Look Before You Leap: The Book
The Smart Author's Guide to Avoiding the Money Pit and Achieving Financial SUCCESS in Publishing
About the Book

- Are you an aspiring author?
- Want to learn how the book publishing industry works via a behind-the-scenes view into the often elusive financial data of published authors?
- When’s the last time you read a book about the writing and publishing industry that was actually entertaining?
Look Before You Leap: The Smart Author's Guide to Avoiding the Money Pit and Achieving Financial SUCCESS in Publishing is based on the heartwarming and heartbreaking stories from over one hundred interviews and surveys with published authors across traditional, self and "hybrid" publishing. The author’s own personal experience as an author advocate and four-time award-winning and bestselling author provides an engaging, often hilarious, backdrop for this guide on book publishing.
When you read Look Before You Leap, you will learn how to:
- Overcome your own potential objections to writing and publishing a book.
- Avoid the potential money pit of book publishing.
- Navigate the publishing industry with confidence and competence.
- Achieve financial goals on your own publishing journey.
Online Courses

I currently have three online courses about the publishing industry available on Teachable:
- Make Publishing Profitable and Fun
- The Make Publishing Fun Summit
- Make Publishing Fun: Get Your Transformational Book Done
Positive on Publishing Podcast
Audio, Video, and Blog Posts
Look Before You Leap
Audio Book Files
Use the links below to stream or download the audiobook MP3s:
Table of Contents
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hj78nr5zk6o91hf/LBYL_TOC.mp3?dl=0
Introduction
https://www.dropbox.com/s/msnk80ltxot76yg/LBYL_Introduction.mp3?dl=0
Chapter One
https://www.dropbox.com/s/ceb8g1e31ibd39b/LBYL_Chapter_One.mp3?dl=0
Chapter Two
https://www.dropbox.com/s/9mdean1wlrmn1n5/LBYL_Chapter_Two.mp3?dl=0
Chapter Three
https://www.dropbox.com/s/11yvgrpq0ylyem2/LBYL_Chapter_Three.mp3?dl=0
Chapter Four
https://www.dropbox.com/s/zhwz9su6gx3ecgi/LBYL_Chapter_Four.mp3?dl=0
Chapter Five
https://www.dropbox.com/s/r52jqxf6miasmki/LBYL_Chapter_Five.mp3?dl=0
Chapter Six
https://www.dropbox.com/s/77ee0yilrcr8z9e/LBYL_Chapter_Six.mp3?dl=0
Author Publicity Webinars
WATCHING THIS TRAINING WEBINAR #1 WILL ALLOW YOU TO:
- Learn strategies to avoid (financial) mistakes in getting book publicity.
- Know the difference between traditional media and new media.
- Understand the different categories of publicity.
- Determine actionable items to get cost-effective publicity.
WATCHING THIS TRAINING WEBINAR #2 WILL ALLOW YOU TO:
- Understand why focusing on podcasts can be effective for your publicity efforts.
- Pitch and get on great podcasts.
- Know what equipment you need for a great podcast interview.
- Follow up and make the most of your podcast interviews.
Author Compass Resources
- Here is the short Author Survey, and here is the LONG one!
- Here is my Income Statement from Look Before You Leap.
- Here is a list of questions I suggest you ask when building your author team.
- This article from The Huffington Post discusses publicity scams affecting authors.
- As I mention in my Teachable course on publishing (see below), I am a fan of the Independent Book Publishers Association. You can also check out The Association of Authors’ Representatives, a professional organization for agents whose members abide by a stringent code of ethics. Winning Writers compiles lists of contests and agencies to avoid. Agent Query is a huge database of reputable, established literary agents.
- Download the Make Publishing Fun E-Book PDF