Ep 41 — This is Why Cozy Fantasy is Taking Over — Rebecca Thorne

S.L. Rowland has been a full-time author since 2019, writing one to one and a half books a year. In a corner of indie publishing where colleagues release a book a month, he calls himself a slow writer. He was ten books in before his career turned sharply upward, and he's now about to release his fifteenth. Fun fact: If you've been searching for Author Steve Rowland from Dungeon Crawler Carl, that's him too. We get into the book marketing that works at that pace. Steve explains why readers are happy to wait a year for the next book, how a passion project written during a hard stretch became his breakout series, why Kindle Unlimited is now less than 10% of his income, and how going wide with audiobooks overtook his Audible income in about a year. He breaks down the Instagram trial reels that regularly reach 60,000 to 80,000 views, the one hook he recycles that keeps hitting six figures, and how comp titles tell both readers and the algorithm who a book is for. We also talk about the business behind it. Steve walks through the numbers on the Kickstarter for his first three Tales of Aedrea novels: what the print run, freight, fulfillment and art cost, what he kept from the campaign, and why the leftover inventory could be worth another $50,000 to $60,000 at events and on his store. Then the story of how a joke comment to Matt Dinniman made him a character in Dungeon Crawler Carl book six, and what that has done for his in-person events. Are you searching for Author Steve Rowland from DCC? https://slrowland.com/2023/06/are-you-searching-for-author-steve-rowland/ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Find S.L. Rowland Website: https://slrowland.com Shop: https://shop.slrowland.com Books: https://slrowland.com/books/ All books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0727V4WZW?tag=hermansteuern-20 There Be Dragons Here Collector's Edition late pledges: https://slrowland.com/2026/09/there-be-dragons-here-collectors-edition-late-pledges/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slrowlandauthor Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/slrowlandauthor Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/slrowland Newsletter: https://subscribepage.io/SLRowland Mentioned in This Episode Fourthwall (his direct store platform): https://fourthwall.com Merrick Books (fulfillment and shipping): https://www.merrick-books.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ Time Stamps 00:00 A slow writer with a full-time career 01:11 Meet S.L. Rowland 06:44 Why cozy fantasy suits a slow writer 08:42 The passion project that became his breakout 13:06 Kindle Unlimited, going wide and audiobooks 18:35 Less paid marketing, more Instagram trial reels 26:57 Hooks and comp titles that sell the feeling 34:31 Kickstarter, events and where the money goes 51:09 How he became Author Steve Rowland in Dungeon Crawler Carl 1:03:47 His number one piece of advice ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ Support the Show Back my next Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermansteuernagel/interdimensional-drink-master?ref=72j627 The Pint & Portal Author Podcast: https://pintandportal.com My books, newsletter and socials: https://www.hermansteuernagel.com/links Deals on the tools I use: https://www.pintandportal.com/deals ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎵 Theme song: Power Rock Intro 7 by AndrewVovchynaC, licensed via Envato: https://1.envato.market/c/7700687/298927/4662. Some links may be affiliate links. Using them costs you nothing extra and helps support the show. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. © Herman Steuernagel, The Pint & Portal Podcast

Liz Delton didn't make any money from her books for five years. Then a short story she'd already written became a cozy fantasy series that now raises five figures on Kickstarter, and every campaign has beaten the last. S. Usher Evans has 49 books and a series that's earned her $100,000 a year for three years, yet her Kickstarters kept shrinking. In this live conversation, we work out why. Usher explains what happens when you treat a side quest like your front runner, and what changed when she finally put her best-selling series on Kickstarter. Liz breaks down how she presents a campaign, from the banner to the story page, and how she's grown a community of backers who come back every time. We also get into the business behind it: print runs versus print on demand, early birds and secret tiers, how much of a campaign lands on day one, running Meta ads to a pre-launch page, referral links, and why bundles have become a huge part of Usher's income. Both campaigns are live now. 🥧 Find Liz Delton The Pie Maker at the Edge of the Wood on Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lizdelton/the-pie-maker-at-the-edge-of-the-wood-deluxe-cozy-fantasy Website & shop https://www.lizdelton.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/lizdeltonwrites/ TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@lizdeltonwrites Facebook https://www.facebook.com/lizdelton 🐉 Find S. Usher Evans The Weary Dragon Inn Omnibus, Vol. 1 on Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/susherevans/weary-dragon-omnibus-vol-1 Website https://susherevans.com/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/susherevans/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/susherevans/ Usher's previous episode https://youtu.be/uIsOl-eGBsE 🔗 Mentioned in This Episode Kickstarter for Authors (2nd Edition) by Anthea Sharp https://www.amazon.com/dp/1680131818?tag=hermansteuern-20 New to Kickstarter? Start with my episode with Oriana Leckert https://youtu.be/byCWcx2ZRx0 Novel Publicity https://novelpublicity.com/ BookVault https://bookvault.app/ SeSe Printing https://www.seseprinting.com/ ⏱️ Time Stamps 00:00 Shrinking launches vs growing ones 01:58 Meet Liz Delton and S. Usher Evans 06:13 Why Usher's Kickstarters kept shrinking 22:14 Side quests vs the series that pays the bills 26:07 What makes a Kickstarter campaign stand out 48:29 Backers, fulfillment and the personal touch 57:46 Print runs vs print on demand 1:06:20 Early birds, secret tiers and day one 1:17:52 Meta ads, pre-launch and bundles 1:38:58 Their number one piece of advice ⭐ Interdimensional Drink Master https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermansteuernagel/interdimensional-drink-master?ref=72j627 🛠️ Deals on Writing & Marketing Tools I Use https://www.pintandportal.com/deals 📚 My Books & Author Newsletter https://www.hermansteuernagel.com/links Theme song: Power Rock Intro 7 by AndrewVovchynaC (Envato License). Some links may be affiliate links. Using them costs you nothing extra and helps support the show. © Herman Steuernagel, The Pint & Portal Podcast

Brady Hunsaker works a full-time job, writes for two hours before he leaves for the office, and earns six figures from his fantasy books. He published his first book in 2023, has sold around 80,000 copies since, and now runs six-figure Kickstarter campaigns for his deluxe editions. We get into the book marketing strategy behind those sales. Brady explains why he stopped caring about followers and started measuring posts by whether they sell books, how he runs separate TikTok accounts for different kinds of content, and why he pitches the world of a fantasy novel instead of the characters. He tests a book idea on social media before he writes it. One of those videos reached 300,000 views, so he wrote the book. We also talk about the business side of being an indie author. Brady breaks down where his income comes from across Kickstarter, direct sales from his own store and Kindle Unlimited, what he spends to produce a special edition, and when it made sense to hand fulfillment to someone else. He walks through how he drafts a novel in about two months without a second draft, and the daily schedule that fits writing, marketing and a family around a day job. Find Brady Hunsaker Website: https://bradyhunsaker.com Shop: https://shop.bradyhunsaker.com Depths of Vanalf: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DRDYL2C6?tag=hermansteuern-20 All books on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0BRL74ZDJ?tag=hermansteuern-20 Instagram: https://instagram.com/bradyhunsaker TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@bradyhunsaker YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BradyHunsaker Mentioned in This Episode Jeff Brown Graphics (cover art): https://www.jeffbrowngraphics.com Merrick Books (special editions and fulfillment): https://www.merrick-books.com Time Stamps 00:00 Sales over followers 00:43 Meet Brady Hunsaker 03:30 Why he chose self-publishing 07:28 A thousand sales on day one 09:47 A second TikTok account and a new pitch 14:17 Posting every day for sales 16:38 Covers, audio and Kindle Unlimited 19:03 Six-figure Kickstarters and where the money comes from 26:32 Writing fast around a full-time job 36:38 His number one piece of advice Support the Show Back my next Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermansteuernagel/interdimensional-drink-master?ref=72j627 The Pint & Portal Author Podcast: https://pintandportal.com My books, newsletter and socials: https://www.hermansteuernagel.com/links Tools I Actually Use All deals: https://www.pintandportal.com/deals Publisher Champ, 10% off: https://www.publisherchamp.com/referral/42246/ Publisher Rocket: https://publisherrocket.cartknox.com/buy-rocket?aff=442 Wise, first transfer up to $800 CAD free: https://wise.prf.hn/l/RlANJvG/ Envato: https://1.envato.market/c/7700687/298927/4662 Stallion Express: https://ship.stallion.ca/register/Qr3Wy5 Riverside: https://riverside.com/?via=herman-steuernagel Theme song: Power Rock Intro 7 by AndrewVovchynaC, licensed via Envato. Some links may be affiliate links. Using them costs you nothing extra and helps support the show. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. © Herman Steuernagel, The Pint & Portal Podcast

Eighteen authors, seventeen original urban fantasy stories, one Kickstarter anthology. Daniel Coolbaugh and Ben Schenkman built Arcane Awakenings by pooling their audiences instead of launching alone. A business to consumer author entrepreneur success story. They set a funding goal that covered only the base book and saved the bells and whistles for stretch goals. We recorded this live in May, during pre-launch. The campaign went live on September 15 and funded in under 34 hours. We get into how the anthology came together. They widened a Halloween theme into origin stories about the emergence of magic so more authors could say yes, and recruited from a shortlist of about two dozen. They asked for 8,000 to 10,000 words per story, and we talk about how fantasy authors treat a word limit. The cover is a single illustrated piece from Miblart that pulls in elements from all 17 stories. Ben explains why they kept the price fair to readers rather than paying for a big-name artist. Daniel walks through the one-year exclusivity deal that lets every author take their story back afterwards. Daniel also shares the rule he applies to every project: never waste words. Launch book one, book two and book three separately, then an omnibus, and you have four products instead of one. His own anthology story is a prequel to his Nathaniel Wither: Monster Hunter series, so it sends new readers straight to his books. Ben talks about his three urban fantasy series, publishing through Caffeinated Terrier Press, and narrating his own audiobooks. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FIND DANIEL COOLBAUGH Arcane Awakenings on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/arcaneawakenings/arcane-awakenings Website: https://authordanielcoolbaugh.wordpress.com The Fantasy and Sci-fi Fanatic's Podcast: https://thefantasyandscififanaticspod.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/author_danielcoolbaugh FIND BEN SCHENKMAN Website: https://benschenkman.com My Brother's Keeper: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GKHWPBKT?tag=hermansteuern-20 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Time Stamps 00:00 Books are expensive 01:24 Welcome and what's changing in November 06:47 Meet Ben Schenkman and Daniel Coolbaugh 14:44 Building an urban fantasy anthology 24:34 Why Kickstarter 30:24 One cover for 17 stories 34:45 Keeping the cost fair to readers 41:21 Getting more than one product from a story 47:32 Reward tiers and the pre-launch push 53:58 Where to find Ben and Daniel ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ SUPPORT MY NEXT KICKSTARTER https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/hermansteuernagel/interdimensional-drink-master?ref=72j627 THE PINT & PORTAL AUTHOR PODCAST https://pintandportal.com ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ TOOLS I ACTUALLY USE All deals: https://www.pintandportal.com/deals Publisher Champ, every sales dashboard in one place, 10% off: https://www.publisherchamp.com/referral/42246/

Melissa Storm built a seven-figure career without writing to market. Learn how she finds the right author marketing strategy. Her first novel got a stack of rejections from literary agents, and she cried over every one. Fifteen years later she has over a hundred books across multiple pen names. Plus she's a New York Times and USA Today bestseller. We discuss the realities of self-publishing today, including why she treats direct sales as ads on hard mode. Whether you are struggling with Facebook ads or trying to build an ecosystem for your pen names, Melissa shares how to adapt your book marketing to fit your personality. She calls it a seven-figure career, and she'll also tell you she can't write to market to save her life. In addition, she runs Novel Publicity and runs Kickstarter campaigns that teach Facebook ads for authors. We also talk about how Meta's AI is changing Facebook ads and how she sees authors adapting. Back her Facebook Ads for Authors Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/melstorm/shopify-ads Creator page: https://www.kickstarter.com/profile/melstorm ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ FIND MELISSA STORM On Amazon: On Amazon: https://link.amazon/B06yoYJRD Website: https://www.melstorm.com Novel Publicity: https://www.novelpublicity.com Book Marketing with Melissa (Substack): https://marketwithmelissa.substack.com Molly Fitz: https://mollymysteries.com Luna Ryder: https://lunarauthor.com MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE Author Marketing Archetype quiz: https://www.novelpublicity.com/quiz/