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The Smarter Artist Show: Episode 16 - Your Back Matter Is Costing You Readers (And You Don't Even Know It)
05/08/2026
The Smarter Artist Show: Episode 16 - Your Back Matter Is Costing You Readers (And You Don't Even Know It)
Sean, Dave, and Johnny dig into one of the most neglected pieces of real estate in any author's catalog: back matter. The highest-leverage moment you have with a reader is the thirty seconds after they finish your book, and most creators waste it with a generic thank-you and a mailing list link that goes nowhere. This episode is a post-mortem on real mistakes from the Sterling & Stone catalog, including a back matter page that thanked readers for a book they didn't read! The practical takeaway is simple: every book you publish should know where to send the reader next. Not a list of everything you've written. One book, same emotional register, direct buy link. Sean, Dave, and Johnny walk through why standalones are the hardest to monetize, why Johnny thinks we systematically misread buyer psychology, and what Colleen Hoover's publisher is doing right that authors ought to emulate. Get your weekly Dispatch here: Timestamps 00:00 Something Cool: Sean's castle in Ireland where C.S. Lewis and Tolkien used to meet (and yes, 666 acres of Celtic forest) 10:21 Something Cool: Dave's son discovers Seth Rogen, Martin Scorsese, and then Goodfellas via a Zane Lowe interview 12:09 Chris Stuckman's micro-budget horror film Shelby Oaks and what it means to take your shot 17:35 The main topic: what is back matter, and why does it matter more than anything else in your book 19:15 The Sterling & Stone back matter fail: the Crash/Threshold story 21:09 Back matter as catalog architecture: how books should know each other 25:00 Brandon Sanderson's back matter and why you're not him yet 27:04 What makes a standalone profitable vs. a reader dead-end 29:31 The leaking bathtub debate (Johnny officially retires the metaphor) 31:32 Don't make readers click twice: direct buy links, specific CTAs, order matters 36:10 Aging series and the dead link problem: Dave's website domain story 40:24 How often to audit your back matter (at least once a year) 41:29 What Colleen Hoover's publisher is doing that you should steal 43:03 Johnny on convention buyers vs. online buyers: why you keep assuming wrong things about your readers 51:33 One thing you can do right now: open your last book and read your own back matter like a stranger 53:11 Sean's final take: look at the actual page shipping under your name, then fix it Resources Mentioned The Smarter Artist Method by Sean Platt, free with Dispatch sign-up Back Matter Checklist, exclusive to Dispatch subscribers Crash by David Wright Threshold by Sean Platt Pretty Killer by Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant Yesterday's Gone by Sean Platt and David Wright Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman Shelby Oaks (film, dir. Chris Stuckman, produced with Mike Flanagan) The Studio (Apple TV+) * Platonic (Apple TV+)
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