As a full time job at a company, it&#x27;ll pay less than your counterpart role in development. As a solo person building a brand a la Michael Hartl (Rails, Learn Enough), it&#x27;s a business, and marketing is a big part of it.<p>In terms of getting a job at a company, I&#x27;ve seen people pursue technical writing certificates. Though, I think a long list of open source contributions will speak for itself when it comes to modern software gigs. It seems like you have a bit of experience pursuing the second route already, so it&#x27;s not a bad idea to keep doing that, then lateral into a place of employment.<p>I think the likelihood of making a living as an indie developer is greater than as an indie on the App Store for example. Tracy Osborn (Hello Web App) said herself that one book wouldn&#x27;t provide a living, though she surmised that someone with multiple books might. The speaking engagements, networking, and new opportunities will help overall in filling the gaps.<p>An in depth book may take 6 months to a year to write, but if the writing process can be scaled down to 1 - 2 months per book, with the quality not suffering too much, I don&#x27;t see why it&#x27;s not possible that a person can be doing this full time&#x2F;exclusively after a year of publications, with other contract engagements. To clarify, a number of these books will likely address to a specific framework du jour, or learn X in 1 week, but there can be some that are absolute gems&#x2F;labor of love.<p>Disclaimer: I&#x27;m just an observer, hoping to explore the same path.