I wrote a 750-page guide to self-hosting production apps

3/23/2026 at 1:35:45 PM

I’ve been working on this for nearly two years. I originally aimed to complete it before my son was born, but he’s now 16 months old. Go figure. Seems like writing a book is harder than it looks. My original motivation was to write something I would want to read since most resources I found on self-hosting were either too shallow, lacked real-world examples like code, or didn’t fully address the knowledge gaps I kept running into.

The book starts with the basics and builds up to covering the full infrastructure stack, with the goal of understanding the system as a whole and eventually deploying on Kubernetes. Kubernetes is a major focus but the content can be applied to any environment. I can't express this clearly, but you should probably check the sample "Jobs and CronJobs" section to get an idea. There’s also a section on best practices, tips, and practical details based on things I’ve run into myself.

It is available for free including the PDF and the code blocks. Yet, you are welcome to pay what you want.

by kocyigityunus

3/24/2026 at 10:07:32 AM

I got to the word 'book' and got the joke of this submission title. Thanks.

by harvey9

3/23/2026 at 10:47:20 PM

Congratulations on completing the book!

by hermannj314

3/24/2026 at 4:54:49 AM

Thank you. It was the hardest thing I've ever did by far.

by kocyigityunus

3/24/2026 at 8:56:48 AM

Tried to check it out but can't comment on the contents, because gumroad is apparently the intersection of facebook, cloudflare and google and specializes in serving millions of captcha's, then when solving all of them bluntly tells the transaction could not complete. There is a special place in hell for sites like gumroad.

by exceptione

3/24/2026 at 11:12:34 AM

So many pages... Were all of them necessary?

by wosined

3/24/2026 at 1:40:06 AM

> PDF optimized for on-screen technical reading

PDF isn't optimized for that, like now, reading the article a phone, I couldn't properly check out a chapter because PDF is awful in optimizing itself for a smaller screen

by eviks

3/24/2026 at 4:16:52 AM

what is the operating screen, the app you reading on and the model of the phone ?

by kocyigityunus

3/24/2026 at 8:45:46 AM

Any? PDF is fixed-width and is currently laid out for desktop, so bigger than any phone - though even there, you might want to use the guide side-by-side with your actual host shell to follow some instructions - and hit the same limitation on a smaller laptop screen where text wouldn't fit and you'd have to scroll.

by eviks

3/24/2026 at 6:26:18 AM

Congratulations, that's an impressive achievement. I've successfully evaded learning anything about Kubernetes this far, but I guess this is a good opportunity to see what I've been missing.

by supernes

3/24/2026 at 8:24:47 AM

Maybe. Please read it and tell me if it helped fill the gaps, since that was the main point.

by kocyigityunus

3/23/2026 at 11:46:21 PM

Thank you so much for such a useful book, I really appreciate what you did! But please add alternative payment methods to thank you, I don't trust leaving credit card details on third-party services

by ShimbaBumba

3/24/2026 at 4:20:57 AM

Let me add that and come back to you.

by kocyigityunus

3/24/2026 at 12:21:13 AM

Thanks for making it optionally free! I'm going to download it now for 0, check it out, and if I like it, I'll go back and buy it for $50

by freedomben

3/24/2026 at 4:20:18 AM

Thank you.

by kocyigityunus

3/24/2026 at 3:33:01 AM

What if I want a hard copy? Are you working with a printer? That would revenue.

by adamsiem

3/24/2026 at 4:19:51 AM

I talked with several publishers. It seems a 750-page, high-quality printed book just isn’t economically viable these days.

by kocyigityunus

3/24/2026 at 6:13:16 AM

So why not break it up into smaller bits? You could probably do that fairly easily with an LLM - I get that you don't want AI slop, but this would be more about helping you structure it into more publishable sizes/topics and would be your words.

by abrookewood

3/24/2026 at 8:23:26 AM

Most publishers wanted me to split it into two or three parts. However, doing so would require splitting it at awkward points.

Additionally, I’ve spent so much energy writing it that I didn’t want to deal with that.

by kocyigityunus

3/24/2026 at 6:35:09 AM

https://www.lulu.com/pricing

Had to search but it seems that lulu allows 800 pages so your book can fit just right in

There are definitely some other publishers like No Starch Press who might help ya as well.

by Imustaskforhelp

3/24/2026 at 8:21:37 AM

A standard color book with 800 pages will be around $25 at scale. So, if I sell it for ~$40, I would make ~$5.

Since I spend so much time, I decided to let people read it.

by kocyigityunus

3/24/2026 at 6:30:06 AM

I have downloaded the book (and thanks for making it free!), I will really love to read this book when I get into college/have more spare-time

Thanks for creating this book!

by Imustaskforhelp

3/24/2026 at 8:23:51 AM

You're welcome. Please read and share it.

by kocyigityunus

3/24/2026 at 1:10:02 AM

sounds like some nice light reading, thank you

by erelong

3/24/2026 at 8:25:03 AM

Probably not that light.

by kocyigityunus