Steven Pressfield's The War of Art built a devoted following by giving procrastination and self-sabotage a name: Resistance. Turning Pro, published a decade later in 2012, picks that idea back up and asks a narrower, harder question: if you already know Resistance is the enemy, what does it actually look like to stop losing to it, day after day, for years. Notably, Pressfield didn't take this book to a major publisher -- he released it through Black Irish Books, the small press he runs with his longtime editor Shawn Coyne. This review covers what the book actually argues, where it sits in Pressfield's informal trilogy, what real readers said about it in the absence of major trade-press coverage, and where the criticism is legitimate rather than just noise.
What Turning Pro Actually Is
This is a short, direct nonfiction book, not a memoir or a step-by-step workbook -- worth stating plainly, because Pressfield's style consistently trades length and granular instruction for aphoristic force. Turning Pro runs under 150 pages and is built from short chapters and even shorter sections, many just a paragraph or two, each hammering a single distinction: the difference between amateur behavior (distraction, self-sabotage, waiting for permission or inspiration) and professional behavior (showing up regardless of mood, treating your work with the discipline of a job rather than a hobby). It's less a manual for turning pro than a sustained argument for why the shift matters and what it costs you not to make it. The book is organized into three loose sections -- the nature of the amateur life, the concept of shadow careers people pursue instead of their real work, and finally what a professional mindset actually looks like day to day -- and it moves through all three quickly enough that most readers finish it in one or two sittings.
About Steven Pressfield and Why He Wrote This
Pressfield was born in 1943 in Port of Spain, Trinidad, graduated from Duke University in 1965, and served in the United States Marine Corps before spending roughly two decades working odd jobs -- driving a truck, working an oil rig, writing advertising copy -- while trying and failing to build a career as a writer. That long, unglamorous stretch of near-misses is the lived experience Turning Pro and its predecessor The War of Art are both drawing on directly; Pressfield has said plainly that he was a textbook amateur, by his own definition, for the better part of seventeen years before anything he wrote found an audience. His breakthrough came with the 1995 novel The Legend of Bagger Vance, later adapted into a film starring Will Smith and Matt Damon, followed by the historical novel Gates of Fire, which became an unlikely favorite in military academies for its account of the Spartans at Thermopylae. The War of Art, published in 2002, turned his own decades of professional struggle into a compact philosophy of creative resistance that found a huge audience among writers, athletes, and entrepreneurs. Turning Pro is the third piece of an informal trilogy on the same subject, following The War of Art and 2011's Do the Work, and it exists specifically to push past the first book's diagnosis into a harder, more personal reckoning with what daily professional behavior actually requires.
How It Compares to The War of Art
The War of Art is the introduction: it names Resistance, catalogs the many disguises it wears, and makes the case that this invisible force is the real enemy of anyone trying to do meaningful creative or entrepreneurial work. Turning Pro assumes you already accept that premise and pushes further into identity -- not just what Resistance is, but who you have to become to stop losing to it consistently. Where The War of Art is diagnostic, Turning Pro is closer to a character study of two opposing selves, the amateur and the professional, and an argument that turning pro is less a skill you acquire than an identity you adopt, often after hitting some kind of personal rock bottom. Readers who found The War of Art's short, punchy chapters energizing tend to respond the same way here; readers who wanted more practical instruction from the first book will likely have the same complaint about this one, only sharper, since it's positioned as the payoff book in the series.
What Readers Actually Said
Because Turning Pro was released through Pressfield's own small press rather than a major trade publisher, it didn't generate the same wave of major newspaper or trade-magazine reviews that a conventionally published book from a comparable author would expect -- worth knowing going in, since it means this book's reputation was built almost entirely on reader word-of-mouth and the built-in audience Pressfield already had from The War of Art, rather than critical consensus from outlets like Kirkus or Publishers Weekly. Within that reader-driven reception, the response has been consistently strong: reviewers across independent creative, business, and self-improvement blogs describe it as motivational and clarifying, particularly for people who already sense they're sabotaging their own work but haven't had language for the pattern. Several reviewers specifically credit the book with reframing procrastination and self-doubt as identity issues rather than simple willpower problems, which readers report as a genuinely useful shift in how they think about their own stuck periods.
And the aggregate reader picture, for what it's worth:
Where Real Reviews Pushed Back
The recurring criticism across independent reader reviews is remarkably consistent: the book is short, it covers ground already familiar to anyone who's read The War of Art, and it stays largely at the level of mindset and identity rather than offering concrete, repeatable steps for actually making the amateur-to-professional shift. Some readers describe finishing it feeling motivated but not entirely sure what to do differently on Monday morning. A smaller group has pushed back on the book's framing of professionalism itself, arguing it presents an overly rigid, almost military binary between "amateur" and "pro" that doesn't leave much room for the messier, nonlinear way most people actually build sustainable creative or entrepreneurial habits. Both criticisms are legitimate and worth knowing before you buy it expecting a practical workbook rather than a philosophical pep talk.
On Resistance as an Identity Problem, Not a Willpower Problem
The book's most useful reframe, and the one most reviewers single out, is treating the shift from amateur to professional as a change in self-concept rather than a matter of trying harder. Pressfield's argument is that amateurs and professionals aren't distinguished by talent or even output in any given week, but by how each relates to fear, failure, and criticism -- the amateur is controlled by the fear of these things, while the professional has simply decided to keep working regardless of them. It's a reframing that resonates strongly with readers who've spent years trying to will themselves into consistency through motivation alone and found that motivation, by definition, doesn't show up every day.
Pressfield also spends real space on a less obvious idea: that turning pro often follows a personal low point rather than a gradual, steady climb. He describes his own version of this as a kind of rock bottom that preceded his eventual discipline, and the book leans into the idea that hitting some form of crisis -- creative, financial, or personal -- is a common, almost necessary trigger for the shift, rather than something readers should expect to talk themselves into on a good afternoon. That's a more honest, less tidily motivational claim than a lot of productivity writing makes, and it's part of why readers who've actually hit their own low point before finding consistency tend to describe the book as recognizing something other books glossed over.
On Why It's Short, and Why That's a Deliberate Choice
Pressfield's books in this trilogy are all short by design, and it's worth understanding that as an intentional stylistic choice rather than a shortcut. He's spoken about wanting each chapter to function almost like a boxing jab -- landing one clear idea and moving on, rather than building the kind of extended, footnoted argument found in a typical business or psychology book. That approach is exactly why the book reads fast and hits hard in the moment, and exactly why some readers finish it wanting more scaffolding than a 150-page book built from one- and two-paragraph sections is ever going to provide. Judging it by the standards of a comprehensive self-help manual misreads what kind of book it's trying to be.
On the Business Case for Self-Publishing a Bestselling Author's Own Sequel
It's worth dwelling on the self-publishing decision a little longer, because it's unusual for an author with Pressfield's track record and it tells you something about how he thinks about his own audience. By 2012, Pressfield already had a large, proven readership for The War of Art and didn't need a traditional publisher's marketing apparatus or distribution to reach them -- he had Shawn Coyne, a former Big Five editor, and a direct line to readers through his own website and mailing list. That arrangement meant Turning Pro skipped the layers of trade-press outreach, advance review copies, and pre-publication buzz-building that typically produce Kirkus and Publishers Weekly coverage for a book from an author this well known. It's a legitimate, deliberate business choice rather than a sign the book couldn't find a traditional publisher, and it's part of a broader pattern -- Black Irish Books has since released several more of Pressfield's titles the same way, treating his built-in readership as more valuable than broad new discovery through trade channels.
Key Takeaways
- Turning pro, in Pressfield's framing, is a shift in identity and self-concept, not a skill you simply acquire through practice
- The book was deliberately self-published through Black Irish Books rather than pitched to a major trade publisher
- It's the third book in an informal trilogy and reads best as a follow-up to The War of Art, not as a freestanding introduction to Pressfield's ideas
- Its brevity is a stylistic choice, not a limitation the author was unaware of -- know that before expecting a detailed workbook
- Reader response has consistently outpaced formal trade-press coverage, which never fully materialized given the self-published route
Who This Book Is Actually For
Readers who already loved The War of Art and want the next layer of Pressfield's thinking on Resistance, especially anyone who recognizes their own procrastination or self-sabotage but hasn't found language for why it keeps happening. It also suits readers who respond well to short, intense, quotable nonfiction over long-form argument, and creative professionals -- writers, musicians, entrepreneurs -- who are past the beginner stage and are instead stuck in an inconsistent, on-and-off relationship with their own work.
Who Should Read Something Else Instead
If you're looking for a detailed, step-by-step productivity system with worksheets and concrete daily practices, this isn't that book, and multiple independent reviews confirm the same gap -- something closer to a habit-tracking or behavioral-science book would serve that need better. Readers who haven't yet read The War of Art should probably start there instead, since Turning Pro leans on concepts that book spends its whole length establishing, and starting with the sequel risks missing the foundational vocabulary the later book assumes you already have.
Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Short, intense, and genuinely re-readable in under two hours, ideal for a periodic motivational reset
- Reframes procrastination and self-doubt as identity issues, which many readers report as a real shift in how they approach stuck periods
- Strong 4.15 out of 5 Goodreads rating from more than 14,000 readers despite no major-publisher marketing push
- Written from decades of the author's own lived failure and eventual success, not secondhand research
- Works well as a compact companion to The War of Art rather than requiring a full second commitment of reading time
Cons:
- Covers ground that will feel familiar to anyone who has already read The War of Art
- Light on concrete, step-by-step instruction for actually executing the shift it describes
- Presents a fairly rigid amateur-versus-professional binary that some readers find oversimplified
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to read The War of Art before Turning Pro?
You don't strictly need to, but it helps. Turning Pro is the third book in an informal trilogy about overcoming Resistance, following The War of Art and Do the Work, and it assumes you already understand the concept of Resistance that The War of Art introduces and spends its whole first section defining.
Was Turning Pro published by a major publisher?
No. It was published through Black Irish Books, the independent press Pressfield co-founded with his longtime editor Shawn Coyne, rather than through a traditional trade publisher. That's part of why it built its reputation through reader word-of-mouth rather than major-outlet review coverage.
What's the actual Goodreads rating?
4.15 out of 5 from roughly 14,150 ratings as of this writing, slightly below The War of Art's rating but still strong for a self-published title. Check the live number yourself, since it will keep moving.
What's the most common criticism of this book?
That it's short, somewhat repetitive of ideas already covered in The War of Art, and light on concrete, step-by-step instructions for actually making the shift from amateur to professional -- a recurring complaint across independent reader reviews, alongside praise for its motivational clarity.
Sources & Further Reading
- Goodreads — Turning Pro (aggregate rating, reader reviews)
- StevenPressfield.com — Turning Pro book page and background on Black Irish Books
- Goodreads — The War of Art (aggregate rating, reader reviews)
- StevenPressfield.com — author biography
- PositiveLifes.com — free inspirational and life-changing PDF books
Final Verdict
Turning Pro delivers exactly what it promises for readers who already bought into The War of Art's premise: a short, intense reframing of procrastination and self-sabotage as an identity problem rather than a willpower problem. It won't hand you a step-by-step plan, and it doesn't pretend to -- that's a real limitation if a structured workbook is what you're after, but it's also consistent with what this book has always been trying to do. Self-published or not, a 4.15 rating from more than 14,000 readers is a real signal that the book's core idea keeps landing, one short, punchy chapter at a time.
Buy Day rating: 8.0/10