Q and A Edition: please give me the operating instructions for publishing success

In which authors ask us, "what's the next step?", and we reply that it's the sidestep of an answer we're about to give.

Hello from our company retreat in Nantucket. In order to answer your questions about publishing with maximum candor and panache, Kent and I have proceeded well into a bottle of sparkling rosé and are listening to cool nightclub music.¹

LET’S GO.

Question one: How can you tell when your author platform is done cooking?

Horatio—this is a pseudonym; they’re a…