Building Your Mouseless Development Environment

A book to empower developers with scalable tools

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My biggest discovery the last decade was to build a scalable and Mouseless Development Environment. By using mainly my keyboard and by automating my workflow, I'm more efficient and I have more fun while coding!

February 20, 2021 Two weeks (almost) after launch

I launched the book the 8th of February 2020. Here's what happened:

  • First page of HN. (2021-02-11)
  • Very nice results from /r/commandline and /r/neovim and many more sales than I thought.
  • Good words of mouth (I think), many people writing to tell me the book is really good.

Tools used:

  • Here's a short video explaining the tools I used for the book itself.

  • For the landing page: Hugo (I've a good process for Hugo stuff, I can deploy one in 10min) with a theme I've adapted for my needs.

  • Selling platform: flurly. Fast, great UI, super good customer service, and more money in the creators' pocket.

Funnel:

  • My blog where a discrete (but still visible) little "ad" is displayed in relevant articles.
  • My landing page, explaining more the book, with a sample of it and a video explaining the whole development environment.
  • The sales page.

Some numbers:

  • Around 10 000 sessions on the landing page since the launch.
  • 5215 views on the sales page.
  • 638 samples of the book downloaded (on the sales page).
  • 230 sales (around 200 the first week).
  • 0 refund.

I feel it's pretty good but... I've no prior experience so I'm not sure. Compared to my expectations I'm in heaven, I didn't think so many people would be interested by this book.

Newsletter:

I stopped sending newsletter. Its purpose was only to brainstorm with the people who were the most interested by the book.

That said, people buying the book are on a special newsletter where I'll send the updates of it. I'll still take feedback from there, asking what would be the most relevant for them to see in the future updates.

Next:

  • Continue to promote on some subreddit, slowly but surely (I don't want to be too "pushy", I believe in slow growth).
  • Continue to update the book and answer every single customer if they have problems or complains.
  • ... I don't know yet :D
January 12, 2021 600+ subscribers for my newsletter

More and more developers are interested by my book, which is great! Many people wrote to me to share what they expect from it, giving me even more ideas. I write back to them personally each time. Some of them even proposed their help for proofreading it, that's so awesome.

For now most of the subscribers come from my blog, which has more and more success too (~30 000 visitors in December 2020). At the same time, I've decided to tweet everyday (via an automation tool I've built myself for my needs) and see how it goes.

Looking forward to see where this adventure will lead me.

August 29, 2020 200+ subscribers for my newsletter

I've managed to gather more than 200 subscribers for my newsletter in two months! My efforts in promoting the book paid off, even if I have no date of release yet.

I've had many returns from everybody who subscribed too, which is a good sign. In any case, it boosts my motivation to deliver something appealing and helpful for developers, beginners and experts alike.

July 3, 2020 My landing page is online!

I built my first landing page for my book Building Your Mouseless Development Environment.

I tried to do something simple and straight to the point. I will add more information (maybe a video) as the time goes by, and test different things. That's why I prefer going from simple to add more, if I need to.

If somebody want to reuse my template, it's here: https://github.com/Phantas0s/mouseless-dev

About

My biggest discovery the last decade was to build a scalable and Mouseless Development Environment. By using mainly my keyboard and by automating my workflow, I'm more efficient and I have more fun while coding!