Maya Alden was kind enough to share her writing / publishing process in the following interview: 1. At what catalog size did your backlist start producing meaningful income? First, I think “meaningful” is different for everyone. For me, the business started generating meaningful income surprisingly early. I launched my first indie book on June 23, 2023, and by September, with only three books published, I was earning enough to feel comfortable walking away from corporate. But I wouldn’t call that a mature backlist yet. The real shift came about a year later, when I had roughly 12 books published. That was when I began to see the compounding effect of having multiple books and series working for me at the same time, and my monthly baseline moved up significantly. So if I had to give someone a number, I’d say around 12 books. That’s enough for a couple of series, some read-through, and a catalog substantial enough that one book can lead readers into several others. 2. How has your drafting process evolved over the years, and what part of the process do you think is the most integral to writing 17 books in a year? So, I sold my first book to Random House in 2001, and it came out in 2002. Yes, that many years ago. I stayed in trad writing mainstream fiction for 9 books over 22 years. So my process has always been: I have an idea, then I write fifty pages or so to test whether it can become a story, and once I know it can, I write the book. The process has changed now in the sense that I don't "test" the story—I let it stew in my head a while before I put it on paper. I know what the story is, and I know it can hold its own. So, there's less trial and error. I recently started dictation because I usually narrate the chapter in my head before I write it. Now I narrate it to Otter. That creates a great scaffold and first draft. I then work on the second draft. I edit chapter by chapter, so I have the third draft done piece by piece. Once the book is done, I do one more draft start to finish.

This October I challenge you to 10x an area of your business! - sales - page reads - pre-orders - subscribers - word count - followers - whatever you want! Post your goal in the comments! If you're not sure, post an idea and we'll help you workshop it. It's okay if the goal is a big scary--we'll cheerlead you! Shoot for the moon and land among the stars. We have a kick-off call October 1st! Let's do this!

Who wants to do a 10k in 10 days challenge (Rachel Rodgers-style?) In October 👀

Seeking input on gaining new readers organically when money is short and ads aren't possible. I am expanding outside of omegaverse, and my current readership is not having it. They only want or care about OV. I thought paranormal, monster, and fantasy romance titles would fit well under this pen name so I didn't need to make another (I already struggle with MPD from all my names). However, the one PNR novella I released last month sold abysmally and hardly received any interactions in my NL or socials, and my follow-up novella trilogy is looking rough for preorders. (I'm talking 7 preorders vs. 200+ on any OV title) I know the answer is to garner more readers who are fans of these other subgenres. I've seen several authors who write a lot of omegaverse successfully release other subgenres under the same name, but I don't know them personally to ask about how they expanded their audience. There may not be any easy answer here, and that's okay! I'm just looking for ideas and input from anyone willing to help 💜 TYIA! Edit: P.S. I hope this makes sense. I just got out of the hospital yesterday, and my brain is still really foggy and exhausted.

Hi! Lee and family, thank you so much for a wonderful Bootcamp. My brain requires lists, so as I go through title testing on an existing series, I wanna make sure I have this right. 1. Create titles (variations to test) 2. Create black background covers with the title and your name. (Designed title treatment??) 3. Create a black cover with tropes + your name 4. Change your cover on Amazon to your key tropes and your name. 5. Change the title to your tropes on Amazon. 6. Create a single ad design, ideally white background with the cover in an ipad etc. Put the (designed?) black covers with the individual titles on separate images 7. Go to Meta and create a campaign -> set the budget at the Ad Set level. Same budget for all. 8. Targeting as whatever works for you. 9. Use your blurb as the copy and the cover ad image as the creative. (Headline: tropes + KU if applicable?) 10. Here's where I'd duplicate the ad set and swap out the creative (and attribution links??) for however many titles I'm testing. Do this so that Meta doesn't decide where to allocate the dollars. 11. Run the ads until {SOMETHING about 50 clicks????}. Is this right? Thank you, folks!