​The Truth About Hiring a Publishing Company — What Joel Pitney of Launch My Book Wants Every Author to Know

If you’ve spent any time in indie author spaces, you’ve probably seen both ends of the spectrum: people swearing you should never pay anyone to help you publish, and flashy companies promising to make you a bestseller for $1,700 if you act before midnight.

Neither of those is a useful guide for making one of the most important decisions in your publishing journey.

That’s exactly why Alexa sat down (again) with Joel Pitney, founder and president of Launch My Book, Inc., for one of the most candid conversations we’ve had on Alexa’s Book Marketing & Publishing Chat. Joel’s previous episode on the myths of self-publishing became one of our most downloaded of all time — and this one may top it.

Here’s what they covered.

The Self-Publishing Landscape Is the Wild West — And That’s a Problem

When you decide not to pursue a traditional publishing deal, you’re stepping into a vast and largely unregulated marketplace. There are individual freelancers, DIY platforms, software tools, hybrid presses, self-publishing assist companies, and everything in between. No one is enforcing standards. Anyone can call themselves a publisher.

That’s why Joel’s first piece of advice is to look for independent verification. The Independent Book Publishers of America (IBPA) and the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) both vet companies and can help you identify those operating with integrity. ALLi even maintains a Writer Beware resource specifically designed to flag problematic players.

Red Flags That Should Make You Run

Joel wrote a widely-read article for Jane Friedman’s website outlining seven red flags to watch for when hiring a publishing company. Here are the ones that came up in this conversation:

Hypiness. This is Joel’s number one warning sign. If a company is using language like “hire our bestseller package today” or promising results before they’ve even looked at your book — run. Legitimate companies don’t make guarantees. Even traditional publishers with far more resources and control would never promise a bestseller.

Too-good-to-be-true pricing. “Usually $4,000 — but if you sign today, $1,700.” There is no cheap way to publish well. Discount prices deliver discount results. If you’re seeing furniture-sale-style pricing on something as serious as your book, treat it accordingly.

Unsolicited outreach. As Joel puts it: if you haven’t already sold millions of copies, publishing companies aren’t coming to you. Cold outreach promising to “invest in your book” is a manipulation tactic, not a compliment.

Pressure sales tactics. If anyone tells you that you have to decide today, the deal expires tomorrow, or you’ll lose your spot — that’s not urgency, that’s a predator.

Should You Hire a Company or Build Your Own Team?

Once you’ve decided to go the indie route, your first real decision is whether to hire a single company to handle everything or assemble your own team of freelancers.
Joel’s honest answer: both can work, and the right choice depends on your situation.

Build your own team if:

• You’re planning to publish multiple books over time
• You’re willing to invest in learning the process
• You’re comfortable project-managing a team of 2–7 people
• Saving 30–40% on overhead costs justifies that investment

• This is your first book, or you’re publishing one book
• You want to skip the learning curve and not become a self-publishing expert
• You value time savings and having someone own the process when things go wrong
• You want your first book to be done right, even if it costs more

What Genre and Format Have to Do with It

• Easiest: Straight fiction novels with basic chapter headers
• More complex: Nonfiction with section breaks, exercises, pull quotes, tables, or charts
• Most complex: Children’s picture books, cookbooks, and any book heavy on images or custom layout

The ROI Conversation Nobody Wants to Have

• Fiction authors who write multiple books in a series, allowing earlier books to sell later ones. Joel has heard from authors on their 15th book just starting to break even.
• Nonfiction authors who use their book as a calling card for speaking, consulting, courses, or other services that generate revenue well beyond royalties.

About Those “Six-Figure Author” Promises

What Working with a Good Company Actually Looks Like

How to Learn More and Get in Touch with Joel

• IBPA: ibpa-online.org
• ALLi Writer Beware: allianceindependentauthors.org
• Jane Friedman’s site for Joel’s “7 Red Flags” article

Q: What is a self-publishing assist company?
 A: A self-publishing assist company handles the full production of your book — including editing, cover design, interior formatting, and distribution setup — for a fee. Unlike traditional publishing, you retain your rights and pay the costs upfront. Unlike DIY publishing, you have a professional team managing the process.

Q: How do I know if a publishing company is legitimate?
 A: Look for membership in the Independent Book Publishers of America (IBPA) or vetting by the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi), which maintains a Writer Beware list. Red flags include guaranteed bestseller promises, high-pressure sales tactics, unsolicited outreach, and pricing that seems too good to be true.

Q: Should I hire a publishing company or build my own freelance team?
 A: If you’re publishing one book or want to skip the learning curve, a reputable company may save you time and costly mistakes. If you’re planning multiple books and want to reduce overhead over time, assembling your own vetted freelance team can be more cost-effective — but requires you to become a capable project manager.

Q: Will I make my money back from publishing a book?
 A: Most authors do not recoup their publishing investment from royalties alone — even 80% of traditionally published books don’t earn back their advance. Fiction authors typically need a series of books; nonfiction authors need additional revenue streams like speaking, consulting, or courses to achieve financial sustainability.

Q: What are the red flags of a predatory publishing company?
 A: Key red flags include hype-heavy language (“guaranteed bestseller”), discount pricing that seems unrealistically low, unsolicited outreach from companies who haven’t seen your book, and pressure tactics like “sign today” deadlines. If a company hasn’t read your manuscript and is already promising results, walk away.

“I’d Rather Be Dancing”: How Somatic Practices Set Authors (and Everyone Else) Free

A conversation with licensed somatic psychotherapist and author Melanie Smithson

There’s a moment in Melanie Smithson’s story that says everything about how a life can unfold when you stop forcing it into the shape you planned.

She was sitting at her accounting desk, staring at the spreadsheets, thinking the same thought on loop: I don’t want to be here. I want to be dancing.

Eventually, she listened. She left accounting, managed a dance studio, found her way to Naropa University’s dance movement therapy program — and realized somewhere along the way that she was being trained as a therapist. “I had no idea,” she laughs. “I was like, huh. I guess this is what’s happening.”

Nearly 20 years into clinical practice, Melanie is now a licensed somatic psychotherapist, certified spiritual integration hypnotherapist, and the author of two books — with a third releasing any day. She’s also a valued member of the Women in Publishing Summit community, where she has led somatic exercises and workshops for authors navigating the demands of a creative business life.

On this episode of Alexa’s Book Marketing & Publishing Chat, Melanie joins host Alexa Bigwarfe to talk about her newest book, Shake Yourself Free: 81 Somatic Practices to Let Go of Limitation, and how the body — not the mind — might be the most underutilized resource authors have.

Why Somatic Practices? Why Now?

If you’ve never heard the word “somatic,” you’re not alone. Alexa laughs about how two years ago the word wasn’t in her vocabulary — and now she’s convinced everyone needs to understand it.

The core idea is this: emotions aren’t just mental events. They live in the body. Researcher Candace Pert, author of Molecules of Emotion, was among the first to demonstrate this scientifically — identifying receptor sites for emotions throughout the body, especially in the gut. (Yes, “gut feelings” are literally real.)

The problem, Melanie explains, is that most of us are taught from childhood to suppress what we feel. Someone told us anger wasn’t allowed. We learned that grief was too big to face. We threw ourselves into work, service, busyness — anything to not feel. And so the emotions got stored. In the hips. In the shoulders. In the chest.

“Feelings are designed to move,” Melanie says. “The word ’emotion’ is energy in motion. Things are designed to move. Like waves on the ocean — if we let a feeling move, eventually it’s going to complete. But what we do in our vast wisdom is say, I don’t like this wave, I’m going to try to stop it. And then we’re stuck with it.”

The body holds what the mind avoids. And Shake Yourself Free is a practical, accessible guide to finally letting it move.

What’s in the Book

At 81 practices organized across topics — movement, play, emotions, thoughts, resistance, relationships, and goals — Shake Yourself Free is designed to be used as a living reference, not a book you read once and shelve. Many practices run half a page or less.

“I have had people tell me, ‘I’m feeling this — what do I do?’ And they pick up the book and look for the practice,” Melanie says.

The book teaches readers how to “speak body” — how to begin noticing where feelings live, how to move them, and how to use the body’s signals as real information. For those who’ve sat in therapy and been asked “where do you feel that in your body?” only to stare blankly, this book is for you.

Melanie’s ultimate hope? To see the book in the hands of therapists and coaches.

She’s launching a training in the fall specifically for practitioners who want to bring more movement into their sessions. But she’s also enthusiastic about the WIP community getting their hands on it — because, as she notes with a grin, everybody has a body.

Somatic Tips for Writers and Authors

One of the episode’s most practically useful segments is when Melanie shares somatic advice specifically for writers and publishing professionals.

Here are the highlights:

1. Open your posture regularly. Writers spend hours hunched over screens and phones. That forward-curved posture physically mirrors the posture of depression. Melanie’s prescription: once an hour, throw your arms wide, lift your chin, spread your wings. “Where the body goes, the mind will follow — so remind your body that you’re not suppressed.”
2. Look for inspiration in motion, not in your head. When you’re stuck or uninspired, don’t try to think your way out. Go somewhere that already moves you — a walk, a museum, a dance class. “Ride that wave. It works.”
3. Fiction writers: embody your characters. Struggling to access what your character is feeling or doing next? Physically and mentally step into them. At Naropa, Melanie practiced embodying characters from films — and was stunned by how much information became available. “You get more data about what that character wants next.”
4. Don’t follow someone else’s writing process. “Writing is a creative process. It’s a joyful process. If you follow rules that don’t work for you, you’re going to take the joy out of it.” Melanie’s first book arrived with no outline and found its shape only after multiple chapters were written. Her second was more structured — because that’s what it called for.

The Unexpected Power of Podcasting

Melanie has gone on dozens of podcasts since her book launched, and she comes with data — including listeners from China, Germany, Australia, the Netherlands, and Pakistan. Places she’s never worked with clients.

But beyond reach, something more valuable has happened: her message has gotten sharper.

“The podcasts are actually becoming a self-development tool for me, getting clearer in how I say things,” she says. When interviewers ask tough questions, or when listeners push back, Melanie finds herself articulating things she didn’t know she believed until the words were out of her mouth. “Some of the messages that are coming as I speak are things like, ‘oh, I didn’t realize how important that was until I said this.'”

She recommends Podmatch.com for finding podcast opportunities, as well as Facebook groups focused on guest placement. “It’s not as hard as I thought it was.”

For Alexa, who teaches podcast pitching as a core author marketing strategy, this was a satisfying confirmation — real data from a real author doing the work.

On Mini Books, Algorithms, and Meeting Readers Where They Are

One of the episode’s most forward-thinking moments comes when Melanie mentions her upcoming third book — Make Some Noise: The Power of Conscious Groaning — a tight, four-by-six, 50-page exploration of an idea from Shake Yourself Free. The power of making noise (including conscious groaning) as a way to process and release what complaining cannot.

She discovered along the way that publishing multiple books per year — even short ones — boosts Amazon’s algorithmic support for all your titles. Mini books count.
But beyond algorithms, there’s a readership reality: we’re all overwhelmed. Short, focused books that do one thing well are increasingly how readers engage with nonfiction. Alexa notes she’s been rethinking her own marketing books with this in mind — rather than one comprehensive volume, a series of tightly targeted titles.

Melanie may have inadvertently given her the green light.

The Practice You Need Right Now

Before the episode ends, Melanie offers one final gift: the spinning plates practice. I

magine all the things you’re managing — each on its own plate, spinning. Business. Book. Family. Inbox. Launch. Social media. All of them spinning, spinning, spinning.

Now, in your mind’s eye, let them crash to the floor.

Feel that?

That exhale, that release, that involuntary ahh — that’s your body doing exactly what it’s designed to do.

You can practice it every day. And probably should.

Join Us in July: Shake Yourself Free Book Club

Alexa’s self-development book club will be reading Shake Yourself Free in July 2026, with a Q&A from Melanie included. Access is free for the WIP community — join us here!

And if you’re ready to build a stronger author and publishing business from the inside out, don’t miss the WIP Business Bootcamp on August 20–21, 2026 — two days of focused, hands-on training for authors and publishing professionals. Details and registration here.

Find Melanie at smithsonclinic.com and on Facebook (Melanie Beth Smithson), Instagram, and LinkedIn.

Q: What is somatic therapy and why does it matter for authors and writers?
 A: Somatic therapy works with the body — not just the mind — to process and release stored emotions. For authors, this means using body-based practices to overcome creative blocks, manage stress, and reconnect with inspiration. In this episode, licensed somatic psychotherapist Melanie Smithson explains how emotions get stored in the body and how movement can release them.

Q: What is the book Shake Yourself Free about?
 A: Shake Yourself Free: 81 Somatic Practices to Let Go of Limitation by Melanie Smithson is a practical guide to using movement and body-based awareness to release stuck emotions, break through resistance, and access more creativity and freedom. The practices are short (many under half a page) and are organized by topic — including emotions, thoughts, relationships, and goals.

Q: How can authors use podcasting as a book marketing strategy?
 A: Going on podcasts builds reach, attracts newsletter signups, and — perhaps most valuably — sharpens your message. Guest Melanie Smithson shares how dozens of podcast appearances have brought her listeners from around the world and helped her articulate her ideas more clearly. She recommends Podmatch.com and Facebook guest-finding groups as starting points.

Q: What are mini books and why should authors consider publishing them?
 A: Mini books are short, focused publications (often 20–50 pages) that cover a single topic in depth. Publishing multiple books per year, even short ones, increases an author’s algorithmic visibility on Amazon. Mini books also meet readers where they are — in an era of content overload, short and focused is increasingly how nonfiction readers engage. 

Brick by Brick: How to Manage Writing Anxiety and Actually Finish Your Book

You know the feeling. You blocked the time. You told yourself today was the day. And then — somehow — you’re standing at the fridge looking for chocolate, or you’ve got fourteen research tabs open, or you’re scrolling Instagram telling yourself it’s “writing content,” so it counts.

It doesn’t count. And Rhonda Douglas wants you to know that’s not a willpower problem. It’s a nervous system problem — and the good news is, that’s fixable.

In this episode, Rhonda — host of the Resilient Writers Radio Show, creator of the First Book Finish program, and award-winning poet and fiction writer — returns to the show to talk about creative anxiety: what it is, why it follows every writer no matter how accomplished, and the concrete tools that get you back to the calm, centered state where the words actually flow.

Creative anxiety isn’t a beginner’s problem

Most writers assume the fear will fade once they’ve “made it.” Rhonda gently dismantles that hope. She’s worked with writers who have published six or eight books, been shortlisted for awards, and built the dream author life — and they still feel anxiety sitting down to write the next one. Why? Because you haven’t written that book yet. Every new project is uncharted, so a little fear is permanent. The skill isn’t eliminating anxiety; it’s noticing it and knowing how to come back to center.

That self-doubt often shows up as a small voice insisting you can’t do this — especially on a first book, when your brain goes looking for evidence you can pull it off and comes up empty. Rhonda has met writers who’d finished twelve manuscripts and still didn’t feel they could call themselves authors. The voice lies. The work is real.

Writer’s block is nervous-system regulation

Here’s the reframe that changes everything: anxiety and fear are your sympathetic nervous system — the fight, flight, freeze, or fawn response — switching on. Your best creative work happens in the parasympathetic state: grounded, centered, calm. So the entire game is learning to trigger that calmer system before you write, and to return to it when you feel your shoulders creeping up toward your ears mid-scene.

Rhonda wishes someone had taught her this in junior high. (Her two-year-old grandson is learning nervous-system regulation in daycare — proof the rest of us can learn it too.)

Three-minute “biologic hacks” that work every time

Rhonda’s favorite tools take three minutes and a timer:

Deep breathing. Before a session, she sets a timer for three minutes, closes her eyes, and breathes in through her nose and out through her mouth — but mindfully, observing the temperature of the breath and where she’s holding tension, as if she’ll have to write a descriptive paragraph about it later. It’s a mini-meditation that works even for people who don’t think they like meditation. Timer goes off; she starts writing.

Adult coloring. Three minutes with colored pencils and a Jane Austen coloring book, then set it aside and write. Any soothing, repetitive activity works — needlepoint, embroidery, watercolor — whatever centers you.

Alexa nailed the metaphor: it’s a palette cleanser, like the bite between wine tastings. It transitions you out of the go-go-go of daily life so you don’t come sliding into your writing chair “coming in hot,” where your creative unconscious can’t do its best work. And if anxiety spikes mid-session? Stop, set the timer, reset, return.

Brick by brick: the antidote to time pressure

For Alexa — a full-time publishing professional, mom of teenagers, and novelist-in-the-margins — the anxiety is about time. Twenty minutes feels like too little, so the pressure to make those twenty minutes perfect becomes its own block.

Rhonda’s reframe: books are written in consistent layers. Twenty minutes, twenty minutes, twenty minutes — and one day you look up and there are eighteen chapters. Anne Lamott said bird by bird; Rhonda says brick by brick. And if 200 words doesn’t feel like enough, it’s still 200 words you didn’t have before you sat down.

Even pantsers need just enough outline

Both Alexa and Rhonda are recovering pantsers, and both make the same confession: zero structure creates more anxiety, not less — especially on deadline, staring down seventeen unwritten chapters with no map.

Rhonda teaches an “essential book outline” in First Book Finish: enough structure to respect fundamental story shape without locking you in. Who is your protagonist at the beginning, and what state are they in? What do they want? What stands in the way, internally and externally? Who are they at the end? From there she brainstorms scenes — three that show external obstacles, three that show the character getting in her own way. That’s enough to guarantee your protagonist changes, which is what makes an ending satisfying.

Knowing your genre’s beats and obligatory scenes does the same work. As Rhonda learned the hard way: she pantsed a historical mystery and discovered, two-thirds through the draft, that she had the wrong murderer. (Ten out of ten, do not recommend. The author shouldn’t be finding out whodunit at the same time as the reader.)

Train your brain that writing feels good

Rhonda builds a personalized writing ritual she changes seasonally. In an Ottawa winter: Dickens mittens, a shawl, three lit candles, hot cocoa, a fountain pen and a big blank book, Yo-Yo Ma’s Bach cello suites on the playlist, and a single French licorice-orange candy. In summer: lemonade at a picnic table.

The point isn’t aesthetics. By engaging all five senses with things that feel good, she’s training her brain that writing is pleasant, writing is delicious, writing feels good — the opposite of the usual “why is this so hard?” message that makes your protective brain hand you your phone.

Alexa’s version: packing the laptop, leaving the house, buying the too-expensive fancy coffee, and sitting in a Starbucks (Taylor Swift on the speakers) to envision the full-time author life. Big honking headphones double as a “do not disturb” sign. And meeting another writer to chat, then write 30 minutes, chat, then write again? That’s body-doubling, and it’s gold.

There are no bad writing sessions

Not every session feels great, and that’s allowed. Some days you write 50 words; some days 450. If you’re stuck, brainstorm six scenes you could write instead of repeating “I’m stuck, I’m stuck.” Critically: when you label a session “bad,” your brain decides writing didn’t feel good and quietly steers you away next time. Every time you show up for your book, it’s good. Your brain wires to whatever you repeat — so wire it toward the desk.

Release the pressure

Rhonda’s parting wisdom for everyone fitting writing in around toilet paper runs and a day job: the book takes as long as it takes, and you’re on time as long as you keep laying bricks. Her personal mantra when she hits a wall: I’m always learning and growing as a writer. That single reframe turns “I don’t know what I’m doing here” from a verdict into a normal part of the process.

Want accountability and community to keep you going?

Rhonda and Alexa agree on one thing completely: most working writers can’t do this alone. Coaching, critique groups, retreats, writing sprints, and body-doubling are what keep the bricks stacking.

If that’s the missing piece for you, the WIP Business Bootcamp this August 2026 is built for exactly this next stage — the foundations of running a sustainable, legal, and profitable author or publishing business once your book is finished. And for year-round accountability, WIP Society wraps it all together: a full ticket to the virtual Women in Publishing Summit each March, three bootcamps a year, monthly Q&As, networking, and weekly writing sprints — the structured, supportive community Rhonda describes as essential. Learn more at mywipsociety.com.

You can find Rhonda at resilientwriters.com, on Instagram @resilientwriters, on the Resilient Writers Radio Show, and inside her year-long First Book Finish program.

Now go lay down your next 200 words. They’re 200 you didn’t have before.

Q: What is creative anxiety or writer’s block?
A: Rhonda Douglas describes it as writer’s resistance that intensifies into writer’s block — that sense of “I’m supposed to write today, but I don’t want to,” often triggered by normal self-doubt. She frames it as a nervous-system response: your sympathetic (fight/flight/freeze/fawn) system activating, when good creative work needs your calmer parasympathetic state.

Q: How do you overcome writer’s block quickly?
A: Use a three-minute “biologic hack” to regulate your nervous system before writing — deep breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth (observed mindfully), or a soothing activity like adult coloring. Set a timer, reset, then write. If anxiety spikes mid-session, stop and reset again.

Q: Do pantsers need an outline?
A: Rhonda recommends “just enough” structure — an essential book outline that respects fundamental story beats: who your protagonist is at the start, what they want, the internal and external obstacles in their way, and who they become by the end. Knowing your genre’s obligatory scenes removes a huge amount of anxiety.

Q: How can you write a book when you have a full-time job?
A: Build it brick by brick. Books are written in consistent layers — 20 minutes at a time. Release the pressure to make every short session perfect, lean on accountability (coaching, critique groups, writing sprints, body-doubling), and remember every session counts, whether you write 50 words or 450.

Q: How do you train your brain to enjoy writing?
A: Create a personalized writing ritual that engages the five senses — music, a signature drink, a small treat, candles, texture — so your brain learns that writing feels good rather than “why is this so hard?” Avoid labeling sessions as “bad,” which teaches your brain to avoid the work.