Self-Publishing Success

A free and unbiased review of the best book offering a comprehensive overview of successful self-publishing.

The image is of an audiobook cover with the words Write. Publish. Repeat. The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant with David Wright on a white background with a pencil in the middle. In the lower left-hand corner, there is a yellow banner sideways with the words ONLY FROM audible.

Write. Publish. Repeat. The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant with David Wright (WPR) is a self-promoting and somewhat maddening book, but it covers self-publishing better than similar books out there. It is chatty at times but exhaustingly comprehensive. In fact, this book has been imitated many times in many forms by other writers attempting to piggyback on the success of this Amazon best-seller. (There are many books out there with copycat titles.)

It's no secret that I support self-publishing when it is done right. I grew up on the DIY ethos of SF punk rock and poetry at a time when if three writers got drunk together at night they were sure to launch a new literary magazine in the morning.

As for the stigma of self-publishing, history does not care whether a work was self-published at first or not. Whitman. Twain. Melville. The list of important writers who self-published is extensive even without including the writers who started small presses so they could self-publish sideways.

Great books can still find great "mainstream" publishers and editors, but it is obvious that the days when the owners of a publishing house could be counted on to support democracy are gone. I will address who owns what "mainstream" publishing corporation in a later article. I will only say that I would personally check who owned any imprint that was offering to publish my work. I will assume that as a writer believing in freedom of expression you are not interested in helping the owner of Fox News, for example, spread his influence further or allow him to pretend he is fair-minded.

The image is of the book cover of Write. Publish. Repeat. The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success" by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant with David Wright on a white background with two pencils and wads of crumpled-up paper.

I recommend the Audible version of this book. I did other things while listening and the self-promotion was easier to take when I was not holding the book in hand.

The first thing I have to emphasize is that this book concentrates on genre fiction and genre fiction mashups. It is absolutely focused on the business of successful self-publishing and strongly suggests you choose what to write to make sure your books are successful in your chosen genre. It's fiction writing as a business. It is as if Roger Corman got into self-publishing instead of producing B films.

This book was published in 2014, but it is not dated, and in fact, it is important to see what these authors have done since. They have expanded their business to include teams of other writers they publish. They changed the name of their company and it now resembles a small film production studio that churns out fiction as Intellectual Property they own and protect.

I include an interview with the writers of this book as they offer a course based on the book.

The image is of Sean Platt in a sound booth speaking into a microphone. He is one of the authors of WPR and offers a Udemy course based on the book.

I took the course. It was well worth the seventeen dollars.

In summary, if you are considering self-publishing, these writers provide a good place to start your education. After that, it is up to you to find other sources of current information such as podcasts, blogs, and indie YouTube channels. The business is slippery--same as it ever was.

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