I’ve been reading Johnny B. Truant’s writing and listening to his advice for years. Together with Sean Platt, he helped shape a generation of indie authors, championing prolificacy and experimentation in the early, heady days of digital self-publishing. Their landmark book, Write. Publish. Repeat, became almost a blueprint for indie success, codifying practices that would later morph (without their intent) into the “rapid release” industrial model in which many indie authors now feel trapped.
My own work and ethos here at the Productive Indie Fiction Writer (PIFW) has always echoed their early mantra: write more, maximize your time and attention. But I’ve also drawn a hard line between sustainable prolificacy and unsustainable hyper-productivity. Writing “more” does not mean writing as much as humanly possible. It certainly does not mean sacrificing quality, sanity, or health to appease the whims of algorithms.
Which is why The Artisan Author landed with such force for me; not as a gentle suggestion but as a jaw-dropping reframe of what it means to be an independent author in this moment.
At its heart, this book offers a liberating proposal: don’t play the game as it’s currently defined. Walk away from algorithm worship, punishing release schedules, and the demoralizing grind of selling at 99 cents to churn-hungry subscription readers. Instead, write what you want to write, at the pace that suits you, and charge a fair price for your work.
Truant isn’t the first to voice this call, but his timing feels almost prophetic. Joanna Penn, who has long had her eye on how AI will shape the creative landscape, urges authors to “write big beautiful books” and to lean hard into their humanity, precisely because machines cannot replicate the deep human touch. Becca Syme, author of Dear Author: You Should Quit, among many others, comes at this from a health and well-being perspective, encouraging authors to slow down and honor their natural rhythms.
What Truant adds is the voice of an insider who knows exactly how deeply the rapid release mindset has become entrenched, in part because he helped energize the culture that produced it. His critique carries weight because he’s been there. And his writing in The Artisan Author reflects a shift — a maturity, an authenticity — that feels hard-won and deeply considered.
Structurally, the book is divided into two parts:
- Part One surveys the history of indie publishing. For veterans like me, it’s a fascinating and sometimes sobering recap of how we got here. For newer authors, it’s an essential orientation that provides context for what follows.
- Part Two delivers the real punch: a passionate critique of rapid release culture, and an alternative vision grounded in what he calls the Six Pillars of Artisandom; principles designed to support a human-first, sustainable, creative indie career.
Rather than list those pillars in full, I want to highlight one that struck me deeply: the call to value readers as individuals, not as data points to be fed into algorithms. Truant insists that the artisan author’s goal is to find readers who are loyal to the author, not merely loyal to a genre, retailer, or recommendation engine. This means cultivating relationships, inviting readers into your creative world, and building something durable and genuine.
If this reminds you of Kevin Kelly’s 1,000 True Fans philosophy, you’re not out to lunch. Truant refers to this iconic 2008 post frequently. And with reason; it’s a solid, sensible and simple strategy, one I’ve mentioned frequently here on PIFW.
Another standout pillar is his emphasis on crafting beautiful books, not just in content but in form. Artisan authors can think beyond disposable ebooks and lean into quality physical editions, limited print runs, and collectible packaging: a direct answer to a culture obsessed with cheapness and convenience.
Throughout, Truant’s tone is conversational but unmistakably earnest. His voice is still witty and sharp (witness his brilliant line about Kindle Unlimited: “It’s true that I don’t like KU for myself. It’s true that I’d rather smash my face between the iron plates of a George Foreman grill than put my ebooks into KU.”) but this time there’s no mistaking his sincerity.
There’s a subversive energy here, too; a quiet rebellion against the very platforms that have defined and dominated indie publishing since 2007. In one of the book’s most striking lines, Truant writes:
“Do I not-so-secretly believe that the entire Rapid Release economy will eventually collapse because it’s built like a Ponzi scheme instead of on sensible business principles that have stood the test of time for centuries? Oh, yes; I very much believe that. For that reason, do I also think Artisan Authoring might be the best alternative to that fate, and may be the only viable self-publishing model remaining in the near future? Yeah. I believe that, too.”
In a moment when AI threatens to flood the market with undifferentiated, soulless content, and when many indie authors feel trapped by diminishing returns from platforms that once promised liberation, The Artisan Author feels perfectly timed…almost inevitable. Truant’s genius has always been his ability to articulate what many are starting to feel just before they can articulate it themselves. He did it with Write. Publish. Repeat. at the dawn of the indie publishing boom. He’s done it again here.
This book isn’t for everyone. If you love rapid release, if you thrive in high-velocity genre production, and enjoy “winning” at the Kindle Unlimited game, you may find this book puzzling or irrelevant. But for authors who feel trapped, burned out, or alienated from their own work, this book is nothing short of a lifeline.
If I have one critique, it’s that Truant devotes considerable attention to in-person events as a key artisan strategy but gives comparatively little guidance on how to cultivate an artisan ethos in online spaces. This is a gap that may leave authors with physical, geographic, or logistical limitations wondering what their path forward might look like.
Still, this is a small quibble in an otherwise essential book. Truant is opening a door, not offering a blueprint. Others will come behind him to explore this new terrain more fully. As he says repeatedly: you do you. The point isn’t to replace one orthodoxy with another. The point is to reclaim authorship itself as a space for creativity, humanity, and sustainability.
In the end, The Artisan Author is exactly what indie publishing needs right now: a thoughtful, clear-eyed, hopeful provocation.
If you’ve felt exhausted by the current rules of the game, or if you’re simply looking for permission to write your way, at your pace, for your readers, read this book immediately.
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The Artison Author is currently in a Kickstarter campaign (that funded inside two hours), which you can find here. It will be available for retail sale in November.