For a while, Johnny B. Truant wrote 1.5 million words a year — the equivalent of the full Harry Potter series, plus another half, sitting on a shelf every twelve months. Then it stopped. Not from burnout, but from a slow drift away from the industry itself. When he tried to come back, he found the stories just petered out. This episode is about what it actually takes to restart a stalled creative engine — and why he's now deliberately choosing a smaller, slower, more human way of selling books.

Johnny B. Truant writes smart books for smart readers. He's the author of Fat Vampire — the book that became Syfy's Reginald the Vampire, starring Jacob Batalon — plus over 150 books across most genres. He co-wrote the indie-publishing touchstone Write. Publish. Repeat. and co-founded the Self-Publishing Podcast, work that unintentionally became the founding text of the "rapid release" movement. His most recent book, The Artist and Author, argues for the opposite: earning ten true fans instead of chasing ten thousand copies.

We get into why "knowing too much" about story structure once broke his process, why he's walking away from Kindle Unlimited and Amazon algorithm chasing entirely, and the exact difference in buying behavior between comic-con buyers and street-festival buyers. We also talk about restarting a three-year-dormant writing habit, why he refuses to use pen names despite writing in a dozen genres, and why he recently — reluctantly — joined Instagram after years off social media.

🎙️ What we get into:

• Why he wrote 1.5 million words a year for over a decade, and what actually caused that engine to stall for three years
• How learning "real" story structure temporarily broke his ability to write instinctively
• His entire sales philosophy in one line: the right offer, in front of the right reader, in the right way, at the right time
• Why he's raising his own prices on Amazon rather than chasing algorithmic reach
• The real behavioral difference between comic-con book buyers and street-festival book buyers
• Why he never adopted a pen name despite writing across a dozen genres — and why he thinks his reasoning doesn't apply to everyone
• What finally convinced him to open an Instagram account after years of deliberately avoiding social media
• How collecting emails at live events pays off — not through between-convention sales, but through repeat visits
• The conversation with Joanna Penn that helped him choose quality of reader relationships over raw sales volume
• Why unboxing his first real box of paperbacks made him feel like "a real author" for the first time

Links & Resources:

• Finish Your Damn Draft (course) https://danielwillcocks.com/finish
• Johnny B. Truant: https://johnnybtruant.com
• Fat Vampire by Johnny B. Truant (adapted as Syfy's Reginald the Vampire)
• The Artist and Author by Johnny B. Truant
• Write. Publish. Repeat. by Johnny B. Truant, Sean Platt, and David Wright
• Kevin Kelly's "1,000 True Fans" https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/

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📺 Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@willcocksauthor

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🖥️ Find out more: https://danielwillcocks.com/thewriterschair

📚 About Johnny B. Truant

Johnny B. Truant writes smart books for smart readers. He's the author of Fat Vampire, the book that became Syfy's Reginald the Vampire starring Jacob Batalon, plus over 150 books across most genres. His books are layered, intelligent, and often funny. Johnny loves what he does, never cuts corners, and would rather earn ten true fans than sell ten thousand copies.

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