Are you ready to harness the secret power of 'Underground Publishing' to quickly deliver your message to the world ?!?
   If you are already a member of the Author Underground...

We figured out Self-Publishing so now you don't have to …
The only thing left is for you to finish your book!

We have taken away the excuses that used to hold you back when it comes to writing, publishing, and marketing your book.
No longer do you have to be concerned about agents, query letters, rejections and publishing houses.
When you indie-publish, the only thing you need to concern yourself with is writing the best book that you can, because publishing is guaranteed.
Today’s technology makes this possible!
What used to be reserved for only big corporations and big publishing houses is now available to you. Professional printing of high-quality books is now affordable to the independent author and boy, it is a game-changer!
Today, we see unknown authors rising up in the Amazon rankings, all based on the quality of their work and not on who published them.
If you have ever wanted to write, publish, and market your book, NOW IS THE TIME!

We went from 1 title to 9 titles in less than 2 years!

After 15 depressing months of being with a “traditional” publisher, we finally ‘wised up’ and pulled our book from them in order to go 100% independent.
Man, are we glad we did that! That very first month, we made more in royalty money than in a full year and three months with those other guys.
Not only that, but we were able to ‘put the pedal down’ and publish one title right after the other until we got it down to a system.
Now, we not only publish our own books in less than 40 days, we help numerous other authors publish theirs too.

"You can, you should, and if you’re brave enough to start, you will."
- Stephen King: Bestselling American author with more than 350 million books sold

So  -  What is the...?!?!

Author Underground (AU) is more than a learning platform.

We created AU because we know what it feels like to have a million questions and no answers.

We understand feeling lost without anyone to point the way.

We have made so many mistakes and taken so many wrong turns, we get what it’s like to want to just give up.

But we didn’t.

We don’t want you to give up either.

AU is here to answer your questions.

AU is a map leading you to success.

AU is a community.

AU is a place where you can learn from all of us who have gone before you, so you don’t make the same mistakes as we did.

AU cares about your success as an author!

Monthly 'LIVE' training & coaching calls covering everything you need to successfully write, publish & market your book...

Writing Your
Book...

  • Character building
  • Outline/Panster
  • Learn tag lines and beats for better dialogue
  • ​Accountability—create habits to help you write for life
  • ​Memoir Writing Secrets
  • ​Goal setting
  • ​Avoid Procrastination
  • ​Outlining your non-fiction book

Publishing Your Book...

  • Creating Covers that Kill
  • Boosting Your Author Bio
  • Introduction to Ingram Spark
  • ​REAL TALK - about Traditional Publishing
  • ​Copyright your work now
  • ​ISBN Basics
  • ​Avoid the Publishing Pitfalls
  • ​Harness the power of the pre-order

Marketing Your Book...

  • Social Media Marketing for Authors
  • Doing 'Live' events
  • Hashtag strategies for book promotion
  • ​Email Marketing & Reader Magnets
  • ​The power of your author domain name
  • ​Deep Dive into FACEBOOK
  • ​Value Ladders for Authors
  • ​BookTok-TikTok-WhatTheTok?
  • ​Identifying, Finding, and Reaching your Target Market

Plus: Every Session is recorded and available in the membership area

BONUS #1: Self Pub 101 is your very own online self-publishing school...

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN...

  • EDITING - The starting point of any masterpiece is masterful editing! You will learn the basics of effective editing including how to use the included tools with your word processing program. This class will be a fun, energetic, ice-breaking class that will put your editing know-how to the test. You will also be taught how to self-edit, group-edit and where to go to hire the best professional editors.
  • MARKETING - Being a successful author means being a successful marketer! You will learn how to determine your target market, what enticing message to convey and what media you should use to reach them. This class will focus on the bottom-line essential marketing tools needed to promote your published work in the most effective way possible. 
  • COVER DESIGN & CREATION - A picture is worth far more than a thousand words! You will learn how to make the best first impression possible using up to date graphic design principles, eye-capturing images and high-impact text. This class will teach you the elements and fundamentals of successful cover creation. Be prepared to get your hands dirty while you discover your inner cover artist.
  • ​INTERIOR LAYOUT - The layout of your book is completely determined by you! The three sections you must have are the title, copyright, and body. After that, you need to decide what will work best for your book based on whether it’s fiction or non-fiction, length, genre, style, audience, and personal preference. This class will be an overview of all the possible sections that can be included in a book and which handful you should be using.
  • FORMATTING - This is what makes your book reader-friendly! You will learn how to make the interior of both your paperback and digital versions of your book look great. While hiring a professional formatter is the best route to take to get the best results, you will learn how to acquire the necessary skills to format your own book(s) for zero cost.
  • WEB SITE DESIGN & BUILDING - If you want to be considered a professional in your field, you must have a website! You will learn the essentials of website design, building and maintenance. Your author site is a direct reflection on you and your writing, so it is imperative to have a professional, clean and easy to navigate site. Again, you will learn how to acquire the necessary skills to build and maintain your own website.
  • BOOK LAUNCHING – Once your book has been laid out, edited, formatted and the cover designed, it is time to launch. This class teaches you where you will go and what information you will need to upload your book interiors and covers to be printed and available in paperback and digital format on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Kobo, Smashwords and others.
  • BUSINESS BASICS - Now it's time to set up your corporate headquarters! You will learn all the little bits and pieces that make a business a business. From branding to bookkeeping and structuring to sales tax, you name it, we'll cover it. This class is provided as an overview and is not a substitute for professional legal or accounting advice but it's the next best thing.

"If writing your book has been a goal — one you have yet to accomplish — and you need some help getting there, then join us!"

BONUS #2: The Master Key to Indie Author Marketing Success

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN...

  • WHAT IS THE 'MASTER KEY'? - Success in any endeavor can usually be boiled down to one or two key concepts that, if mastered, can bring about 100x returns on effort and investment. This session will expose the ONE key area of indie author marketing that MUST be mastered in order to leverage ALL of the other work done.
  • YOUR VERY OWN MARKETING PLAN - Emulate a plan that works; Create your own customized plan; Launch your marketing plan IN ONE HOUR!

BONUS #3: How to 'Be the Publisher'

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN...

  • ​The 3 essential ingredients needed to publish your book (If you have done any research at all on what it takes to publish a book, you probably have seen dozens of 'must-haves' listed but we know there is only 3 (and we'll tell you exactly what they are)
  • ​The 3 platforms to publish and reach 90% of the world (Today's technology is making the world smaller and smaller and the publishing platforms to reach most of the world are not only easy to navigate - they are free!)
  • ​The 3 point plan for book marketing success (Of all the marketing advice out there on what to do (after all, there is 1,001 Ways to Market Your Book) we reveal the 3 point plan that is GUARANTEED to give you results.)

BONUS #4: Copy of '40 Day Publishing'

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN...

  • Learn the essential differences between traditional, subsidy, and self-publishing.
  • ​Learn the seven skill sets of highly successful self-publishers.
  • Get your very own 40 day road map of day by day instruction on how to finish, publish and promote your book!

PLEASE READ!!!

WARNING: THIS PROGRAM IS NOT FOR EVERYONE!!

  • This program is not for you: If you believe that you can just sit in a corner, meditate, and your book will finish itself, or edit itself, or market itself, or upload itself, in other words…..there is work required. It may be fairly simple, but it certainly is not easy (although you get the benefit of us figuring out how to do all this over a number of years….while you get it handed to you over a couple of weeks!)
  • This program is not for you: If you are writing garbage. I am not going to go into our definition of ‘garbage’ but I will tell you this….our world is already too full of poorly written, horribly edited, utterly ‘trashy’ books and it just needs to stop. If that is what you write, quit reading now.
  • This program is not for you: If the investment in your tuition would take food off your table or cause you tremendous financial hardship. Frankly, we don’t want you to get the program right now if that is your situation.

WHO IS THIS PROGRAM FOR?

  • Authors who are ready to stop making excuses and get their book published.
  • Authors who want to maintain creative control over their book and not hand over rights to some stranger.
  • ​Authors who want to have their book published on THEIR timeline instead of waiting months or even years for a ‘Publisher’.
  • Authors who want to get paid monthly royalties of 30%, 50% even 70% of their book’s retail instead of pennies every quarter.
  • Authors who want to know how their books are selling on a daily basis.
  • Authors who realize that their success is wholly dependent upon themselves !
40 Day Media LLC, PO Box 950794, Oklahoma City, OK 73195
Copyright 2023. All Rights Reserved
About Your Mentors:
It is with a great deal of sadness that we announce the sudden and unexpected
passing of Darlene Shortridge Mawhinney, wife of Daniel Mawhinney, and co-
founder of 40 Day Publishing, in the fall of 2022. We know those of you who had
the opportunity to talk with Darlene via telephone, on Zoom, or in person, will
agree with us that she was a dynamic person with a magnetic personality that drew
people to her. We mourn her loss, and, in that mourning, we are committed to
carrying on with 40 Day Publishing in honor of her and the wonderful work she
did. Her love for her family, for the people she helped in their writing career, and
most importantly, for the Lord gives us at 40 Day Publishing the drive to move
forward, Until Forever. Please know, she treasured each and every one of you, as
do we.