REVIEW: Self-Publishing Secrets

This book is one of the most challenging I have had to review. So before I dive into my thoughts, a few disclaimers.

I have published a grand total of one book on Amazon.I do not expect to get rich from the micro-niche book I have published.You are still reading this with a desire to know my thoughts. If you weren’t, you probably would not have clicked the link.

The book itself was informative and easy to read. However, my first issue lay in the title. The title is Self-Publishing Secrets. Having published one book, and knowing the frustration of jumping from blog post to blog post and podcast to podcast to find information, I was excited to pick up items that I had skipped. “Is there a secret handshake that will boost my sales?” Yes, that is a ridiculous example, however, I went into this book with the hopes of learning some of the secrets I had otherwise missed.

This book, dear reader, was not about self-publishing secrets.

The subtitle, instead, is a much more accurate representation of the book’s contents, “How To Self-Publish A Nonfiction Book On Amazon, Create The Manuscript, Get More Reviews, Sell More Books, Create A+ Content, and Much, Much, More.” Granted, this subtitle is clearly an attempt to hit as many Amazon keywords as possible. However, to the author’s credit, this better summarizes the purpose of the book, teaching someone a step-by-step process to publishing their first book on Amazon.

To that end, the content was beneficial. This book would have served me well a year ago prior to starting my own publishing journey. The content that I jumped all over the internet to find was summarized here in a tidy package. Yet, even that was not without issues. I’ll split these into objective and subjective to help differentiate opinion from observable fact.

Objective Issues

The author identifies editing and proofreading as one of the important steps once a manuscript has been completed. I wholeheartedly agree and understand how pivotal a good editor can be. Yet even as Everett wrote about proofreading, I found many errors that led me to believe he had not followed his own advice. Again, I recognize how easy it is for typos and mistakes to slip through no matter how often someone looks at the manuscript. However, at one point, I felt I could only laugh because I had yet again found something.

Subjective Issues

From the outset, I felt an aversion to the author’s approach. Toward the beginning of the book, Everett pitched to the reader writing a non-fiction book from one of a subset of popular categories. Then, after finding a niche, or even a niche-within-a-niche, research and write a book about that topic.

To be clear, this is certainly a way to write a book. However, for me, it had the feeling of a professor who just reads one chapter ahead in the book to stay ahead of the class. Perhaps this is 100% because Everett’s objective is to have you build, and then sell off a publishing empire. Perhaps I’m just too much of an old-soul fuddy-duddy who wants there to be some personal passion behind the books I write. Regardless, I didn’t care for this.

Conclusion

For a first-time author, this book collects many of the steps of self-publishing, especially those regarding Kindle Direct Publishing, and packages them together in a nice, readable format. Yet, this book is not without issues and should not be seen as unveiling any real publishing secrets