Hello,

My name is Brian Jackson. I'm the author of about a dozen books, the publisher of well over 100 books, and a Udemy instructor with over 40 courses.

This is my story...

1 Origins

I was born in the middle of the last century in Los Angeles, California. I graduated from Humboldt State University, surrounded by the redwoods of Northern California. After 14 years at Lockheed Missiles and Space as an IBM system programmer and 12 years at Cisco Systems as a test engineer, I retired at 48.

I instantly became bored.

2 Community College

To break the boredom, I enrolled at Columbia Community College to take writing, art, acting and statistics classes. I took 24 units over one year and received straight “A”s.

I was still bored.

3 Writing and Self-publishing

I began writing fiction and nonfiction books and self-publishing them on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords in July 2011. Though I wrote and published several books, my self-publishing business didn’t take off until my wife joined me.

4 My Wife and Author, Melanie Jackson

Melanie Jackson, my wife, was an author publishing over two romance novels per year through her New York publisher, Dorchester Press. After publishing 24 novels with Dorchester, the company folded, and Melanie was without a publisher (she wanted to write cozy mysteries anyway).

I convinced Melanie to join me in self-publishing cozy mysteries on Amazon.

5 The Self-publishing Years

For the last fourteen years, from July 2010 to now (6/22/2024), my wife and I have written and self-published cozy mysteries. At first, we continued to self-publish on Amazon, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords, but eventually chose to self-publish exclusively on Amazon. To date, I've self-published well over 100 of my wife’s books on Amazon.

6 My Wife and I

When I say “my wife and I,” I mean that my wife did the writing, and I helped with the brainstorming, did half the editing, created the book covers, and self-published and marketed my wife’s books. So, my wife had it pretty good while I honed my writing, self-publishing and marketing skills.

After about five years of self-publishing a book every two months, Melanie and I burned out and slowed way, waaayyy, doowwwnnn…

7 Udemy

I began publishing courses on Udemy, Skillshare and multiple other sites in July 2014, focusing on writing, self-publishing and book covers. Within ten weeks, I had published my first 10 Udemy courses.

I currently live in Las Vegas, Nevada, with my lovely wife and author, Melanie Jackson, and Butterscotch the cat.

I'll see you in the classroom,

---Brian