At one point, the author mentions “the royalties from a series of books could help keep food on the table.” Yea, right. The vast majority of computer books don’t earn out their advances. The only way to make money is to write an “evergreen”, or a book that can be updated regularly. But even then, there comes a time when it just won’t sell much any more. In any case, computer books are dead; the web has taken their place.

Nevertheless, I would recommend trying to write one or two books for anyone doing other writing in the computer industry, or even consulting. It looks a heck of a lot better to have your name on the cover of a book than it does to be writing articles. Your clients won’t know that you toiled for months and earned less than minimum wage, but they’ll be impressed. So for that reason alone, anyone in this industry should write a book.

Writing a book is one example, selling wordpress themes would be another, etc.

I think this was a great article, and I agree with @Writer Dad that being a “freelance author” as I’d call it, is a very fulfilling thing. Having a tight-nit group of followers that pay you money – sounds ideal to me.