reluctance to dive into marketing tactics that didn’t feel authentic to us, just eroded our motivation to suddenly become marketing gurus overnight. We genuinely believed the content’s value and its unique angle would be enough to make it find its readers.
   
5. So, what’s the core reason for the burnout, this underestimation of the market, and how things ultimately unfolded for our ‘bible’? Because creating this comprehensive guide from our own “hard-won, mentor-less experience” was an absolutely massive undertaking in itself. We thought that was the main mountain to climb. We learned, the hard way, that launching and selling a book effectively is an entirely different beast, requiring its own distinct set of skills, sharp strategies for things like naming and positioning, and a sustained energy for promotion you can’t just muster out of thin air. This is especially true when you’re new to the publishing game and entering a very competitive space. We poured everything into creating the ‘map,’ but then realized we hadn’t fully figured out, or frankly saved enough energy for, the equally crucial job of guiding people to it effectively. That’s the simple lesson from this past year. And yeah, I definitely get it now.

The truth is, a combination of exhaustion from the writing process, a distaste for certain common marketing approaches, and the consistently disappointing sales results across all platforms were major factors in our failure to effectively market the book in its first year.

The Silver Lining

Alright, so the book didn’t exactly set the world on fire financially, and our marketing genius was clearly on vacation. But was it all a complete wash? Surprisingly, no. Despite the faceplant on sales, a few good things, some pretty unexpected, actually came out of this whole ordeal.

Instant Credibility Boost

It’s funny, right? The book might not be flying off the shelves, but telling people, “Yeah, I’ve written a couple of books” – it actually changes things. Suddenly, you’re a bit more of an “expert.” It opens up some interesting conversations and definitely lends a bit of weight in professional circles. Almost like a social clout cheat code.

My Secret Mentoring & Teaching Weapon

This is actually pretty cool. The book has turned into a solid tool for mentoring. When I’m guiding someone and they’re hitting a wall on a specific topic, I can just point them to a topic. “Go read this, then let’s talk.” It’s way more structured than just spitballing advice. And get this. It’s not just one-on-one. I’m actually using parts of the book for a course I’m teaching over at Dublin Business School. Who’d have thought? I did. Even before writing the book. Seeing the material click for students and mentees… yeah, that’s pretty damn rewarding, not gonna lie.

Personal Level-Up

And personal growth? That was a big one, for sure. Two years of wrestling this book into existence was a big deal. But it wasn’t just a solo run. It was more like a relay race. I worked with Ender on this, that was a whole different dimension of learning. We had this killer double-editing system: I’d go through his topics, he’d go through mine, then we’d hash it all out and edit again. That constant scrutiny, that back-and-forth, it felt like it gave us a kind of superpower in taking complex thoughts and making them stick. I learned so much from him – I still vividly remember getting a much deeper understanding of A/B testing just from working through what Ender wrote. And I bet he picked up a fair bit from my contributions too. So, beyond just the discipline of finishing a massive project, we had that intense collaboration and shared refining process. That’s where a huge chunk of the invaluable learning really happened for both of us.

And here’s something that is different this time around: With my first book, it was easy to point fingers at the publisher when things didn’t go gangbusters. “Oh, Wiley didn’t promote it enough,” yada yada. With this one? The marketing, or lack thereof, that’s squarely on our shoulders. It’s on me. And you know what? I’ll take it. Lesson learned.

So, when you add all that up. The credibility. Using it for mentoring and teaching. Personal Growth… In the end, maybe it’s not too bad. I’m allowed to lie to myself. lol.

Final Reflections

Writing a book is an ultimate undertaking, a real beast. I got asked a few times if I would recommend it. I do. Nevertheless, doing that for the money. Probably not. You know because selling the damn thing is the biggest challenge. That’s a whole other level of difficulty, like learning a new profession from scratch, usually when you’re already knackered from writing. It’s like any startup idea. Some people can sell it even before doing it. Remember trying to market a book or idea to get it noticed authentically in today’s crazy-crowded digital world is a very hard task. That, my dear reader, often feels like the toughest fight of all.

Look, the book didn’t bring in the cash we dreamed of, not by a long shot. The sales charts aren’t exactly something I was dreaming of. But do I regret the blood, sweat, and probably too many late-night coffees that went into creating it? Kind of. It was a tough, frustrating ride at times, absolutely. But when I look at what we actually produced, I’m genuinely proud of the work. If it helped even just a handful of engineers out there learn something new, or see their careers a little differently, then it served its purpose.

Will I do things differently if there’s a next time? Maybe. Probably. The jury’s still out on that one. But here’s what I do know, down to my bones, after this year of wrestling with it: I’m armed with the cold, hard data and this firsthand, sometimes painful, experience. I now truly understand the immense challenge of not just writing a book, but actually getting it into people’s hands and minds. This goes without saying but it applies to any idea you might have. Selling is the way…

Selling is everything. Whether it’s a service, a book, your skills, or talent. You’re always selling. If you’re not selling, you’re not getting promoted, your service isn’t getting bought, and your talent goes unnoticed. Let’s remember that.

So, after all that, if you’re still curious about the actual book that sparked all this reflection (and a fair bit of pain, let’s be honest), well, take a look. Maybe it’s for you in the end. You can find our Software Engineering Handbook right here.