During a recent search on YouTube while trying to find information on how to sell my self-published books, I came across Emeka Ossai, a charismatic young man originally from Canada who now lives in Mexico (I believe). In my opinion, Emeka is the last person you should spend your money with, if you take writing seriously.
Emeka does a series on YouTube on how he lives a passive income lifestyle through publishing on Amazon. He claims that he wants to help other authors reach the same success he has, and to do this, he offers some free guides and courses the author has to pay for.
During an email conversation in which I confronted Emeka about the errors in his free guide, he wrote, “Why do you think I don’t write my books? I’m not an author, I hire people (ghostwriters) to write my books for me and I publish them under pen names. I’m a publisher not an author.”
Summed up, this is Emeka’s business plan that he sells to self-publishers: hire a ghostwriter from Upwork or another site, publish your book with great keywords and swap reviews with other writers and sell your books. Basically, if you’re a serious writer like me, Emeka’s course isn’t for you. His course is for people who want to make some quick cash by publishing something they got from someone else.
Not to be misunderstood, there’s nothing wrong with hiring a ghostwriter. But when your goal is to use double-talk like Emeka and prey on self-publishers, it’s wrong.
For instance, in my recent emails with Emeka, he claimed to have published over one-hundred books under various pen names. When I challenged him, he named one book that I doubt made any money. When I challenged him on this, he wrote, “I already told you that was my 2nd book ever that book is shit.” He then directed me to watch his videos for the names of other books. I watched a bunch of his videos, but I haven’t heard one name of a book yet.
Emeka is all smoke and mirrors. He claims to have had so much success self-publishing, yet there is no proof of it. He gathers self-publishers for his upcoming “annual” Cancun retreat/summit and have them pay a ridiculous sum of money to participate. He claims to have the key to self-publishing success, but he is really just a charlatan using a bunch of videos to entice self-publishers who want to share their work with the world and make some money in the process as they deserve.
Emeka isn’t a “successful” self-publisher. All he knows is black hat tactics and rhetoric. Don’t spend your money with him. Everything he’s telling you, other successful self-published writers like Joanna Penn, Sean Platt and Johnny B. Truant tell you for free, and they can be trusted. Joanna Penn even opens her books to show you her sales.
Steer clear of Emeka Ossai.
*Jermaine Reed, MFA is a writer from Chicago who writes fiction, local news stories and national news stories. Please join his email list to get updates on blog posts, writing advice and free books. Get my recently released Science Fiction novel A Glitch in Humanity by clicking here.
The Reeders Block 
I hear your point of view though I respectfully disagree. Emeka is a businessman. Yes, he is flashy and he talks a lot and puts out a lot of information but his intentions are pure and he does genuinely want to help people. If you are trying to break into any sort of business the person in charge will ignore you. Emeka actually gives his time, he responded to people like me and you but he doesn’t have to. He does it because he is a genuine person. He does not profit from messaging me and when I have messaged him with questions he answers and does not try to upsell me on anything. I mean I’ve watched his YouTube videos and I can tell you after working at it for 8 months I’ve had some success on Kindle. It sounds like you may be frustrating as an author and that his business model is definitely not for you. I am by no means an expert in the niche I chose but because of the success I’m experiencing I’m investing time into becoming a subject matter expert for a topic I’m already interested in so in the end it works out if you do work hard and follow his advice. I have watched his videos religiously. He is not perfect, I have even caught him contradict himself where in one video he says matte book covers look the best and in another he said glossy book covers look better than matte so he’s not perfect but don’t put Emeka down for being an imposter. I even think he might be a little arrogant, that’s worst I can say about him. Does it really surprise you he doesn’t show his books? People a jealous and envious beings. If he did that he would be instantly targeted and people would buy his books and leave negative reviews if they didn’t have the exact same success as Emeka. No smart businessperson would give away their exact step-by-step process what they do and he actually does offer 1-on-1 consultation I believe but it’s not cheap. If I told someone exactly what I did either A. They would copy my niche and I would have direct competition hurting my own business or B. They wouldn’t be able to replicate my results and resent me for it and try to ruin my business and because I was stupid enough to show them my proof and
books now they can very easily and readily leave me negative reviews effectively destroying my business I worked so hard to build. The information Emeka puts out for free on YouTube is enough to get anyone who’s willing to work hard enough for it there but It takes time, blood, sweat, tears and a lot of effort. His Facebook group and booklet are reasonably priced and more than worth it for the value. I would know because I’ve been doing it since last March. I’m grateful there are genuine people like Emeka and trust me there are plenty of scummy business people out there that really don’t give a s*** and just want to take your money and run and won’t even think about responding to you and are totally phony. I have been scammed before but Emeka is one of the few good ones.
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And I disagree. But each person finds his or own separate value in it. For me, there is none, and it’s legitimately shady. But I can’t tell you your experience, nor can u my own.
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