Two indie authors. No filter. Every lie worth telling.
We are Keith A Pearson and Adam Eccles, and we’re novelists. Professional liars. Between us, we’ve spent eighteen years figuring out how indie publishing actually works — not how it’s supposed to work according to some bloke who read a book about it and started a YouTube channel. Thirty-plus novels. Seven-figure sales. Overseas rights deals. Audiobook deals. Not a single writing qualification between us. Just stubbornness, a decent Wi-Fi connection, and an unhealthy tolerance for rejection.So, why another podcast?
How many indie publishing podcasts is too many. We don’t know, but we do know that they’re almost all a bit too… dry. We figured we weren’t the only ones to reach that conclusion.Don’t get us wrong — there’s solid advice out there. Plenty of smart people saying smart things about book marketing, algorithms, and reader funnels. The problem is, they say it like they’re reading the terms and conditions on a life insurance policy.
We’d rather have a conversation. The kind you’d have in a pub with someone who’s been through the same nonsense as you. Granted, one of us should have left two pints ago, and the other has questionable opinions about semicolons, but we’re here to chat, not preach.
In short, Wise Liars is the indie publishing podcast for people who want to learn something useful without losing the will to live. In fact, we hope our witterings might occasionally make you chuckle. That’s an aspiration, not a guarantee.
Whether you are an aspiring author with an idea, a plan, or a half-finished draft, a working writer grappling with process, productivity, and publishing realities, we reckon Wise Liars will be worth your listening time.
What to expect
We talk about writing, publishing, and the business of selling books — the stuff that actually matters when you’re trying to build a career without a publisher, an agent, or a trust fund.That said, we don’t know everything (or anything, if you ask certain people), but that’s our USP. We’re not pretending to be gurus — we’re just two middle-aged blokes who stumbled into the publishing world by accident, and now we can’t get out.
We also get things wrong, argue with each other, and go off on tangents about biscuits. Consider that a feature, not a bug.
Irreverent insights from two Wise Liars …
There are no rules
There are informed decisions, risky bets, and trusting your gut. Accept guidance, but the moment someone presents a rule as gospel, they’re selling something.
Absolutes are a lie
For every guru preaching a guaranteed strategy, someone else is making a killing by doing the exact opposite. Usually in their pyjamas.
Context is king
What works for a thriller might destroy a rom-com. What sells non-fiction won’t save a children’s book. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either lying or hasn’t published enough to know better.
Writing is art; publishing is maths
We won’t let the romance of writing a book blind us — or you — to the brutal realities of actually shifting copies. Passion doesn’t pay the mortgage. Ask us how we know.
Tactics over trends
Hacks expire. Algorithms change overnight. TikTok strategies have the shelf life of a prawn sandwich. We focus on the stuff that still works when the dust settles.
