Instead of betting on either marketing, luck, or fame, the modern author follows the path of craft: to create a book so useful that readers can’t help but recommend it.
The Modern Author builds their book as if it were any other product, iteratively improving and debugging it — even before it has been written — by using real data from real readers.
This means embracing some potentially scary activities — like beginning beta reading while you know the book still has some problems — and requires doing a bit of seed marketing to get things started. But after that, marketing will become more of an option than an obligation, and your book will continue to grow.
In order to be respectful of your time, the live course is built around two classes per week, scheduled back-to-back on Mondays. You can add a single block to your calendar and then attend one or both, as you see fit. If you miss the live session, recordings and Q&A are available afterwards.
The live classes are complemented by pre-readings, Writing Accountability Groups, and ongoing feedback and Q&A via the authors' community.
Our general philosophy is to leave you with as much time as possible to work on your book, while still being available to help in case you get stuck.
Each week focuses on mastery over a crucial book-killing blunder.
Week 1 —Do readers really care?
Designing for recommendability: promise, problem, and ideal reader.
Week 2 —Will they make the time to read it?
Reader Experience and value-per-page; using beta reading data.
Week 3 —Will they take action? Will it work for them?
The knowledge gap and curse of knowledge; teaching as writing; books that work.
Week 4 —Can you improve until it is best-in-category?
The modern process; iteration, data, and craft; when and how to write in public.
Week 5 —Can you reach the first 1,000 ideal readers?
Seed marketing essentials: podcast book tour, author platform, giveaways, and ads.
Week 6 —Will your book achieve your goals?
Optimizing for royalties, impact, or leads;
Throughout the course, we’ll cover all major tools and techniques of the modern author, including plenty of worked examples and actionable next steps. For a head-start, you’ll receive a full copy of Write Useful Books — and access to our authors’ community — the moment you’ve enrolled.
A weekly schedule that gives you time to work
Monday
Academy classes
Live
→
Writing Accountabilty Group
Optional
→
Tuesday
Writing Accountabilty Group
Optional
→
Wednesday
Writing Accountabilty Group
Optional
→
Thursday
2 Academy office hours
Optional
→
Friday
Academy Q&A
Optional
→
Sat & Sun
It's the weekend — you do you!
(Maybe work on your book)
All times UTC
How the course and community work
Our book about the modern process, Write Useful Books, came out in 2021 and has now been read and loved by more than 10,000 authors.
Our community has been running since then too, and we’ve now helped hundreds of authors to make it happen via weekly Writing Accountability Groups, feedback, Q&A, and more. They’re an inspiring bunch; you’ll like writing with them.
And now, with the course, it’s gotten even better, kicking off your membership with 6 weeks of live sessions to help you achieve mastery and decide exactly how you’d like to apply it all to your particular goals.
On the process
Immediately practical, eminently insightful, tried and tested, Fitzpatrick has written a book worth its weight in gold. Write Useful Books is the definitive guide for the next generation of bestselling nonfiction authors.
The community provides a specific, detailed, and modern approach to writing, improving, beta testing, launching, and marketing a book. Applying these concepts helped my book, Product-Led Onboarding to become a #1 best-seller in its Amazon categories. Do yourself a favor - join this community!
This course is for “useful” non-fiction that is intended to help its readers to solve a problem, achieve a goal, learn a skill, grasp a concept, or something similarly concrete.
That are still in-progress
In terms of progress, you should be committed to your book, but not finished with it (no later than revising, rewriting, or beta reading).
By authors who care
Plenty of other groups exist that will teach you how to release a mediocre book as quickly as possible. That’s not us.
We believe in spending the time to make the best book possible, even when that means diving into yet another rewrite after seeing a crucial chapter still not quite working for beta readers. For your book to be worth a reader’s time, it must be worth yours as well.
What this course won’t cover
We focus on product, not prose
Unlike some authors’ groups, we don’t do readings or feedback on your prose itself.
Instead, we’ll spend our time on improving how your book functions as a product (i.e., who it’s for, what it’s promising to do for them, how effectively it delivers on that promise, and how it stands out within a crowded marketplace), as well as on the process you’re using to build it (i.e., iteratively, at least partially in public, and in early contact with real readers and real feedback).
The point of book marketing is to stop needing to do it
Although we will indeed cover book marketing best practices (spoiler: podcast book tour, writing in public, Amazon PPC, and bulk sales when possible), there’s no marketing magic bullet that will allow a badly built book to soar.
As such, if your book is already finished and you’re just trying to figure out how to sell the thing, you won’t have much to gain from this course.
Writing a successful book is a lengthy journey. Don't go it alone.
Join a community of 200+ determined nonfiction authors to get unstuck, get feedback, and keep moving. The Modern Author community is composed of both first-time and experienced authors, who are writing about every type of topic, from nutrition to node.js.
On community
Joining this community has accelerated both my writing and my productivity. The weekly sessions—talking to other authors about my goals, and even just making the time—have been so helpful for reaching and staying in flow state.
figure —Community Q&A with April Dunford and Rob Fitzpatrick
Accountability Weekly Writing Accountability Groups and goal-setting keep you on track.
Feedback and Q&A Access to our private authors’ community and the support of 200+ determined authors.
Knowledge Monthly live events with amazing guest speakers, plus a growing knowledgebase of best practices
On community
Wanted to say this morning's group was super productive! I got some writing done that would otherwise not have gotten done. I'm officially well over 20K words today. Got about 1000 more words done this morning after the live session. Love this group!
Amy McKnight
writing a new book
Help This Book
Part of the Modern Author Academy, or you can join monthly
Getting useful feedback on a manuscript is a lot of work. So we built the app we needed. Beta reading is the most impactful stage of creating a successful book.
No more Word docs in email, weird Google permissions, or weird book formats. Just a focused space for your readers to get early access to your book and give you useful, actionable feedback.
Quickly understand how your audience is experiencing your book
Gather more and better reader feedback with a simple reaction interface
Find and fix the book-killing blunders with all reader feedback collected in one easy to explore space
On beta reading
I've only gotten feedback from a couple of people so far, but I am ADDICTED. It seems wild that some authors don't do this. I've already gotten such great feedback, confirming suspicions I had myself.
