Review: Six Figure Author by Chris Fox

Chances are you already come across Chris Fox at some point in your self-publishing journey. A prominent figure in the indie publishing industry for a long time, Chris Fox has a book for almost any part of your self-pub business. From marketing, to launching books, to writing tips, he’s got something for everything. 

Like a lot of Fox’s books Six-Figure Author is slickly packaged and easy to consume (and is generally well reviewed).

But what do YOU get out of it?

That’s where bookspry.com author tool reviews comes in! This time, we’re reviewing Six Figure Author: Using Data to Sell Books by Chris Fox.

At a glance…

This is a great book for someone who is an absolute beginner to online marketing. There is a lot of good stuff in here – the kind of marketing knowledge that you need to have if you’re going to make it is as a self-published author. But it’s also information that is readily available elsewhere, and is just that, knowledge for a beginner.

The main premise of the book is that indie authors today can’t simply be writers, we need to have all sorts of other skills in our toolbox, especially when it comes to marketing. Chris Fox walks through concepts like finding your target audience, understanding reader expectations, serial readers, etc. These are the real building blocks of how to market your book to readers.

If a friend came to me and said they’d decided to self-publish their work and that they’d just bought this book, then I’d congratulate them on such a great first step.

And it is a good first step! If you have never worked in marketing before, then these are not concepts that will naturally come to mind, and here they are all gathered together for $5! 

So, maybe I’m just being cheap, but you’re essentially paying $5 so that you won’t have to do a couple of hours of early research. And that’s the main “problem” with this book: Chris is not saying anything new, he’s not revealing some secret to success.

This book will not give you the secret path to being a “Six Figure Author” but it may show you where the path starts.