Write. Publish. Repeat.: The No-Luck Guide to Self-Publishing Success

Write. Publish. Repeat is a book written by a couple of indie authors with the goal to cover the whole field of independent publishing for all who want to write or want to take their writing business to the next level.Yes, business. It's not a book about how to write better or use beautiful metaphors in your works. It's is about writing, publishing and making money out of it.I had mixed feelings reading this book. Most of them were positive, but you know why they call it "mixed"? There were negatives too. And I will start with them.1. The authors Sean and Johnny are a little shortsighted. They confessed they look just a decade ahead (while I am thinking in terms of the next eon ;) )I don't know about you, but I want to be a writer for the rest of my life and I don't intend to live just a decade more. Having said that, the timespan they focus on is much longer than in any other book about indie publishing I've read (which usually was: "publish your 100 books yesterday and enjoy your life afterwards!").2. They use profane language; the `F' word appears all too often for my taste. However, they were honest about it from the beginning, so I excuse them on this point.3. At least several readers rightfully made the observation that the introductory part was too long. Ruminations about book's voice, fiction vs. nonfiction, who they are, who their intended audience is, who shouldn't read the book, publishing- marketing dictionary ... it all took about 11% of the book. And later on they have the impudence to say that they wrote so huge a book, because they love me.OK, I would maybe have skipped a half of this 11% of the book, but it was all I would have been willing to skip. The rest of the book is pure meat. And I do the same in my books--I try to discourage people who have unreasonable expectations from buying and reading my works. That way I get less bad reviews and refunds.4. They are arrogant bastards. (You see what I meant about profanities? I used the ugly word, after reading this dam... emotional book). They brag and brag about themselves making me feel soooooo tiny in comparison. I'm light years behind them regarding my publishing business. Bragging wasn't helping me at all.But their confidence is justified. They write. They publish. They do it again and again (just visit their Amazon sites! They produce books like machines!). Their books are selling. And that's as far as negatives go.What is more, almost every aspect of those `not so bright' points has at least some positives with them too (not profanities, I don't see any reason to use them).Let's talk about positives then.I'm a published author and, quite recently, a bestselling author. I've been studying self-publishing since March 2013. I knew about 99.5% of the subjects covered in Write. Publish. Repeat. Most of them I knew by heart.(I think the only thing I didn't know previously was the reading trend on small devices and apps which allow authors to send their works directly to readers' mobiles)Your mailing list, owning your platform, the importance of reviews, connecting with readers, writing tips, marketing tips, editing tips--there was nothing new to me.But I just needed to be reminded about it once again. I found myself nodding ALL the time. This book spoke to me, because it was like seeing the prior year of my life on fast rewind.I felt like it wasn't just a book about their publishing business; it was about mine, too.And they covered EVERYTHING! I can't think of a single item even remotely connected to the self-publishing business they forsook.1. Those guys know what they are talking about.They not only published a few dozen different titles among the two of them, they also have a Self-Publishing Podcast and they interviewed dozens of indie authors (and a few traditionally published). Their knowledge is impressive.The breadth and deep of their analysis is stunning. I've heard about practically everything that the book is about, but I applied only about 10% of that knowledge. The authors, on the other hand, discuss confidently every aspect of self-publishing, because they know what they are talking about.2. Nuggets.Because of their knowledge, Write. Publish. Repeat is full of data nuggets. Things that are absolutely unnecessary for every indie author, but any of them can use: ISBN management; producing audio or paper books; writing software; which sites are most efficient in paid advertising and so on.For most authors those are just tidbits. And they are just the byproduct of the book. Johnny and Sean are in the business, so they know about them and share them by the way.Tidbits are not relevant to the book's message, but they are still there; by the way.3. They are little more in the business and marketing than me.I don't like marketing and I despise internet marketing as a whole. It is so abused that it makes me sick each time I think about it.But the authors of Write. Publish. Repeat have deeper backgrounds in business and marketing than me, and a different perspective.I loved the core marketing advice of the book. Be yourself--it really resonated with me.4. The voice.Those guys write fiction; I don't, and I can still use their advice.They are fiction writers and you can easily feel that. The book is engaging and funny. I was literally convulsing with laughter when I read Johnny's remarks about `scientific research stats checking'. I was fresh from latest book launch and I could totally relate.They talk about fiction writing, but not too much. Their businesslike approach to writing stories reveals the principles every writer should follow--be true to the characters, be true to yourself, avoid the fluff, don't waste the time of your readers (I'm guilty). Besides, I want to write fiction one day. In fact I'm writing a novel (drawer-destined) and found their advice convincing.The voice of book is not exactly straight-to-the point, but as skillful story craftsmen they make the book interesting. They don't come around the subjects. They name the things by their name. Lousy work is lousy work. There is very little luck involved in success; everything worthy takes some time.5. Attitude.I like what they teach, but I love how they do it. They don't give you a ready formula for success, because there is no such thing. I found a Goodreads review whining about the fact that there is no program, no ready-to-apply tips & tricks.The reviewer clearly didn't get what the book is about. It's not about tips & tricks; it's about building a business.If you want to build a business based on the proven formula, you pay a lot of bucks and run a McDonald's restaurant then. I don't want to run McDonald's analogue of writing, thank you.Every man is solely responsible for his own success (or failure).I'm sick of sales pages and copies which in general try to say "This is your salvation!" (click to buy); which try to convey the feeling that their way is the only way and if you don't save yourself (click to buy) then you are a loser.The authors of Write. Publish. Repeat say "See what we do, pick a few parts and do what works for you." And they repeat it over and over again.I do the same in my writing. I'm a firm believer that success can't be imposed. You are the one who makes it happen. Foreign solutions won't work for you until you distill them and make them your own.6. Motivation.My belief is that you don't need knowledge. Well, not exactly "don't need", it's just secondary to your motives, attitudes, grit and action. It's more the effect of your activities than something you need to start them. You can absorb a lot of data, but you truly get their meaning when you use them.I mean, look at our society. We are the first generation which has ALL the knowledge of the world at our fingertips. And what do we do with it? Is success more common now? Is it?So, Johnny and Sean provide some knowledge, but it's not their main goal. They have a lot of grit and, thanks to their book, I was able to steal some of it.And you cannot name the price tag on this.I have a lot of highlights which shows me that anybody, even I, can do it.In terms of motivation this book was like nothing else I've ever read and I read a lot. Why?Because they have been there, they have done that. They had the same s***ty self-doubts I have. On every page of the book I can sense the struggles behind the content. They named my all fears (nobody will read your books and if somebody will, he won't like it at all), my all false hopes (it will be easy), and my all faulty expectations (one book, one bestseller and I'll be done) and all the solutions (write publish repeat). "For the first time in history, life as a full-time writer has become about simple math."And, oh boy, I can do the math! My first 6 months of writing gave me about 1.5% of my day job's salary. In this tempo I would be freed of my job in about 33 years.Reaching that point, I don't have to rely on social security, whims of my employer and so on.But it was just the first 6 months. Writing is no exception to the rule, that the longer you do something the better you are at it. And my latest book sales proved that quite convincingly.I absorbed this kind of iron confidence page by page and highlight after highlight.As I said, I knew all that Johnny and Sean said; I knew all the facts. But thanks to this book I was able to feel them too.7. Timeless values and principles.A decade is not enough long term perspective for me.But...All too many "advisors" out there don't give a s*** about next year, not to mention the next decade. Their advice comes down to "find a trick and exploit it; the readers are morons, so treat them as morons; it will make you riiiiich!" "You're not going to fool a reader more than once, and you deserve to fail if you try."However, you can do many other things instead. Like love your readers, be integral, be persistent, think of your publishing venture as a business and a lot more.Again, Johnny and Sean named it all. The whole book is the textbook of making writing your way of life plus making money out of it.It's so refreshing to have finally found people who believe the same values as I and who get this message across with such clarity and wit.8. Write. Publish. Repeat provides more than just self-publishing info.I got more advantages from reading this book. My self-esteem skyrocketed because I discovered I already know all that successful indie authors do (am I repeating myself? ;) )The "Dave jokes" were fun. This guy must be a saint to put up with Johnny and Sean ;)I even had a spiritual experience reading the passage about courage. I was reading Saint Teresa of Avila's book at the same time and the lecture of Write. Publish. Repeat put some light on this.ConclusionThis book is cool. If you don't believe me just read the 10% preview on Amazon and you find the sections who is it for and for who it isn't. If you find yourself among the target audience just read it and you won't regret it.Write. Publish. Repeat is great. It is so good in fact, that made me wish I had a Kindle device on which I could highlight all the fragments that spoke to me or taught me something. I've read part of it on PC Kindle where I could highlight and a bigger chunk on my eReader device without such a feature.No, it's beyond cool and great; it is even better. I decided that, one day, when I can afford it, I WILL buy a Kindle, read Write. Publish. Repeat once again and highlight all those fragments.And I will pay for it using my books' royalties.

There are a few very different methods for making money at self-publishing. Some like J.A. Konrath claim it takes hard work and luck. The guys at Realm and Sands, Johnny B. Truant and Sean Platt, however, disagree. The subtitle of their writing guide WRITE. PUBLISH. REPEAT. is “The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success”. According to them, you just have to keep at it, get a lot of titles up there to expand your virtual shelf space, and eventually, if the work is good enough, people will find you.I find myself stuck in the middle on this. See, I’ve been self-publishing for a few years now and only within the last year have found any real success. Did I do it by following the Realm and Sands model? Nope. I only recently discovered these guys and their Self-Publishing Podcast about a month ago, after I’d already made around $10,000 on ONE self-published $0.99 novel. But was it by relying on luck? Hell no. I DO believe I got lucky with that novel, but I also think I made that luck by writing the best dern book I could, re-writing, editing, and making it as good as possible.But I digress. We’re here to talk about WRITE. PUBLISH. REPEAT. I’ve been writing for over 20 years but I picked up this book anyway because they say on their Self-Publishing Podcast that this book works as the book version of the pod cast. And since I really like the pod cast, I assumed I would like the book--not to mention, even 20+ years in, you never really stop learning how to write better. Having just finished the book last night, I have to say thank God this book ISN’T the written version of their pod cast.On air, they seem to have trouble actually getting to their topic sometimes--Platt is easily distracted and tends to ramble while Truant sometimes reminds me of my mother in that both of them have a hard time getting to the point of their sentence without at least two “and by the way” detours. No offense to the guys, they know I’m right. And in the end, who cares, I’m still listening to at least two episodes a day trying to catch up to their, at present, 87 shows.The book is laid out pretty clearly, giving some info on the authors before delving into the writing and publishing aspects. They cover topics like writing and editing, cover design, marketing, the usual stuff a self-publisher is going to need. But then they go further and talk about the things I was most interested in, the things that weren’t “things” when I was first starting out, like “Gathering Your Tribe” or “Understanding Funnels” (this topic interested me the most and it’s the one I wish I’d known about years ago). Most of this book, though, seems geared toward the true newcomer, the guy who is really just getting started, with chapters like “Terms You Should Know” (1,000 True Fans, The 80/20 Rule, Call to Action), “The List of Myths” (Self-Publishing Is What You Do When You Can’t Publish Traditionally, yeah maybe 8-9 years ago. The stigma is mostly gone now, though, and authors can actually make a living at this) and “How to Avoid Looking Like an Amateur” (which is basic stuff you shouldn’t have to be told anyway, like edit meticulously and double-check everything).The middle section tended to drag for me and several discussions felt repeated ad nauseum--they went on WAY too long about marketing--but they did state upfront the book is a reference guide and is designed so it can be read out of order and still make sense, and that some things would be repeated throughout. So at least I knew it was coming. But it didn’t make the book read any faster, so it still dragged in places.Do I think anyone out there can read this book and they’ll have the can’t-miss template for success in their hands? No. I’m not saying no one can do it, but I do believe the formula these guys have hit on is one unique to them. There may be a few copycats who decide to adopt the “episodes” and “seasons” method, who may start writing “beats” and cranking out 13,000 words in a day, but they’ll just be copycats and I truly believe that, to make it in this business, you can’t copy anyone else’s success. You can learn from it, you can take bits and pieces here and there from other writers, but a straight trace of their trajectory? No, I don’t believe it will happen. Not to any degree that matters.What I think is that you have to find your own path. This book is not meant to act as a roadmap--at least I hope it’s not--but more of a “these are the methods we used, take what you can from it and godspeed”. Because, really, at the end of the day, we don’t need a 100,000 word guide on how to be successful at this. When you get right down to, they summed it up before you even opened the book. You write. You publish. You repeat.You can understand marketing and tribes and funnels and calls to action and all that other stuff until you’re a walking encyclopedia, but the most important--the ONLY important--factors at work here are the also the simplest. Write. Publish. Repeat.I have no idea why my novel hit the way it did last year. But I guarantee you if I hadn’t spent years and YEARS writing and writing and getting better and learning, and if I hadn’t worked that product description to death, and if I hadn’t already published dozens of short stories and novellas, learning cover design and layout, and if I hadn’t priced it to sell (DWS and KKR can say all that want that people see a $0.99 novel and automatically think “why is it so cheap, there must be something wrong with it”, but that’s crap and I and over 30,000 other people see a $0.99 novel and think “it’s the genre I like and I can afford it. Sweet!”), I’d still be working two jobs (I eventually raised the price, but only when sales started to slow down anyway). I wrote. I published. I repeated.But that’s 20 years of experience already. If I had only been writing a few years by now, and I came across this book, then yes, I would definitely feel I had an advantage. The heart with which this book is written, the passion that comes through when they’re talking about going where the puck is headed, not to mention their no guts no glory approach, it’s all so completely infectious (that’s why I keep listening even to the old pod casts, because the joy they seem to derive from doing this day in and day out, it makes you feel good about your own work and it makes you want to get back to that novel and write, write, then write some more), you can’t help but just keep reading and reading. I wasn’t even going to read this book yet, I bought it to read later, but I opened it on the treadmill one day and just sort of abandoned the horror anthology I had been in the middle of reading before. Infectious.While good chunks of this reference guide were not relevant to me or my path, I do think it’s a pretty comprehensive book and one writers at all levels of experience can take something valuable from.I talk a lot about what worked for me in this review of someone else’s work, because I’m trying to show that the method they use isn’t THE method, that it’s different for everyone and you can still succeed by doing your own thing. In the end, you have to do what works FOR YOU. This is just one way, and Truant and Platt aren’t necessarily saying this what you have to do to make it as a successful indie author. What they ARE saying is, these are the tools that will most help you in getting there, but the hard part you still have to do on your own. In that regard, WRITE. PUBLISH. REPEAT works really well and I’d say after THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE, after ZEN IN THE ART OF WRITING, and after ON WRITING, this is the next writing guide you should definitely own. It won’t make you rich, but it will awaken that drive and will absolutely inspire you to stop wasting time and put words on the dang page. Shut up and write.

Boa pedida para quem sonha em criar uma carreira como escritor por meio da Amazon. O livro é grande, mas não traz montes de técnicas e os autores deixam bem claro que estão relatando ali apenas o que funcionou no caso deles. Realmente serve como uma luz para guiar o caminho, embora muitas das coisas indicadas em suas páginas ainda não são possíveis de executar no Brasil. Nossa realidade é outra.

This book is a great guiding hand on mindsets and strategies of being a self published writer.Highly recommend this book if you are starting out, and are already on your self publishing journey.Before reading this book I had been listening to to the Self Publishing Podcast, of which this book is a great collection of the concepts that they talk about.The podcast and this book supported me as I started my self publishing journey.I now have three eBooks in the Kindle store, have scrapped one and am working on two more.I highly recommend this book.

This is THE book for those who want to make a career as an indie writer: the bible of Self-Publishing.I read the book in Kindle format, then I listened to it again as an audiobook and I'll receive the paperback version in a few days. I will place the paperback of "Write. Publish. Repeat" in a display cabinet on my desktop. I will see this book everyday so that it reminds me that there are no shortcuts to make a living on publishing: you are on your own and there is a lot of hard work to do. This is for the long term. But, hey, if that REALLY is what you want to do, then, where's the problem?One of the best things this book talks about is the funnel concept applied to self-publishing. That implies writing several books that are related. In the case of the authors of this book, they mainly do it with fiction. They release several books that make a "season". They usually put a very low price to the first book of the series (99 cents or even for free). If the reader likes it, a cliff-hanger at the end and a proper call to action gives a chance that he or she will buy the next book.A great thing that Johnny and Sean tell us is that any idea is good to write something. It is what you do with that idea that ends up in something great. The best example is the books in the Unicorn Western saga where a gunslinger rides a... wait for it... unicorn! That "silly" idea came up in one of The Self Publishing Podcast episodes (run by the authors of the book as well as by David Wright) and Johnny and Sean decided to write about it.And there is another big idea that I took from the book although it didn't come explicitly explained. I think it is one of the most important things for a writer: work collaboratively. If you don't want to do it, at least have some close writer friends and with whom you can share good and bad moments, ask for advice, get a free in-line editor and so on...Well, there are many other good things in the book, such as love and take care of your readers, but I don't want to give away any more spoilers. Just buy it, enjoy it and get back to writing!

Je suis bluffé par la capacité de travail des auteurs, et par leur capacité à articuler comment ils produisent autant de bons livres de genre. Dans ce livre, ils vous dévoilent l'essentiel de leur processus de production. Pour l'écriture elle même, pour la narration, il faudra aller fouiller dans d'autres livres. Pour le marketing aussi. Mais commencez par ce livre, celui de Joanna Penn ( Comment publier un livre: Marketing pour auteurs ), et celui de David Gaughran ( Let's Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should: Updated Second Edition (Let's Get Publishing Book 1) (English Edition) ), et mettez vous au travail' Comment publier un livre: Marketing pour auteursLet's Get Digital: How To Self-Publish, And Why You Should: Updated Second Edition (Let's Get Publishing Book 1) (English Edition)

This is the first book on marketing for authors that really made sense to me. Put in the hard work and you’ll get places is the credo of this book. It’s stuffed with advice for beginning and experienced writers which ensures that it is widely useful.I did find the language somewhat verbose. The authors like to talk (they’re podcasters so I wasn’t really surprised), but they explain everything in an easy to understand way. The first part of the book was less useful to me because I’m an experienced writer, but for beginners there are several really good tips and tricks.The part about marketing was the reason I bought the book in the first place and it didn’t disappoint. The book won’t give you a blueprint to success – there is no such thing – but it provided me with a way I can work on my marketing without neglecting my writing. I will now be able to create a plan with strategies and techniques that will help me succeed to the best of my ability.