I spent a few hours today fixing up a couple of my more popular WordPress Plugins. One of them has over 15,000 downloads. Now not all of those blogs are still using the plugin, but since I upgraded, I expect one or two thousand people to fetch the upgraded code.

In truth, I spent more time adding a nagging message to buy my book, than making changes or fixing  bugs. It is customary to ask for a donation when people use a free WordPress plugin. I am asking for them to buy the book.

The nag message has appeared in the last 3,000 or so of my plugins downloaded. I recently strengthened the language a little, demanding that they buy the book.

I expect to get 5,000 downloads of my updated plugins in the next two weeks. I expect that 50% of those will check the docs or the plugin to see what is new. I expect that 1%  will buy the book. That could be anything from 10 to 50 book sales.

My goal would be to sell 50 books a month for this year. That would be about $1,500 in royalties. As I put the nag messages into more plugins, this might be an achievable goal.

As I get more sales, my Amazon rank goes up and my books would appear in searches and I would get more sales – etc.

By the way, I’ve sold only two books in January. Bummer.

Update: It’s working! I just sold two paperbacks in the 6 hours since I posted this.