Review: An "entrepreneur" dishing entre-manure.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Date: 11 23, 2013
This is quite possibly the single worst book on e-book publishing that I've ever read. With a full three page clicks worth of information on your book's actual content, Mr. Brown (hey, way to ride someone else's successful coattails, dude) and his "self-publishing secrets" should probably remain secret because they are, for the most part, completely and totally useless.First of all, for someone who's an "expert" in this sort of thing, his book is poorly formatted. No working table of contents, no page breaks, huge unnecessary fonts, missing pictures, no working exterior links, uneven margins in bullet lists ... it looks like it did cost him $5 to format it.And that's another major fault of this book: Relying on Fiverr.com for all your specialized tasks, such as formatting, covers, editing, etc. He actually tells readers to find a cover artist on Fiverr with lots of experience, so they'll do unlimited revisions for you. Not unless they're complete suckers, dude, and certainly not for $5.And when not using Fiverr, he suggests an author just sit back for 24-hours and then proofread and edit his book for publication. Nope. That's really not the way it works for a proper book; perhaps for the slapdash crap he'd like everyone to put out, cobbled together from the internet, but NOT for a proper book. You need to hire someone to edit, or at least proofread. An author CANNOT objectively or subjectively edit their own book. Not unless you've put it away in a drawer for a few years. Your mind will overlook the errors - you know what you meant to say, right? You'll never even see it.Mr. Brown's lack of expertise is exemplified by the one simple passage (and I quote):"After setting your price scroll down and enroll your book in Kindle Matchbook if you would like. I'm not entirely sure what this program is all about but I do know you make royalties from unites sold so I enroll all my books."Umm, you're proclaiming to be a self-publishing expert, yet you're telling everyone to do something and you don't even know what the hell it means? Have you had some sort of major head injury lately?(And to everyone else: Kindle Matchbook is there to match prices between your e-book and a print edition of your book - you can offer your e-book for a lower price or free when someone buys your print book; there's no royalties to be made without them both, no matter what Mr. Brown might think.)Mr. Brown, like many of the vile producers of drek that have invaded the self-publishing world is out to make money. This book is all about doing that in all the wrong ways. If you want your book to be relatively popular, but care very little about it other than as a cash cow, feel free to read this work and follow all the misbegotten advice within. The folks on Fiverr will love you.But if you'd actually like to get readers that will come back, and put out a quality product, you would do well to search out credible sources of self-publishing advice that will help you grow a proper readership - not one that hates you for your shallow cash grabs.