Oliver Moros: 3 Million Books, Fully Self-Published
"Happy Bootstrapping" Volume #67
Alex Pohl is a full-time author from Leipzig – and he writes under so many names that most of his readers have never heard of him. Using pseudonyms such as Oliver Moros, L.C. Frey, Rita Hansen and Ina Straubing, the Chemnitz native has sold more than three million books, entirely through self-publishing.
In episode 179 of Happy Bootstrapping, I spoke with him about his business model: why he optimizes for maximum independence rather than maximum profit, how pseudonyms become a form of risk diversification, and why he still writes without a plot and without AI.
This is a summary of Episode 179 of the “Happy Bootstrapping” Podcast (German).
From Recording Studio to Author
Before Alex Pohl could make a living from writing, he had already lived several professional lives. He studied electrical engineering, worked as an engineer, ran his own recording studio – mostly for death metal bands – and toured as a musician. None of these ventures carried him financially over the long run, and the studio never turned a real profit. Only later did he commit fully to writing. What stands out is that he never chased the traditional route through a publishing house. From the start, he accepted that the market decides what succeeds, especially in art, and he built his career around that reality rather than around gatekeepers.
The Breakthrough and Going Full-Time
After roughly two years, he wrote his first thriller. It was unusual for the genre: over 640 pages, a standalone from an author with no crime-writing track record. And it appeared at a time when two growth levers that feel obvious today simply did not exist yet.
“That was before Amazon Ads. That was before Kindle Unlimited.”
Only paperback and e-book sales counted back then, and the book still climbed to number six in the overall charts. Alex is refreshingly matter-of-fact about it, but for him this was the turning point that proved the model could carry him. From there, he moved into full-time self-employment as an author, and he never looked for a publisher to validate the decision.
A Publishing House Run by One Person
Today Alex Pohl is his own publishing house. His biggest project, the Berlin thriller series “Edel und Stein” (written as Oliver Moros), now spans 21 volumes. Distribution,
covers, pricing and marketing all sit with him. The economic foundation rests roughly on three pillars: printed paperbacks, e-book sales and the per-page payout from Kindle Unlimited. Visibility comes from the Amazon product page, the platform’s organic recommendations and Amazon Ads, which he runs together with a specialized service provider. Around a third of his revenue flows back into advertising. On top of that sits a newsletter with about 30,000 subscribers, built up over the years using free books as an entry point – a channel that belongs to him and works independently of the platform.
Pseudonyms as Risk Diversification
The most compelling part of the conversation is his definition of success. Alex thinks in assets rather than in individual sales.
“Every book I have is an asset. It doesn’t belong to Amazon.”
Every book and every pseudonym becomes a self-contained building block, covering different genres and audiences – risk diversification much like a broadly spread ETF. If one series underperforms, others carry the weight. This mindset leads to a deliberate entrepreneurial goal that does not put profit maximization first.
“A different model is aiming for maximum independence. And that is what I decided on.”
As a distribution channel, he remains dependent on Amazon, and he says so openly. Entrepreneurially, though, that setup leaves him freer than many who answer to publishers or investors.
Writing Without a Plot and Without AI
As data-driven as his distribution is, his line on the craft itself is just as clear. Alex writes without a fixed plot and discovers the story as he goes – that discovery is precisely why he does the job. He uses artificial intelligence for research and for designing his covers, but deliberately not for the actual text. His faith in steady, repeated practice is disarmingly simple.
“The more often and the longer you do it, the better you inevitably get, because nobody ever trained themselves to be worse.”
That conviction explains the output. Alex ships several novels a year, and rather than treating writing as a mysterious talent, he treats it as a craft that compounds with hours on the page.
What I Learned From the Interview
What surprised me most was how consistently Alex pursues a different optimization target than most founders. Not growth at any cost, but independence as the top metric – and, derived from that, an entire portfolio of books and pseudonyms that shields him against individual failures. The fact that he treats a publishing deal not as a goal but as an option he chooses to decline flips the familiar “author finally discovered” narrative on its head. His path shows how robust a one-person business can be when ownership, channels and risk are cleanly separated, and when the person running it knows exactly what they are optimizing for.
The full episode is now also on YouTube (German only):
Learnings for Founders
Deliberately optimize for one metric. Maximum independence can be worth more than maximum profit – as long as the choice is actually made.
Build a portfolio instead of a single product. Several series, brands or segments act as risk diversification and cushion the misses.
Secure a channel you own. A newsletter with direct access to your audience makes you less dependent on platform algorithms.
Treat your products as assets. What you own stays yours, even if your distribution partner changes tomorrow.
Separate tool from craft. Use AI where it saves time, and deliberately protect the core that makes your work unique.
Happy Bootstrapping is a German podcast where I interview bootstrapped founders, indie hackers, and solopreneurs about their startup journeys.
Over the years, I’ve connected with many successful entrepreneurs who have built e-commerce shops, SaaS platforms, mobile apps, content businesses, or hybrid models.
Furthermore I am a bootstrapper myself and growing my DevOps-as-a-Sercice and Web Operations Company “We Manage”.