I'm sorry, I don't buy it. And I'm all for self-publishing, getting ready to do it with some of my own projects, so this isn't from the vantage point of trying to dismiss this sort of thing as impossible. I'd love for it to be!
But I just can not for the life of me figure out any scenario in which him staying anonymous makes sense. What does he POSSIBLY have to lose by using his real name or linking to his actual author pages? At the very least it'd drive a bunch of strangers to his pages and add to his 'impulse sales'. By posting this claim at all, he's already opened himself up to questioning or accusations of falsehood, so what difference if he does it under his real name or anonymous? Why on earth would he not want any free publicity he could arrive at?
I can understand his perspective that social networking is a waste of time - if you're doing it for the sole purpose of promotion. But if you're already doing it somewhere like reddit, why wouldn't you have a link ready to go for the curious to check out some of your work? Sorry, makes no sense to me.
EDIT: Okay, read some more, and kneejerk reactions aside....I'm torn. On the one hand, he does have some valid points and thoughts, and I will concede that maybe he just doesn't want to be famous or the next 'Amanda Hocking success story'. But on the other hand....he says he's put out 80 books in 8 months. He clarified that only five of those are full length novels, the rest are shorts, collections of shorts, picture books, etc. Now, I consider myself to be a very fast, very prolific writer who writes pretty decent quality first drafts. And I've written five books so far this year, full length novels. No way could I put them up on Amazon as is though.
And that's my big thing. The heart of his assessment of his success is him saying that most self-pubbed stuff out there is crap, so if you're good, you're bound to stand out. He says quality is its own promotion. But by his own token, he admits to never having hired a copy-editor, and he's shoveling five novels out in eight months, along with seventy five other short stories, collections, nonfiction books and picture books.....
I guess to me, the question is....his business strategy ultimately boils down to: put out quality work and the rewards will come. If he's reaped this kind of success by just churning out his work and putting it up without professional editing or covers or spending time on any kind of revisions, then I just can't understand why he wouldn't make the logical leap at any point to slow it down, take time to revise some work, spend some money on an editor and cover artist, and see what kind of sales THAT level of quality drives his way. By his own admission, he's been making thousands a month for months now, and he could do absolutely nothing for the next few months and still draw massive sales. He doesn't need to keep up his pace of output to keep his sales going, so....its just bizarre to me that he's spent all this time strategizing and yet doesn't do the single most obvious thing.
*Shrugs* But hey, if he's on the level, more power to him. Whatever floats your boat I guess.
