Free Guide
The Indie Scholar Blueprint
A short, practical guide for the modern independent scholar — distilled from four years of building a working life of reading, writing, and teaching outside the academy.
What's in it
I finished my PhD in 2014 and worked as a professor for five years. In 2019 I left and started doing all of my writing and teaching independently, on the internet. It took me three years to cross six figures in annual income, mostly from philosophy courses and digital products covering everything from Plato to Deleuze. After four years on the outside I can finally claim a working model — and I've made plenty of mistakes along the way.
This guide distills the basics of that system: how to build the readership, the products, and the rhythm of work that an independent scholarly life actually requires. It's meant to be read in an evening and acted on the next morning.
After you read it
Two next steps when you finish:
- Subscribe to The Indie Scholars Review, our daily newsletter on the lives and work of independent thinkers.
- Join the working community at indiescholars.com — free to enter, paid tier unlocks events, courses, and the printed monthly newsletter.