I think the author missed the most important point (maybe they haven't gotten this far yet): marketing and especially market-fit.
If you just want to release an ebook or even in paper, you can do that easily. If you want to release an ebook and have it be a success, that's really hard. It's hard even for traditional publishers, and it's certainly not any easier for self-published authors.
Anecdote: I helped my grandmother release her first book (here: http://carolynnslaughter.com/book/). The technical aspects are frankly not that hard. For anyone with halfway reasonable technical skills, launching a book is simply a matter of following various instructions online.
How much did we sell? Pretty close to rounding error of zero. Honestly, we were never expecting much success, because the book is fairly academic.
Edit: Less anecdotally: "Ninety percent of your book’s success will be determined by the quality of your book. The other ten percent is distribution, marketing and luck." (From Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/145431)
I understand that as HN readers we gravitate towards technical solutions. But the sibling comment by scandox is on the nose here. The hardest problem by far is writing a book that people will be willing to pay money for. The second hardest problem is marketing it, and all these other technical aspects come somewhere after that.
I think there are many reasons for writing, only some of which are success/financially motivated.
Personally, I wanted to write a story about Lisp machines, Bostrom-inspired Artificial Intelligences, and a journey of discovery/adventure in the vein of my favorite stories (www.zhubert.com/reading). Not everyone gets excited about Lisp machines, so I'm not expecting a mainstream market.
That said, marketing was out of scope of my original article and quite a challenging problem, I agree.
If you just want to release an ebook or even in paper, you can do that easily. If you want to release an ebook and have it be a success, that's really hard. It's hard even for traditional publishers, and it's certainly not any easier for self-published authors.
Anecdote: I helped my grandmother release her first book (here: http://carolynnslaughter.com/book/). The technical aspects are frankly not that hard. For anyone with halfway reasonable technical skills, launching a book is simply a matter of following various instructions online.
How much did we sell? Pretty close to rounding error of zero. Honestly, we were never expecting much success, because the book is fairly academic.
Edit: Less anecdotally: "Ninety percent of your book’s success will be determined by the quality of your book. The other ten percent is distribution, marketing and luck." (From Mark Coker, founder of Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/145431)
I understand that as HN readers we gravitate towards technical solutions. But the sibling comment by scandox is on the nose here. The hardest problem by far is writing a book that people will be willing to pay money for. The second hardest problem is marketing it, and all these other technical aspects come somewhere after that.