Write. Publish. Repeat. (The No-Luck-Required Guide to Self-Publishing Success) Kindle Edition

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.

You may be familiar with the Self-Publishing Podcast ¨C hosted by Johnny B. Truant, Sean Platt, and David Wright ¨C which has featured a wide variety of people doing unique and interesting things in the world of self-publishing. These podcasters have taken what they¡¯ve learned from guests on their podcast as well as what they¡¯ve gleaned from the numerous book series they¡¯ve already published and combined them into a mammoth entertaining treatise called Write, Publish, Repeat (The No-Luck-Required To Self-Publishing Success).This book gives you an inside look at the collaborative writing process of a team of three extremely prolific writers. These guys are not afraid of burning the midnight oil and their organizational skills and work ethic are something to be admired. They are responsible for such series as Yesterday¡¯s Gone, The Beam, and Unicorn Western.Several insights I gained from the book could prove quite helpful in organizing my writing process. The first is the concept of writing about situations as opposed to actually writing a story. I used to start writing with a partial plot and a given character situation rather than a well thought out story that had an Act III with an actual ending. This makes a big difference if you ever hope to finish a short story or novel and I can count on one hand the number of works I¡¯ve actually finished due in large part to not thinking through a complete story before the actual writing begins. Some free writing pantsers will of course disagree but keep in mind thinking things through to an ending doesn¡¯t mean you are locked in to that ending. During the past six months I have put a lot more focus on endings when I start a project but the concept of situation vs. story put a handle on it and reinforced the importance of having a three act story, nailing down an ending even if you end up changing it in the final stretch.The second concept which I think I¡¯ll find the most useful is the technique of beat writing as a precursor to actually writing the first draft. Writing the beats of a book is not an outline but is more akin to Cliffnotes or writing chapters and scenes in shorthand so that you have a guide to follow when you actually dig in to preparing your first draft. As the authors phrase it, ¡°[Story Beats look like] they were written by someone who was barely paying attention¡±. When actually writing the draft, you don¡¯t have to completely echo the beats but at least it gives you a guide to follow and speeds up the first draft process.Here¡¯s an example of beats that the authors offered from their book Unicorn Western. I had to edit out a couple of words to conform to Amazon's review rules.Chapter 5: Clint is now all angry and grizzled and f&^% everyone, so he decides to go up on the Mesa, and use Edward¡¯s magic to look across the plains and see what he can see. As he¡¯s leaving town, he¡¯s approached by Theodore (mention him earlier), an orphan kid who does odd jobs for everyone. Teddy wants to go with Clint, but Clint tells him he can¡¯t. He¡¯s too young and will get himself killed. Teddy insists, and reminds Clint that he was looking for reinforcements. Two is almost worse than one since it¡¯s more like a tagalong. He either needs a lot of people, or he needs to be by himself. The kid sticks up for himself, and after a short and funny argument wins Clint¡¯s approval. He finally agrees to let him go. He has his own horse, but he¡¯s so poor that his horse is the cowboy equivalent of a Pinto. Edward acts like a *(($# about it. They ride out of Solace together. Clint feels guilty during the ride, wanting to go back to Mai. He thinks about his haunted past, and how lonely he¡¯s always been. How maybe all of his habits are wrong. Maybe the best thing he could do would be to return to Solace, sweep Mai onto the back of Edward, then ride through the night on their first day toward The Realm. Not far from the Mesa, they run into trouble. A band of outlaws is stopping by a stew pool, wells of water scattered throughout The Sprawl. The water inside stew pools is replenishing for mind and body. One might say magical.¡¡Chapter 6: The kid wants to charge them, and knows the Marshal could do it. Clint tells him he¡¯s a %#&*&^#@ and too young to know it. The kid argues that Clint¡¯s too old, and that his instincts are dull. Clint smacks him down, articulating why he¡¯s the king of the mother*(&%$# desert. Way Clint sees it, no one¡¯s in The Sprawl by accident, and it makes a lot more sense to see what they¡¯re up to than to kill them outright. The kid argues that they need the element of surprise. Clint checkmates his s*** because the element of surprise isn¡¯t &^$@ when you ride with a unicorn. Clint tells some story about the kid that shows he¡¯s an impulsive *&^$(@, then they agree to circle around and use Edward¡¯s magic to see what they can find out.______________________________So I sat down to write some beats to a short story I had outlined with sticky notes on a storyboard that I put together a week ago with cardboard and duct tape. I use this board for short stories and I¡¯ll be using a larger linear board for novels.I started the beat writing at Chapter 1, Scene 1 and ended up buzz sawing through the first 5 chapters and scenes in a flood of writing. It was as if my subconscious had finally found a method to release what it had already worked out for this particular story. Was it pretty? No it¡¯s a hack job of word streaming but I can clearly see where I¡¯m headed in the story and have a great guide to actually writing a first draft. Here¡¯s a beat story example of a chapter and scene from my short story, working title ¡®Diorama¡¯:Chap 2 Scn 2: Ruth Holden is tossing and turning in bed and can¡¯t sleep. She starts running through her mind what a hell on Earth the past couple of months have been. Her field supervisor sent her to Lansing, Michigan after an influx of 200 patients invaded all of the surrounding hospital emergency rooms reporting hallucinatory symptoms involving severe headaches along with the belief that they are recalling repressed memories they didn¡¯t know existed. The patient population is growing so fast it appears to be some kind of airborne virus, the most rapidly infectious kind of pathogen. Ruth and her containment team descend on the capital city as well as East Lansing where the university is located with a fleet of CDC vans. They set up shop at one of the local hospitals. Patients entering the hospital who report symptoms of the hallucinatory virus now known as the Hal-Virus must be screened by the hazmat suited team to be tested for possible pathogens. Once cleared by the hazmat team, all patients are send back to the emergency room to be assessed for possible admission to the psych wards. Physicians are at a loss about what to do and the psych wards are rapidly getting beyond capacity. Spillovers are being sent to county jails for safekeeping.Psychiatrists start treating victims with atypical antipsychotic drugs the most effective being Closaril which is used in treating hallucinations and delusions. Unfortunately while the anxiety of the patients are reduced the foreign memories persist.Ruth recalls the most interesting of recent cases involving Lilly Thomson, a psychiatric nurse at a nearby hospital, who started talking to her patients about her new found hobby of coin collecting and how a hobby might be helpful in distracting them from the influx of new memories they¡¯ve been experiencing. That went well until she told them that her hobby involved collecting Roman coins from the 4th century with elaborate details about the homes, culture and habits of the locals of that period that were too accurate and realistic. Later she claimed that she actually lived in the 4th century as a Roman prefect by the name of Flavius Filagrius who was in charge of a strategic granary and given the title of Praefectus Augustalis. She was admitted to the ward to reside among her patients.There have been confirmed outbreaks of the Hal-Virus outside of the U.S. in London, Paris, and the Philippines.A large percentage of people can¡¯t shake the feeling that what they¡¯re experiencing are repressed memories of things they have done in the past and they are either so foreign, exotic or barbarian that they lose touch with their former reality and have to be admitted for psychiatric care.Ruth is at a loss as to how to deal with a virus that so far has been undetectable with present day technology. There appears to be only one thing left to do. Narrow down the search to patient zero or at least hone in on the source of the infection.Ruth¡¯s phone rings and its her assistant Bill Pullman who informs her that they have a Dr. Dane Gilmore who voluntarily turned himself in to the MSU Campus Police claiming that he may have caused the Hal-Virus and he has some important information which could shed light on this whole thing. What do you want us to do with him?Hold him and don¡¯t let him out of your sight! I¡¯ll be right over.______________________________I found that combing beats with a well thought out storyboard just might get me through that first draft a lot faster. It probably will considering that the story beats consist of a free flowing summary of the entire story including all chapters and scenes.One pleasing result from using beats is that my characters started to distinguish themselves from one another and two more characters popped up to let me know they had to be part of the action so I wrote them in. Beats freed me up to just write without worrying about dialog, grammar or smooth flowing narrative. The faster you write them the less chance your critical self has to engage and interfere with getting it all down. In fact, the authors recommend that you finish the beats as well as the first draft absolutely as fast as you can to avoid having to worry about perfection.______________________________I have given you only a small sampling of what you¡¯ll find in Write, Publish, Repeat. Besides being an entertaining read the book is loaded with ideas related to editing, publishing, and marketing such as the self publishing landscape, pre-production and post-production, funnel marketing, keyword research, Scrivener vs. Word and Lightning Source vs. CreateSpace plus many more.One last bit of wisdom that could be useful is that if you aren¡¯t enjoying what you¡¯re writing, if it doesn¡¯t get you excited when you think about it, scrap it and start something else. They¡¯re not saying that writing isn¡¯t hard work or a grind sometimes but if you don¡¯t get excited or enthused about it once in awhile, it¡¯s time, to opt out and start another project. I believe that¡¯s true.The authors plan on releasing more books in the near future regarding their writing process which I¡¯m definitely looking forward too.

I have written several non fiction books but I have been an aspiring fiction author for over 30 years, I've even started writing books and binned them after 40,000 words or so as the task just seemed too daunting. After reading this book I really got fired up to write again and am already up to 10,000 words on my first serialized fiction novel.What made the difference?For one, the guys Johnny B Truant, Sean Platt and David Wright all write serialized novels i.e. They write a six or nine book series of books, each one self contained, so they're really novellas. They also write full length novels, but to me writing serialized novels just made so much sense and gave me that feeling of 'I can do this' instead of thinking 'Jeez, 120,000 words is just too much'.The section on story beats really made it for me though. Again it was like an 'a-ha' moment and really pushed the book I'm writing forward. It sounds like a really simple idea but truly it is a really powerful idea.They also go into the marketing of your book which every author should know about, but they do it in such a way that it's genuine heart marketing: reaching your fans in a genuine and honest way.The business of writing is also covered which is just great.I said this was one of four resources you need, here are all four:1. This book2. Stephen King's 'On Writing' book - I have read this 5 times over the last few years.3. Scrivener (Amazing must have tool for all writers)4. The Self Publishing Podcast (A video and audio podcast by the guys who wrote this book. It is funny, smart and just bloody amazing with some fantastic information for indie authors)If you're into writing and willing to put in the work required this book and the resources above will definitely get you there.

There are so many things I love about this book:For those of us working on our first book it manages to be inspiring and yet realistic at the same time. (Basically it's all in the title. If you do the work then you can become a published writer.)But unusually for a non-fiction book, the authors' personalities also shine through and make it really entertaining. It also comes across as a really honest book that is genuinely trying to help other authors succeed (rather than claiming that there is some quick and easy formula for writing that will earn you big bucks). These guys have succeeded as writers by putting in the hours and going through difficult times, and they don't pretend that it's all been easy. I actually found that to be very reassuring, and it motivated me to keep on working on my own writing project.Because it's likely to be months (if not years) until I'm ready to publish my current book, I was originally worried that some of the information in "Write.Publish.Repeat" would be out of date by the time it came to publishing and marketing (because the world of indie publishing seems to change and evolve really quickly). But they cleverly focus on the long-term strategies rather than short-term tactics of marketing a book. So I feel that when I'm getting to the final draft of my book then the advice in "W.P.R." will still be relevant and applicable, and I can re-read those bits of advice when they are more relevant to each stage of publishing that I reach.In summary they talk a lot of sense - based on both good and bad experiences that they've had - and give useful and practical advice but in an entertaining way instead of the traditional 'dry' non-fiction format. I loved this book and now I want to read all of their other ones.

If you want to write a book, are interested in self-publishing and are willing to work hard and consistently - then if you read no other book on writing - please, please read this one. Sean, Dave and Johnny host a weekly podcast - Self-Publishing Podcast (available on iTunes and YouTube) - I stumbled across it about 5 months ago and wished with all my heart I'd found it 2 years ago when I started my journey. They are an inspiration and they have a child-like joy in writing that is totally contagious. This book is a distillation of the knowledge they share in the podcast and have learnt on their self-publishing adventures.They don't promise a pot of gold, fame and fortune but they show you how to approach writing as a business whilst still maintaining the all the joy of the art. It's a brilliant, inspiring and informative read and a must have for the library of any author or aspiring writer.They've also recently written another book 'Fiction Unboxed' in which they detailed the journey they took writing a book in 30 days (from zero idea to publication) in front of an audience of more than a 1,000. It’s another great read and a real inspiration for the non-superhuman authors like myself. Wow can those boys produce word count – they’re machines.Anyway the book’s great and well worth getting and if you haven’t yet started watching their Self-Publishing Podcast, then what are you doing with your nights? I watch an episode or two every night and have reached Episode 87 (filmed in Dec 2013) so I still have another 52 or so to go until I’m up-to-date. I’ve learnt more watching these podcasts than everywhere else combined – so check it out. You’ll thank me – I promise you (although be prepared for locker room language - in the podcasts not the books).

I wish I'd read this book years ago. Shame these talented guys only published it this year. But, to be fair to them, they've been pretty busy following their own advice. If you've never heard from them before, check them out on the Self-publishing Podcast.I can't remember how I came across them, but it was probably via the podcast. I'm so glad I did though. I self-published my first novel The Face Stealer in late 2013 and since then have been working on new novels. Being an Indie Author though, is a relatively new phenomenon and quite how you're supposed to go from being an unknown writer, to one with readers and earning money, is somewhat of a mystery. There are plenty of people out there claiming to have all the answers; they know how to get an instant readership, become successful overnight, earn millions from one book. But, basically they're all full of it. The true secrets of becoming a successful Indie Author are contained in this book.Actually, that's a lie. The true secret is emblazoned boldly on the cover.There are no secrets to self-publishing success and anyone who doesn't want to work at it, is going to be pretty miserable. This book is a guide from being that naive author just starting out, to being a successful author. It's doable, if you're willing to put the hours in.This book has been one of two I've read recently that has changed my attitude to being an Indie Author and I'm happy to recommend it to anyone wanting to turn a writing hobby, into a career.

This was an excellent read, and I would highly recommend it to any self-published author or those thinking of self-publishing. I wish I had come across it a year ago as it would have saved me from making some silly mistakes.There were two main takeaways from this book for me. 1. Affirmation that I'm doing a lot of the right things now and 2. I picked up lots of other ideas for things I am not doing, that I will now apply.I loved the conversational style of the writing and it suited me to a T. The guys are very honest about their own experiences to date and open about their personal lives, and it helped me connect to the material. I also found it very motivational and inspirational.There was some repetition within the first third of the book, but I just skimmed over those parts.I really enjoyed the author interviews at the back.All in all, an excellent book. I've already recommended it to several people I know who are getting ready to self-publish.Actua Rating: 4.5 Stars