Book Rescue: Author Uses iPhone to Publish Books (S1E1)

About this video

This is episode 1 of Book Rescue, sponsored by Fiverr, in which Dale works with Robert G. Culp, a 28-year-old young adult fantasy author who he says has written about four full-length novels plus a short story, doing all his writing and cover design on an iPhone 6S and an iPad with no computer. Robert explains he deferred his dream school, LSU in Louisiana, because of tuition costs during the pandemic, hopes to one day own a publishing house, and recently learned his dog has bone cancer in its paw; he says $1,000 per month would change his life, helping with college, his dog’s treatment, his mother’s house, and reinvesting in his books. Dale stresses no income is promised — the show course-corrects what Robert already has. Over about three weeks they fix his unflattering author photo, plan a professional cover redesign that keeps his branding but fixes typography (he praises Robert for already having a hardcover and for using Reader’s Favorite’s free editorial review), and arrange a book-description consultation with Brian Meeks. The shown work focuses on metadata: using Publisher Rocket (which Robert cannot run himself on a phone), they replace overly broad keywords like fairies, Stonehenge, dragons and knights with more granular long-tail phrases, use different keywords for ebooks versus print, and expand from 3 categories to 10 each for ebooks and print. Dale also notes Robert published only through Draft2Digital and was missing direct-to-KDP control over metadata. The surprise gift is a professional author biography in long and short versions, made via a Fiverr provider named Russ, for Amazon Author Central and a future website. Dale reports Robert was already seeing a small sales increase, with ad copy and covers still to be fixed in later episodes.

Key takeaways

• Robert G. Culp built his catalog on an iPhone 6S with no computer — Dale frames the rescue as course correction, not an income promise.
• Broad keywords like ‘dragons’ and ‘fairies’ hurt a new author’s discoverability; granular long-tail phrases give a fighting chance against entrenched titles.
• Keywords and categories must be set separately for ebooks and print; they expanded Robert to 10 relevant categories for each format.
• Publishing only through Draft2Digital meant missing direct KDP control over metadata.
• Fix the full package in sequence: author photo, cover typography/branding, description with expert help, and a professional long and short author bio.

Episode details: published September 17, 2021 · 10:51 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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