My business is going through a confusing transition, and I want to explain what’s happening for those who have questions!

As some of you know, I wrote the Growth Hacking For Storytellers series from 2015-2017, extending the series to seven books total.

I’m super proud of that series and all that it has accomplished. Over 50,000 books sold and counting, reaching ~20,000-30,000 independent authors. Several of the ideas in these books, specifically the ones around writing fast and dictation, have become the foundation for independent publishing success, and many of my former readers and students are now full-time authors.

New Series, Upgraded Content

That said, we all know nonfiction books easily go out of date, which is why they then come out with new editions. I’m currently working the content from these books into two series, one called The Productive Novelist (for fiction authors), and another called The Book and Business Coaching Series (for nonfiction authors). In this process, I’m streamlining the content, sharing new stories, and updating the frameworks to build a better series for the next wave of authors.

These two series will be better than the old because the content has been tested by over 20,000 independent authors. I’ve had hundreds of conversations with authors over the years about what works and what doesn’t, and have also taught over 150 authors these concepts personally.

The industry has changed as well, and that requires tweaks in thinking about the challenges authors face. All of that is in the two new series.

What’s Happening to Growth Hacking For Storytellers?

Where does that leave the old series? Right now, the series is still available to purchase and read. There are a couple of reasons for this:

  • I can’t take the series down without it being super confusing to readers. The paperbacks will remain listed forever—I can make them unavailable, but they’ll still retain their listings on Amazon and on my author page. The audiobooks are under ACX contract and it wouldn’t be fair to my narrator to attempt to take those down either. The only books I can take down completely are the ebooks, which would only serve to hurt my narrator’s efforts.
  • People are still recommending them and reading them, which is great! I would hate for a resource to be recommended only for the person to find out they can’t get their hands on it, especially if the information could help them. Taking them down hurts readers.
  • While the series is getting redone into two series (and probably at least a few more as I reach other audiences), that process is going to take awhile. In the meantime, if people want the information, they can read the old series. Even if some information is out of date and other information is not tailored to their situation, they can still use the information to get started.
  • It’s common for nonfiction authors to leave the old editions available and promote the new editions. I do think eventually I’ll transition the Growth Hacking series out, making the books unavailable. I believe the two new series will each eclipse the old one, and when that happens it’ll make sense organizationally to pull the old series to avoid confusion. Until then, both are available.

What Happened to the Prose on Fire Website?

While the GHFS series IS still available for purchase, the links in the books (every single one I’m pretty sure) are broken because my archived website, Prose on Fire, got hacked in the last year while I wasn’t paying attention.

It doesn’t make sense for me to invest energy (would take hours or days of my time) getting it back up for books that are being redone, so I’ve posted a page at The World Needs Your Book called “Archive” where you can find the resources mentioned in the books.

There were dozens and dozens of links in these books, and links from those links. So we’ve definitely missed some stuff. If the resource your seeking is not listed, please email team@theworldneedsyourbook.com so we can help you and update the page, too.

The Prose on Fire website will likely be redirected to The World Needs Your Book shortly (this was always the plan anyway), but I need to handle a few things there first.

Thank You!

The Growth Hacking For Storytellers series will likely stay up for the foreseeable future, but the marketing and energy will all be redirected to all the cool things happening with the two new series. Whereas the GHFS series reached 20-30k authors, these two new series have been built to reach closer to 100k authors each. At least, that’s my goal. 😀

Thank you for understanding and for making the GHFS series a success! 


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