Who Are You And Why Should I Care?

I'll cut right to the chase. I'm disrupting an $86 billion industry. I already have.

I built a perfectly vertical publishing business that does not rely on AI or algorithms. My business allows me to write a book, manufacture digital, audiobook and print editions, publish them instantly and deliver them directly to readers without relying on social media for promotion. I don't need affiliate marketing, CPC, cargo ships from China or SEO. I don't need anyone's permission. My store already outperforms both Amazon and YouTube by double-digit and triple-digit percentages without a dime spent on ads.

I also keep 97% of the revenue.

I'm doing things with electronic publishing other companies and authors haven't even thought of yet.

All last year, I got paid to promote my books while I added substantially to my growing list of book buyers. I knew I could do even better so I invented a system that allows me to find new readers without any large-scale marketing at all. I can grow my audience exponentially at zero cost and bypass Big Tech entirely.

That isn't to say I don't use social media. If you give me access to your audience I'll be very happy to steal it. But I don't need social media, which means their coercive tactics don't affect me at all. You can de-platform me all day. I have my own. I built my own.

It's like the old joke. My enemy whispered to me "you are not strong enough to withstand the coming storm," and I whispered back "I am the storm."

I can teach you how to do everything I just wrote. I'm not going to sell you a course. I'm not going to invite you to a webinar. I'm not going to upsell you. My offer is simple. Everything you need is in this book. If you follow my advice you will be able to single-handedly build a completely vertical publishing business just like mine, sell books all on your own, set your own prices, distribute worldwide, set your own working hours and keep all the money.

Do I have your attention yet?

If you're an author, you need your own bookstore like a fat man needs a walk.

Once you have that bookstore, and the titles to populate it, you need a way to promote your books that doesn't consume all your revenues and time, and doesn't require permission.

Bookstore Hero will provide you with procedures to get both. We've come a long way since the dawn of self-publishing, and we're now in a position where an individual author can write, market and sell their own books, audiobooks, paperbacks and hardcovers in any genre in a completely vertical business model at a negative cost.

Negative cost means I can show you how to get paid to market your book.

Do I have your attention yet?

The first edition of Bookstore Hero was written in 2021, back when people were still taking Self-Publishing 1.0 seriously. It was heavily updated in 2024. And again in 2025. This is the third edition. The reason there are second and third editions is because I've come up with a way to market books that is innovative, disruptive, forward-thinking and would have been impossible even three years ago, because it takes advantage of technology that didn't exist three years ago.

This is not going to be a delicate book. My writing style is neither diplomatic nor tactful. I'm going to give it to you loud and rude because that way you'll remember it. One day you will be thankful for this advice. It was hard won. Learning this business was painful in more ways than you'll ever know, and not just for me.

I stood alone with nothing but my latest book in my hand against forces unimagined by past generations of authors and won. I beat the trillion-dollar robot. Then I beat the other trillion-dollar robot. I won both matches on their home fields. I beat Big Tech. I beat the Tron control grid. Not only that I beat the biggest advertising platform on Earth by triple-digit percentages. When they make the movie they just might cast Jeff Bridges as me. Because you bought this book you will get my knowledge without having to climb over concertina wire, disarm landmines or hire law firms to evaluate 112-page terms of service agreements.

I write the way I do because to me the printed page is sacred. It matters to me. My parents were both award-winning journalists and I graduated university with a degree in English. I have over a million words in print across 76 titles. I've been around writing and writers my entire life.

I also write this way because I don't want you to go through what the rest of us had to face. If you started self-publishing back in say, 2011 to 2014 you had to endure a lot of really destructive stupidity. There is no reason authors should be forced to overcome asteroid strikes, giant praying mantis attacks and carnivorous locust swarms in order to write and sell a book.

To keep things moving along, I'm going to minimize the Noah metaphors. At the same time I should point out I started building my own bookstore more than ten years ago, right about the time I wrote my Jericho™ book builder software. I saw the current state of affairs coming and I'm fortunate to have had the foresight to avoid it. You are similarly fortunate, because you are reading a book written by an author who is willing to say what others won't. Left to the whims of the incumbents and conventional wisdom, you will very likely end up bankrupt in a locked room talking to yourself while being led to believe you were some kind of marketing genius because you sold nine copies and then gave your book away for fractions of a penny a page.

I'm going to alert you to some unavoidable facts right at the outset here so there is no question where you are and what is going on. The "self-publishing" movement is over. It lasted right about ten years. It started with a cheap flimsy piece of plastic crammed with cheap flimsy electronics that contained a half-dozen moderately good ideas and ended with a walkout that looked like the Student Court Scene in Animal House.

Along the way, mistakes were made. Lessons were learned. We laughed. We cried. We got over it. Now it's time for Self-Publishing 2.0. We are the new writing community. We're not going to make the same mistakes twice. If you are reading this book you are one of those authors who are looking for answers. Well, I've got good news for you. I arrived on the self-publishing scene pretty early. I watched the lottery winners celebrate. I endured the constant goal post shifts. I listened politely while self-appointed experts lectured us long and loud about our covers and blurbs while they conveniently omitted the truth and quietly concealed their ad budgets. I managed to keep my mouth shut while the Bubclub and the gurus congratulated themselves and charged other authors eye-watering amounts of money to solve problems that should never have existed in the first place. I was there when Skynet became self-aware, and now I keep a German shepherd close by every time I reach for my keyboard.

While I watched the robot slowly close its hand around the throats of my fellow authors, I encountered things that didn't quite track with the conventional wisdom. Over the years we have all been brutally acquainted with the way we were (apologies to Barbra Streisand). The early publishing industry in the 19th and 20th centuries, at least in English-speaking territories, was rapidly walled off and vigorously regimented once it became practical to distribute printed books at a manageable cost. Only two groups of people kept the flame alive long enough to get us to the Internet: comic artists and pulp authors. What's left of the traditional publishing industry is still obsessively guarding the last of the fossilized donuts even though breakfast adjourned 40 years ago. It is the only industry populated by the undead that actually believes average sales of 100 units is good business.

I was not willing to try to negotiate a book deal in a company where I have to let go of an encyclopedia from four feet above a wooden table to get a meeting started. I'm an educated author with a pretty sophisticated and agile sense of humor, but I have no interest at all in trying to persuade a 74-year-old man my fantasy adventure series about a teenage girl with magic powers is fun. These people wouldn't know a good manuscript if one fell through the ceiling. One need only look at their magnificent list of recent hit titles that was last updated in 1978.

By now Self-Publishing 1.0 has been similarly walled off and vigorously regimented. You might still have books published through the "new" system, but if you think the foundation of your house hasn't become a food court for termites, consider this your wake up call. Things ain't what they started out as and they certainly ain't what they used to be. There's been a lot of noise lately about the fact that "a million books are uploaded every day!" as if reasonable people don't know two million books are being deleted every day. My books were deleted in 2023. You're next.

If you think I'm kidding, I'm as serious as a hoof and mouth outbreak. The combination of laziness, incompetence and hostile stupidity with a side of greed on wheels that has infested every corner of this business is enough to chase a dog off a meat wagon.

Fasten your battle harness. This is the part where the exciting music kicks in. The Million Dollar Artist™ series is the most action-packed library of non-fiction books you will ever read. This set is like a team of superheroes. They all have different powers and they will all work together to make you a success. Bookstore Hero is one of our toughest.

This is serious. Listen close, because I'm not the only person who suffered to get you this knowledge and the advice that follows. What you're getting from the Tron control grid is rent seeking. I'm offering you the key to the lock on your cage and a real career. In the immortal words of Kyle Reese, come with me if you want to live.