Johnny B. Truant is a bestselling author known for genre-bending sci-fi and fantasy, including Fat Vampire (the inspiration for the TV show Reginald the Vampire) and The Beam.

Today, he chats with us about how we can become Artisan Authors and succeed in the new age of indie publishing.

Back the Artisan Author Book on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/johnnybtruant/the-artisan-author-your-way-out-of-the-self-pub-rat-race

Johnny's website: https://johnnybtruant.com/

Join Author Sidekick, the newsletter to help you grow your readership and revenue as an author: https://authorsidekick.com/subscribe

Read Creatorwood, the free book helping writers turn their stories into movies using AI: https://blog.creatorwood.tv/subscribe

EPISODE CHAPTERS:

00:02:53 The Journey of a Storyteller

00:06:48 Understanding Rapid Release vs Rapidly Releasing

00:08:39 The Dichotomy of Industry vs Indie

00:11:24 The Artisan Author Mindset

00:14:52 Finding Your True Fans

00:17:15 The Evolution from Right Publish Repeat to Artisan Author

00:21:27 Connecting with Readers on a Personal Level

00:26:51 Defining Fandom and True Fans

00:29:31 Understanding True Fans and Connection

00:34:32 The Courage to be Yourself

00:39:56 Navigating the True Fan Economy

00:43:50 The Art of Restraint in Storytelling

Thank you so much for listening! You can always reach out to [email protected] if you have any guest/episode recommendations or questions about going Beyond the Book!

I’d also super appreciate it if you rated Beyond the Book wherever you listen to podcasts. It helps us grow and get bigger & better guests to share their insights with you in going Beyond the Book 💙.

I’m on a mission to bring Power to Storytellers. Here’s my story 👇

ABOUT THE HOST: MICHAEL EVANS

I’m the co-founder of Creatorwood (helping writers turn their stories into movies with AI) and Author Sidekick (media company helping authors succeed in the future of publishing).

In high school, I wrote and self-published 12 sci-fi novels (aka I didn’t have many friends).

I then attended college at Harvard, where I road-tripped the country filming YouTube videos during COVID (school was online🫣), live-streamed myself playing scavenger hunt with my roommate for ~1,000 hours, and eventually co-founded a software company that was named Publishing’s Start-up of the Year in 2023 by Jane Friedman.

After graduation, I worked on the data & analytics team at MrBeast and am now back in publishing, dedicating my life to bringing power to authors. I’m really grateful to be living my dream, and am hopeful I can help you get one (or a few!) steps closer to doing the same for yourself 😊. ABOUT BEYOND THE BOOK:

Beyond the Book exists to help authors expand their revenue and readership beyond books. We are rewriting the rules of publishing by helping authors build “mini-Disneys” from their stories through physical products, community experiences, games, other media formats, and more.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit dispatch.authorsidekick.com/subscribe