Recently I realized my whole process for publishing bestselling books is completely backwards. At a party in Medellin recently, a guy said “wow, you’ve hacked publishing!”  I don’t like being called a hack because there’s an assumption that it means I’m putting out poor quality books to trick or fool readers.  (Steven Pressfield calls anyone who writes for an audience the …

I’m doing a lot of things right with my book marketing, but it’s hard to do everything perfectly. Plus, I know that sales are limited by demand – so the fact that one of my books sells 10x better than another one hasn’t bothered me too much. I figured mermaids (Shearwater) just weren’t as popular as dark fantasy (Scarlet Thread …

I’ve been invited to speak on some podcasts and channels recently – I usually say yes because I love talking about publishing and book marketing. I’m not ashamed to say I get really excited and geek out about these things. So here are three recent interviews I think worth listening to. The first is with Tom Corson Knowles. I met …

  I just spoke to Kevin T Johns about writing fiction that sells and asked him for some tips on actually finishing a book – plenty of authors never finish and need more help – he delivered with this epic post! Writing a novel, especially a first novel, is a massive and complex project. The sheer amount of work involved can …

When I started Creativindie, I mapped out a 6-step process to Creative Independence. The ultimate goal of that process was Luminosity – becoming a generous beacon, a shining light, helping others achieve their own meteoric rise. I’ve said that this can only be achieved if you’re a successful artist, but this isn’t exactly true. I haven’t focused on philanthropy yet because in …

The title of this post is tongue-in-cheek, but it highlights an important issue. A lot of authors have been burned by predatory publishing companies, marketing firms or services promising the world and delivering little. Usually, authors spend way too much on their first book and see no results, then spend two years figuring out what went wrong, before finally learning …

Being an author can be a thankless job. Not everyone appreciates how hard you work. So I made some “merit badge” style awards you can use as a visual reminder of your successes. I added in some common milestones, but you can white them out and replace them with your own goals. Remember that even negative experiences and failures are …

I’ve talked before about how doing boxsets and anthologies can be great for building your author platform – not only to reach more readers, but also to build long term relationships with other authors in your genre. And I’ve talked a lot about doing book giveaways to encourage shares and promotion; and also about doing newsletter swaps to reach more readers. …

I’m writing this post in response to a new infographic dividing up the Myers-Briggs personality types into Harry Potter characters. First of all, I don’t think Malfoy actually fits the INTJ personality type, actually. But I do think “strategists” are usually misunderstood and often villainized. Recently I’ve noticed feelings of guilt when I share my plans, because I’m always thinking …

I had good intentions. I meant to boil down my most recent book launch into a simple, one page roadmap. Instead, like usual, I have a sprawling document worth of notes – I’m going to share it here so it can start being useful. Make sure you scroll down to the end and read “my original plan” – that’s what …