Welcome to the book podcast that's going to save you from making some very expensive mistakes.
Here's the thing nobody tells you about publishing: if you go into it thinking your book is going to make you wealthy, or turn you into a household name, you're setting yourself up for devastating disappointment. And I've watched it happen to hundreds of authors.
The stats are brutal. Eighty-five percent of book advances never earn out. Most authors make less than minimum wage when you calculate their hourly rate. First-time authors routinely suffer from what I call post-book depression - that crushing realization that publishing your dream doesn't automatically transform your reality.
But this won’t be a downer! Who wants to listen to a downer? Not you! That’s why this is all actually GOOD news: in the first season, I’m going to interview people who will give you the reality, and make you feel way better if your traditional book dreams haven’t come true, or, conversely, have come true and left you wanting.
We're going to talk about all of it. The jealousy that eats authors alive when their friends get better deals and the way authorpreneurs avoid that because they know it’s not about the book advance. The underpaid reality of most writing careers and how people who sell 100 books can end up making more money in the long run than people who sell 10,000. The marketing myths that waste your money and the ones that work. The way publishers lie to their authors and how to see beyond the veil. And we'll dish about why some terrible books succeed and wonderful ones fail to sell a lot of copies.
Whether you're thinking about writing a book, struggling with your first one or are an entrepreneur wondering if a book makes business sense, you need to hear these conversations. Because delusion is a luxury people writing books can’t afford.
So if you want the unfiltered truth about what publishing is really like, and how to use it strategically instead of getting crushed by it, you're in the right place. Let's pull back the book cover and talk about books like the business they actually are.