Since my previous installment of “Legendary Ebook Marketing Secrets of Doom,” telegrams have piled in front of my door and emails have clogged the arteries of my inbox. Never teach your parents how to use a computer.

Speaking of doom, the self-publishing world is not all rainbows and talking ponies. If you want to make it to the big leagues and sell more books than Hugh Howey has diamond toilet-bowl plungers (the answer is four), then you’ll need to follow this advice.

1. Murder something

Preferably not yourself, as that would restrict your writing schedule. If you don’t slam out fifty pages of postapocalyptic teenage troll fantasy every day then you’re a failure, even if you’ve been declared medically dead. Commit a crime with a high enough profile like strangling a panda with a jump rope and your name will be everywhere. It’s all about eyeballs, eyeballs, eyeballs, and soon your troll fantasy books will blow through the top of Amazon’s troll fantasy charts.

2. Tattoo something

My body is a temple to Scooter, the God of Pie-Faced Dorks, so I would never scar it with a tattoo saying “Get it here” in Japanese. There’s nothing that screams “desperate self-published writer” than having your book cover tattooed across your forehead like some kind of Amazon-sales-chasing Charles Manson. So drug someone else and tattoo it across their forehead. Preferably a relative, because they’re required by law to always talk to you and be nice to you forever. If you’re feeling sympathetic, use the back of their neck instead. If you change book covers more often than your bed covers, this method can be problematic. Yes of course I do, and the answer is once a year.

3. Forget writing and do something

This is the true secret of a successful writing career: give up. I’m not saying forever, just for now. Get out there and do something crazy, like swabbing decks on a Panamanian cruise ship for the disabled. Start your own coffee shop, or teach English in a place where nobody speaks English, like California. The old saw that ‘life is stranger than reality’ is dull and has rusted teeth, but it’s true. The fact is, nobody’s going to read your series of novellas about teenage vampire ponies from the mountains of Bolivia. Try visiting Bolivia first! At least you’ll have some stories about how the teenage vampire ponies got pickpocketed in La Paz and had to sleep in the airport for three days.