The Truly Successful Author: Build your author career in ten hours per week

by Maria Secoy

Most new authors are focusing on learning the WRONG things!

All successful authors have a few things in
✔️ They have published more than 10 books (most have more than 40).
✔️ They have been writing and publishing for more than 3 years.
✔️ They ONLY invest in the right strategies for that stage of their career.

The Truly Successful Author will teach you the processes, strategies, and skills that modern authors use to grow from “I’m a writer” to “I’m a profitable author” in the exact order of priority necessary to be successful from Book 1 through retirement.

This includes understanding how
• weave publishing & marketing into your writing schedule
• build your author career in just ten to fifteen hours per week, so you can keep your day job and never burn out
• ALWAYS earn more than you spend on marketing
• preserve 80% of your author time to focus on writing
• write and publish four books per year without sacrificing quality
• streamline your process from idea generation all the way through a successful book launch, so your mind is free to dream up new stories

If you love to write but don’t know how to build an author business . . .
If you see authors publishing book-after-book while you spend years on one novel . . .
If you secretly dream of getting paid to imagine and write the stories you love . . .

The Truly Successful Author was written for you!

Genres: Writing

173 pages, Paperback

Published December 2, 2023

Reviews

[Joel Jenkins]

It's hard to give this book a fair rating without testing the principles. However, much of the book shamelessly pushes a program that promises to tutor authors into profitability. How expensive the program is I don't know because the figures aren't available without a consultation.

The premise is that by writing and releasing four books a year on a regular schedule combined with keyword research and usage an author will grow their catalog sufficiently to bring in a gradually growing income of forty or fifty thousand dollars a year or even more (given at least a twenty book catalog) if they continue to publish in the correct pattern, with the right timing.

I've had a string of years where I wrote and published that many books a year, and I can tell you that having a catalog of even fifty books doesn't guarantee that kind of income. Will that change if I incorporate these other missing elements? We'll see. If so I'll return to this review on Goodreads and give this book a million-star rating.

[Shelby Hamden · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is so wasteful. I only flagged three portions, each representing just 2-4 pages worth of actual useful instructional content. The rest is a giant advertisement for the author's online program for writers. She repeatedly used the same phrases about her program, why it's so great, how it will help you, etc. That fills over 95% of the content of the book. There are maybe 10 solid pages of the actual "meat" of the concept.

The real details and action steps of how to be "A Truly Successful Author" only take up a couple pages. The rest is build up and advertisement. Not worth even half the cost.

Also, if that weren't enough. The author stretches the book to almost 200 pages of content with the magic of large print type. The literal words were bigger than any print copy of books on writing craft I have. (Frey, Weiland, Dixon, Hayes, etc. every non-fic book on writing I own is in a smaller and still very readable font.) Take it down to a more average font and it would barely fit 150 pages. Take it down to the actual substance of the book and you have maybe a dozen.

The eventual substance of the book IS incredibly useful. (Which is why 2 instead of just 1 star) But it took me 4 hours to gain the information that was extracted in the last 30 minutes. If you really want the info and don't mind paying for it, just skip to read the first couple pages of Ch 7, 8, and 10. The rest is just an entire football Sunday worth of ads for her online course.

[Ben Boven · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love writing and would love to make a living at it. Not writing copy, not trying to get short stories into online publications for prize money, just writing great stories like the ones I myself pay for and read. The system laid out here by the author makes my dream seem possible in a very concrete way. I'm excited to try the methods used in this book and continue on in my truly successful author education!

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

A little repetitive, but overall, very informative. For someone who wants to write books, like me, this is a must read for today’s author landscape. Of all the information you need to be successful, this book definitely provides a large piece, or several pieces of the puzzle. Highly recommend!

I’ve seen successful authors that self-publish say this kind of stuff before. But to see the math/numbers of an author business makes the goal a lot more clear.

[DE Kilgore · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a must read for all authors. It really made me sit back and think, then take action! I've already applied many suggestions in this book with positive outcomes and I'm looking forwards to applying everything from scratch when I do my pen name relaunch!

[Katrina Strohl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Has me motivated and ready to make this a career!

[Trista · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recommend this book for aspiring/new indie authors. As an indie author myself, this would have been so helpful from the get-go. I’m not a new author, but there’s still great info here and I look forward to applying it. I’ll update my review and rating once I’ve tried it all out.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be easily accessible. It makes a lot of sense but also things are broken down so that it's easy to understand. Worth the read.

[Jenn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book for absolute beginners. If you have any experience with self publishing, a lot of this will be familiar to you. The last 1/3-1/4 was great with the timeline for publishing

[Marla Holt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like this strategy a lot

[Kimberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

A helpful book. Mine is now full of post it notes marking the places I want to refer to.

[Neri Lopez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gave wonderful insight into the world of being an author. I now have a better understanding of a working publishing schedule. And she provides great tips and tricks.

[Chené Tuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is a valuable read and me a lot to think about. hoping to implement it and be successful by following the suggested strategies.

[DoodleBug · Rating 1 out of 5]

This "author" is inexperienced and far from financially successful. When challenged, she prefers to block people's profiles rather than engage in open debate about her credentials.

She claims many, but can produce almost none. Of all the books I found linked to her, only one (ONE!!!!) had more than 100 Amazon ratings and reviews. ONE. That isn't successful, financially or otherwise. She's not making a living from her writing, let alone achieving any real success.

Authors beware of scam artists like this one, who try to sell the One True Way when they haven't a clue what they're talking about. Aspiring authors are better off spending their time writing.

Or, for the truly desperate, go to the original source material from which Secoy stopped just shy of plagiarizing: Craig Martelle's Successful Indie Author Series; Chris Fox's Write Faster, Write Smarter Series; 20Books Vegas YouTube presentations (free!); and the hundreds of helpful posts made by six and seven figure authors in the 20Books to 50K Facebook group (also free!).

Understand that there is no silver bullet to creating and sustaining a writing career, and Secoy is certainly neither experienced nor successful enough to give advice on this subject.

[Natalie Forslind · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting way of approaching an author career. I do feel like it could have delved deeper, with more examples or research. Also the print screens/examples where not readable in the print edition. Last but not least I felt like it was a bit to much of a sales pitch to join the All write well community on Skool.

[Mystika · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. Between this and joining the writer to author program, I never would have gotten my 1st book published!
If you are a writer that has been dreaming of hitting that publish button, consider reading this book to make that a reality!

[Robin · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you are a formulaic writer, this book is for you. If not, don't even bother with it.