The Self-Publishing Gold Rush Is Here!
There has never been a better time to be a writer! The explosion of self-publishing in the last five years means that more authors are making a living writing than ever before.
Written Well
is here to help you navigate the new publishing landscape and take advantage of the revolution in the industry.
Our Services
Writing the Novel
We have a full course and dozens of exclusive articles to teach you how to write books people want to read.
Editing and Proofreading
Ensure that your manuscript is error-free and shines with professional polish.
Cover Design
Create a captivating cover (or buy one) that grabs readers’ attention.
Formatting and Publishing
Get your book ready for major retailers and platforms.
Marketing and Promotion
Develop strategies to reach your ideal readers and automate your marketing with a few simple clicks.
Write-To-Market Research
Learn how to identify your target market and give them what they want.
Why Self-Publish Now?
- Explosive Growth — The self-publishing market is booming, while traditional publishing is dying off.
- Be Your Own Boss — You control your content, your pricing, and your publishing schedule. No more waiting for approvals – get your book out there fast!
- Keep More of Your Profits: — Enjoy a much larger share of the royalties from your book sales instead of giving most of the money to fat cats in New York who only publish what THEY like.
- Fast Track to Success: — Get your book published instantly and reach a global audience of eager readers.
- Real Authors, Real Money: — Thousands of authors are building careers and generating substantial income through self-publishing. You can too!
Don’t Miss Out!
Meet Our Lead Instructors
All of our instructors are full-time independent authors. This means that we have actually used every skill, technique, and secret we share inside to start and maintain our writing careers.
Adam Stemple
Genre: Fantasy
Specialty: Craft
Adam is an award-winning author of nine traditionally published novels and six self-published ones. He has also sold two picture books, three graphic novels, 20+ short stories, five poems, and self-published a five-part series on writing his favorite genre, How to Write Fantasy Novels. Anne McCaffrey called his first novel “One of the best first novels I have ever read.”
Chris Wallace
Genre: Nonfiction
Specialty: Analytics
Chris is a world champion poker player who writes bestselling self-published books on the subject. His insights into the numbers side of self-publishing, honed by years of running statistical analysis on poker hands, are unmatched. No one knows Amazon better than the man the poker pros call The Fox. Wallace also put together an anthology for Kickstarter that raised over $27,000 in his first ever campaign.
Blaze Ward
Genre: Science Fiction
Specialty: Business
Blaze is a full-time independent author who recently released his 100th book. He knows the business inside and out as a writer, an editor, and a publisher of anthologies and magazines such as Blaze Ward Presents… and Boundary Shock Quarterly. An expert on writing fast, writing a series, creating anthologies, and almost everything else, Blaze is a titan in the self-publishing world.
Lyda Morehouse
Genre: Romance and Science Fiction
Specialty: Critique
Lyda Morehouse leads a double life. By day she’s a mild mannered science fiction author of such works as the Shamus Award winner and Locus Award Nominated Archangel Protocol (2001). By night, she dons her secret identity as Tate Hallaway, best selling paranormal romance author. Her most recent novel, Welcome to Boy.net, was published by Wizard Tower Press in April of 2020. Lyda is also the co-host of a cyberpunk podcast, Mona Lisa Overpod. You can find her all over the web, including Facebook, Bluesky and Instagram.
The Time Is Now
And the place is here. More than half the money paid to authors last year was to self-published authors and while traditional publishing is stagnant, self-publishing is growing at a rate of 17% every year. Don’t let another day go by without getting your books in front of potential readers.
Contact Us
Feel free to contact us and ask any questions you might have about the site.
The Heart of Our Site: The Genre Guides
Learning is not attained by chance. It must be sought for with ardour and attended with diligence.
Abigail Adams
This is where Written Well really outshines its competitors. We understand that from genre to genre, there can be big differences in how to effectively approach writing, designing, and advertising a book. That’s why we have complete guides to every major genre and most of their subgenres. We show you how the bestsellers in that genre are structured, what POVs and tenses they commonly employ, and how long they typically are. We list the tropes to use, what cliches to avoid, and the elements a book must have to be considered part of the genre.
We examine the covers closely, tracking font and color trends, size and placement of author name and title, and what these and the other cover components signal to potential readers. We list popular story structures and provide blueprints and story builders to get you started. We look at top sellers and break down their Amazon listings, looking for commonality in their descriptions and blurbs’ tone, structure, and use of bolding and italics.
And we do this for every genre.
But we’re not done. We examine the business, breaking down the last twelve months of the genre’s performance to gain perspective on where it’s trending and whether it’s a good genre for an indie to work in. We do a monthly live industry report detailing the trends and opportunities we’re seeing, both short-term and long, with time for questions at the end — because learning is at its best when it is interactive.
And we’re still not quite done.
Finally, for every genre, there are further study materials: books to read, sites to visit, resources both live and virtual that will be of help for a writer working on a book in that genre.
We spent a lot of time putting these guides together, and we update them constantly so that they stay current. If you’re writing a book without the information we’ve gathered — and continue to gather — for you, it’ll be like you’re typing with one hand behind your back.
No matter the genre, we can show you how to write and sell it.
The Written Well Courses
The more of wisdom we know, the more we may earn. That man who seeks to learn more of his craft shall be richly rewarded.
From The Richest Man in Babylon by George S. Clason
From the basic skills of writing to the intricacies of publishing to the art and science of promotion and advertising, the Written Well Writing Courses teach you the knowledge and critical skills you need to succeed in self-publishing. We’ve got a complete course on writing a novel from an award-winning author. We’ve got lessons on the indie mindset and day-to-day operations of a self-published writer from an author who has been full-time for a decade. And we’ve got explanations of the analytics and math in running profitable ads from a math whiz who has won over a million dollars as a professional poker player, an occupation he has written many books about.
You need these skills. We teach these skills.
Learn how to write, publish, and promote like a professional.
Forums for the Serious Independent Author
Writing is a solitary pursuit, but that doesn’t mean you have to do it alone. We provide a moderated area for discussion, critique, and the occasional cry for help. While there exist other places for these kind of things online, we believe ours to be the best because everyone is here for the same reason: a love of writing and a wish to be successful at it.
A single conversation across the table with a wise man is better than ten years mere study of books.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
The Written Well forums are the lifeblood of the site. When we post a new article or video, it gets a topic for discussion on it. There are topics for different genre discussions, promotion ideas, marketing plans, and a spot to promo your own releases or Kickstarters to other members. If it sounds like a lot, it is, but everything is clearly marked and explained, and moderators are there to help you if you get lost.
Along with reading widely, discussion is vital for authors. Without other writers to talk you, they turn insular, become rigid in their style, their voice, their choices of character and theme. Written Well authors remain flexible, an excellent trait for both creativity in your work and the ability to insure that work is sellable. Because we want you to both here: create beautiful books and make money doing it. And to do that, you need to be a creative, flexible author, one who knows how to write and how to sell.
Don’t know how to do that? Ask someone on our forums. They will help you out.
Are you ready to join the conversation?
Help Forming Critique Groups
There is no other kind. If it’s not gentle, it’s not critique; it’s just bullying.
Written Well Founding Member Adam Stemple, on gentle critique
A fundamental truth we at Written Well believe is that if you want to improve as an author, you need to know how to both receive and deliver critique. Having critical eyes on your manuscript early and often can make the difference between a story that soars — and sells! — and one that never gets off the ground. And reading others’ manuscripts often helps you as much as it helps them, as you often spot mistakes in their work you may have missed in your own.
At Written Well, we show how to start and run a critique group, how to set rules and standards for your group, and what to do if someone doesn’t stick to them. We teach you how to be a good member of a group, how to give advice that is pointed yet kind, because our philosophy is that if it’s not kind, it’s not critique; it’s just bullying.
Rules of Critique
Giving Critique
- Start with something positive
- Don’t obsess
- Suggest, don’t instruct
- End with something positive
Receiving Critique
- Listen
- Don’t argue
- Don’t explain
- Say thank you at the end
Our instructors have been in dozens of groups, as leaders and members. From groups of friends who shared an interest in writing to invite-only pro groups whose members have more awards and accolades than fill the shoeboxes in Stephen King’s attic. (Okay, maybe not that many, but at least a dozen major genre awards). We’ve worked with all kinds of authors in all different genres and we know what works and what’s harmful.
Start giving and receiving critique from like-minded pros.
Weekly and Monthly Events
We’re not just written courses, videos, and forums. We also put on weekly and monthly events. Writing sprints, presentations, business reports, panels, AMAs and more are put on right through our website — you don’t even need Zoom to attend!
A Few of Our Events
Check out a short demo
There’s a lot more to that video and all our monthly business reports, as well as more instructors, more topics, more special guests, and more information about the art, science, and craft fo writing, publishing and selling your books.
Are you ready to see what’s happening inside?
We work with:
