Long, long ago, I wrote a book about PHP. Actually, it was the first book about PHP. And it was a success. It lead to two more editions and another book about MySQL. Zeev, Andi and Monte each graciously helped with reviews, writing and endorsements. Being a best-selling author of the first PHP book has been great for landing gigs. Facing a range of criticism, especially in Amazon reviews, was a valuable learning experience.
Having last published a book in 2003, you might guess that sales have dropped off. The royalty checks are small. Even though the effort to write the books was immense, the rewards more than made up for it, especially for the first edition Core PHP. Despite diminishing returns, I might have continued the pattern of writing a new edition for each major version of PHP, but better books came out and PHP 6 never did.
As a perspective-setter, I offer all-time sales totals for the four books I wrote.
- Core PHP 1/e (1999): 19,448
- Core PHP 2/e (2000): 16,714
- Core MySQL (2002): 5,773
- Core PHP 3/e (2003): 11,456