Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing

EP 353 - Tao Wong on the Toronto Indie Author Conference

Mar 29, 2024

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Mark interviews Tao Wong about his writing, LitRPG, entrepreneurship, and the Toronto Indie Author Conference that is coming in May 2024.

Prior to the interview, Mark forgoes the usual brief personal update, or comments, and skips right to this episode's sponsor.

This episode is sponsored by the Toronto Indie Author Conference.

The Toronto Indie Author Conference is a two-day event tailored exclusively for Canadian independent authors. Do you dream of transforming your passion for writing into a thriving author business? Don’t miss this opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of Canadian indie publishing’s first author business conference.

www.torontoindieauthorcon.com

In their interview, Mark and Tao talk about:

How Tao has always been writing and telling stories, and how luck played a bit part in it
Starting off writing LitRPG when he was living in the Yukon when it was night/dark all the time
Writing a few novels and stories for fun, but then discovering Kristine Kathryn Rusch's blog about the business of publishing and how authors were beginning to leverage digital publishing to do it themselves
Learning about indie publishing industry, but not being in a place where he thought he would pursue traditional publishing
Beginning to put his LitRPG titles up on Amazon in 2017 at a time when it was just starting to become hot (He caught the 2nd wave of Western LitRPG authors)
Not having to do any marketing in those early days because he was still working a full-time job running a business, but still bringing in a hearty income from his self-published books
Tao's experience doing marketing in selling board games online
Flipping between the two hats he wears. 1) The writer hat of getting the book done and 2) the marketer hat of having to sell the things that are written
Realizing he was a "scenic route" author, according to Becca Syme's author structure talks and courses
Getting to a point where he started to hire staff to help him with some of the tasks
Being burnt out from the constant churn in hiring and training staff and them leaving within about two years
Joking that being an indy author is the "easy mode" of being an entrepreneur because the cost and minimum setup is a lot less than what he had to do for his business before
Laughing at the cost of a $200 cover design bill because not that long ago, he had a single bill from Canada Post that was over $100,000
Working with about 5 active co-authors but realizing that he didn't want to be a publisher
Starting the Toronto Indie Author Conference initially out of spite and to bring something useful to Canadian authors who might not be able to afford to travel so far to several US based conferences
The importance of not having only 6-figure authors doing the presentations at the Toronto Indie Author Conference
Some of the speakers who will be at the Toronto Indie Author Confernce and the various topics they'll be covering
The significant amount of time and energy Tao had to invest into this conference
The Kobo sponsorship of an accessibility fund for the conference where they'll be giving out 10 to 15 pre-paid seats
A discount code STARK10 that members can use to get $10 off their ticket registration for the conference
And more . . .

After the interview Mark reflects on the importance of those people who see gaps and step up to make a difference. It's a common theme from the past several interview episodes. He also reflects on just how easy it can be for authors as entrepreneurs when you factor in just how little an author has to invest when it comes to money, to get started, particularly in a world that has so many great free resources.

Links of Interest:

Tao Wong is a full-time author in the scifi and fantasy genres, writing predominantly in the LitRPG and xianxia sub-genres. A multiple times international Amazon bestseller, he is best known for the System Apocalypse and A Thousand Li universes, with over 40 full-length novels and numerous shorter works published. Tao was a finalist for the Kindle Storyteller UK Award in 2021.

The introductory, end, and bumper music for this podcast (“Laser Groove”) was composed and produced by Kevin MacLeod of www.incompetech.com and is Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0