The Publishing Series
Make a Living as a Self-Published Author
Build the Business Behind the Book
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Most self-published authors sell fewer than a dozen copies, almost all to people they know. Paperback and ebook · 302 pages · ISBN 978-1-946458-54-4 · book details |
| 53Age he left the job | 302Pages | 2026Edition, with the AI chapter | 113+Books written |
The bestseller that tanked
Most self-published authors sell fewer than a dozen copies, almost all of them to people they know. Not because the book is bad. Because writing it was only half the job, and nobody told them about the other half.
I left a six figure corporate career at 53 and spent the next three years publishing 113+ books and ghostwriting 54+ more. I built a catalog that generates income across multiple formats and platforms, and landed ghostwriting and coaching clients through a blog I started with no audience.
This is not a book about how to write. It is a book about building a publishing business. The difference matters.
From the introduction
My first bestseller, Focus on LinkedIn, did exceptionally well. I had gathered many reviews and promoted heavily using a service, and sold a thousand copies in a single day. Building on that, I submitted to BookBub, was accepted, and sold another five thousand.
Then it tanked, and I could never rebuild that success with that title. It sells well at ninety-nine cents blasted to a list of 440,000 addresses. Priced at a respectable $4.99, sales dropped to a few copies a week.
A friend published a coloring book and did the same thing, over two thousand copies in a few days. Priced to earn a decent royalty, sales dropped and never recovered.
Spikes feel good. You cannot run a business on them, because unpredictable income makes it hard to pay predictable bills.
What is inside
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Before you write a word
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The business underneath
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AI, honestly
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What is new in 2026
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Quantity, and why it is not a slur
Write as many books as fast as you can. Spend six months on a 100,000 word novel and it earns nothing for six months. Write eight 10,000 word books at three weeks each and by the eighth you already have seven earning.
Quantity is more important than quality, and quality is more important than length. That sounds like heresy until you have watched a single title spike and collapse while a catalog of moderate sellers pays the rent every month.
Who this is for
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Worth your time if
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Not for you if
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Why me
I have written 113+ books under my own name and ghostwritten 54+ more for other people. Before that I spent 33 years in enterprise IT, twenty of them as Director of Computer Operations at Trader Joe’s.
Everything in this book comes from doing it, including the parts that did not work. That is the difference between a guide written by a practitioner and one written by somebody who sells courses about the practice.
Questions people ask
Steady beats spectacular
Books that sell moderately well week after week will build a life. A single spike will not.
Paperback and ebook. Amazon, IngramSpark and Kobo.