Breaking

SFWA SOLSTICE AWARD 2020 - David Gaughran honored for distinguished contributions to the SFF community • 'LET'S GET DIGITAL' NOW FREE - 4th edition available at no cost on all major retailers • WATCHDOG IN ACTION - Gaughran exposes how vanity presses extract avg $5,000+ from new authors • 6 BOOKS PUBLISHED - From Amazon algorithms to BookBub ads, the indie author playbook exists • NOMAD FILING FROM SOUTHERN FRANCE - Latest: Facebook Ads tutorial published Feb 2026 • 27-LESSON FREE COURSE - 'Starting From Zero' available at courses.davidgaughran.com • FEATURED IN: The Guardian, Forbes, The Irish Times, Sunday Times •

Est. Dublin, Ireland

Author • Advocate • Strategist

David
Gaughran

The Man Who Rewrote the Rules of Publishing - One Rejection Letter at a Time

"I wasted 18 months chasing agents before I started self-publishing. I wish I'd made the leap sooner."

6 Books Published

11.6K YouTube Subs

4.69 Goodreads Avg

27 Free Lessons

🏆 KATE WILHELM SOLSTICE AWARD - SFWA 2020
Distinguished Contributions to Sci-Fi & Fantasy Community

5,400+ Goodreads Ratings

11,880 Facebook Followers

189K YouTube Views

5 Countries Lived In

FREE Let's Get Digital (4th Ed)

The Profile

The Irishman Who Refused the Gates

He spent 18 months writing query letters. He addressed them carefully, researched each agent, followed every submission guideline to the letter. The replies, when they came at all, were polite. Then he stopped asking permission.

David Gaughran self-published his first novel in 2011. That same year, he joined Goodreads. By 2012, his non-fiction guide Let's Get Digital had won Best Non-Fiction at the Independent E-book Awards. By 2020, he had won the Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award from SFWA - not for writing science fiction (though he does, under a pen name he refuses to reveal), but for making the landscape safer for people who write it.

The story behind that arc involves a fishing village north of Lisbon, rural Peru, an academic journal about maritime history, and a vanity press conglomerate that extracted over $5,000 on average from writers who didn't know any better. Gaughran knew. And he wrote about it - repeatedly, specifically, with names attached.

"Big Publishing is in trouble. It seems to have learned little from the disruptions that radically altered other industries."

- David Gaughran

Born and raised in Dublin - a city he describes as "where the rain comes up from the ground and everyone has pints for hands" - Gaughran arrived at writing through the back door. Before he was a publishing strategist, he was teaching English at a severely underfunded school in rural Peru, running micro-business loan programs, and creating career workshops for disadvantaged teenagers. You can see this background in his work: the instinct to give the tools away, the impatience with institutions that extract rather than enable.

His guide to self-publishing, Let's Get Digital, is now on its fourth edition and available completely free. This is not a loss leader. It is a philosophy. Gaughran's entire career runs on the principle that the best marketing is connecting people to things they actually want - and that giving away your best work builds more trust than any amount of persuasion.

The books he's written since read like a map of the digital publishing landscape: Let's Get Visible (2013) on discoverability, Strangers to Superfans (2018) on the reader journey, BookBub Ads Expert (2019), Amazon Decoded (2020), Following (2021) on author platform. Each book is the thing he wished had existed when he needed it. He keeps writing them because they keep not existing anywhere else.

Quick Facts

Born in Dublin

Irish author, currently based in southern France. Has lived in Prague, London, and a fishing village north of Lisbon.

Education

University College Dublin

Attended UCD before embarking on international development work in Peru and eventually pivoting to writing and self-publishing.

Secret Identity

The Unknown Pen Name

Writes science fiction under a completely secret pen name. "Super top secret." He's promised to reveal it "at some point." The mystery is, itself, a brand move.

As SFWA President Said

"Yeoman's Work"

Mary Robinette Kowal: "David Gaughran has been alerting indie writers about predatory schemes for years. His work makes the science-fiction and fantasy landscape safer."

The Nomad Route

Five Countries. One Laptop.

Gaughran's writing life has been geographically restless. Each city seems to have coincided with a new phase of the work.

Dublin

Origin

Peru

Pre-writing

Prague

2013-2015

London

2015-2017

Lisbon

2018-2021

S. France

2022-Present

The Catalog

Six Books. All of Them Useful.

Author Resources

Non-Fiction • Let's Get Publishing

2012 / 4th Ed. 2020 - FREE

Let's Get Digital

The book that started it all. How to self-publish and why you should. Now available completely free - because that's the kind of move he makes.

4.37 / 5 (2,155 ratings)

Non-Fiction • Discoverability

2013

Let's Get Visible

How to get noticed and sell more books. The follow-up to Digital, covering the mechanics of visibility in an algorithm-driven market.

4.22 / 5 (815 ratings)

Non-Fiction • Reader Journey

2018

Strangers to Superfans

A marketing guide to the reader journey. Maps the psychology of how a stranger becomes your biggest fan - and what happens at each stage.

4.40 / 5 (572 ratings)

Non-Fiction • Advertising

February 2019

BookBub Ads Expert

The definitive guide to BookBub advertising. Currently the highest-rated book in his catalog. Earned a 4.69 average from over 300 raters.

4.69 / 5 (302 ratings)

Non-Fiction • Amazon

2020

Amazon Decoded

Demystifying the world's largest book retailer - its algorithm, its quirks, and how to navigate it without losing your mind or your royalties.

4.53 / 5 (500 ratings)

Non-Fiction • Platform - FREE

2021 - Free with newsletter

Following

A marketing guide to author platform. Given free to newsletter subscribers because "blogs don't really sell books - but email lists do."

4.64 / 5 (426 ratings)

Historical Fiction (as David M. Gaughran)

Historical Fiction • 2011

A Storm Hits Valparaiso

South American Wars of Independence. Two brothers torn apart. A slave running for his life. A disgraced British sailor seeking redemption. Features Jose de San Martin.

Historical Fiction • 2014

Mercenary

Based on the true story of Lee Christmas - American soldier of fortune and banana wars mercenary in Honduras. The kind of biography they don't teach in school.

Historical Fiction • 2016

Liberty Boy

Dublin, aftermath of the 1803 Rising. Jimmy O'Flaherty navigates the execution of Robert Emmet's legacy while trying to earn passage to America. Local history, global stakes.

The Framework

How Gaughran Thinks About Book Marketing

The Reader Journey: Strangers to Superfans

STRANGER - doesn't know you exist

BROWSER - sees a cover, curious

READER - buys and reads

FAN - reviews, recommends

SUPERFAN - advocates, pre-orders

Gaughran's great insight was structural: most authors think about "selling books." He thinks about moving people through stages. The book isn't the end - it's a step on a journey from not knowing you exist to telling everyone they know.

"The aim of marketing is to connect customers with products they already want to buy."

- David Gaughran

This distinction - connecting versus persuading - is the engine under everything he teaches. You aren't tricking readers. You are finding the ones already looking for exactly what you wrote, and making sure they can find it.

His BookBub Ads Expert takes this framework into paid advertising. His Amazon Decoded applies it to how the world's largest bookstore actually decides who to show what. His Following gives away the platform guide for free because the goal was never to sell the book. The goal was to earn your attention.

The Watchdog Work

Naming Names

The self-publishing world has a predator problem. Vanity presses masquerade as traditional publishers. They promise distribution, prestige, and promotion. They charge $10,000 for a package that delivers nothing. Gaughran writes about this - specifically, repeatedly, with the company names and the publisher partners attached.

Author Solutions

The target of Gaughran's most sustained investigative work. A vanity press conglomerate that has extracted an average of over $5,000 from inexperienced writers through high-pressure sales tactics. Gaughran documented partnerships with Penguin Random House, Harlequin, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hay House, and Barnes & Noble.

The Method

Public documentation. Named partners. Documented tactics. Gaughran doesn't write think-pieces about the problem in the abstract - he writes posts that tell writers exactly which entity to avoid and why. This costs him industry relationships. He does it anyway.

The Impact

SFWA President Mary Robinette Kowal cited this work directly when awarding the Solstice Award. The award itself - typically given to those who improve conditions for SFF writers - was recognition that watchdog journalism has real-world protective value.

The Pattern

Book fair exposés. Vanity press investigations. Predatory agent alerts. Gaughran has built a body of work that functions as a consumer protection resource. The underlying instinct: information asymmetry is how predators operate, and transparency is the countermove.

Career Arc

From Rejection to Revolution

Pre-2011

Teaches English in rural Peru. Runs micro-business loans. Writes career workshops for disadvantaged youth. Learns what it means to give tools to people who need them.

2008-2010

Writes first novel. Spends 18 months querying literary agents. Gets polite rejection. Stops asking permission.

2011

Self-publishes debut historical fiction A Storm Hits Valparaiso. Proves it can be done.

2012

Let's Get Digital wins Best Non-Fiction at Independent E-book Awards. The education career launches.

2013

Let's Get Visible published. Moves to Prague. Begins sustained advocacy and watchdog journalism against predatory publishers.

2014-2016

Publishes Mercenary (2014) and Liberty Boy (2016). Relocates London. Named #IndieHero by Indies Unlimited.

2018

Strangers to Superfans published. Moves to fishing village north of Lisbon, Portugal.

2019

BookBub Ads Expert published in February. Becomes his highest-rated book (4.69 on Goodreads). Establishes him as the authoritative voice on BookBub advertising.

2020

Amazon Decoded and 4th edition of Let's Get Digital (now free) published. Receives Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award from SFWA. Launches 27-lesson free Starting From Zero course.

2021

Following published free to newsletter subscribers. Newsletter-first strategy demonstrated through the product itself.

2022-Present

Relocates to southern France. Continues weekly newsletter, YouTube channel, blog updates. Facebook Ads tutorial published Feb 2026.

In His Own Words

What He Actually Says

"I wasted 18 months chasing agents before I started self-publishing. I wish I'd made the leap sooner."

"The only thing that has ever really sold books is word-of-mouth."

"My reasonably popular blog and somewhat considerable social media presence combined have less power than, say, 1,000 names on a mailing list."

"The place to dazzle readers with originality is inside the book - i.e., with your words."

"I'm a former pantser who realized he could bump his speed from 'very slow' to 'slow' by embracing the dark arts of plotting."

"Writers have benefitted immensely from this revolution - mostly because they don't depend on those large corporations anymore."

Character Notes

The Person Behind the Playbook

🌧️ Describes Dublin as "where the rain comes up from the ground and everyone has pints for hands." Absolutely not wrong.
🧪 His author bio photo was taken "just before he finished assuming human form." A line only an Irish writer would put in their official bio.
🤫 Has written science fiction under a completely secret pen name. Has been promising to reveal it "at some point" since at least 2020.
⛵ Was published in the Journal for Maritime Research - something he notes "with particular pleasure." An academic maritime history journal. Because why not.
📧 Puts his email address in the back of all his books. "I love getting messages from readers." Old school in the best possible way.
🔓 Tried to contact an academic historian whose work he'd used for research, but couldn't through traditional publisher gatekeeping. Now uses this story to explain exactly why he self-publishes.

Personality Profile

The Operating System

Core Trait

Generosity as Strategy

Gives away his best book free, offers a free 27-lesson course, writes a free newsletter. Not because he's uninterested in money, but because he understands that trust compounds.

Core Trait

Anti-Gatekeeping by Conviction

Spent time in Peru. Understands what happens when institutions extract rather than enable. Applied that framework to publishing with notable results.

Core Trait

Wry, Dry Irish Humor

"Just before he finished assuming human form." The self-deprecation is load-bearing. It's how he gets you to trust him on everything else.

Press

Where He's Appeared

The Guardian Forbes The Irish Times Sunday Times Business Insider Mashable Huffington Post New York Observer Newsweek Polska Irish Examiner The Telegraph Journal for Maritime Research

The last one he mentions "with particular pleasure."

"David Gaughran has been doing yeoman's work for years, alerting indie writers about predatory schemes and warning them about changes in independent publishing. His work makes the science-fiction and fantasy landscape safer for writers."

- Mary Robinette Kowal, SFWA President