We were lucky to catch up with Kellyn Roth recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Kellyn thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

From the very beginning of the idea, I knew that it would be a risk to start an indie press.

At the time, I was already several thousand dollars in debt from my author business, and I wasn’t sure that would ever change. That was around 2020, and the year was one of hectic changes and unsure situations, as it was for everyone. In my personal life, I was also working through several relationship losses and mental health challenges … in addition to a big problem.

How did I scale up my author career?

I’d been writing since I was seven years old; it was a life-long dream that I was not ready to give up on. I launched my first book independently in January 2016, and since then, I’d been working hard to make my stories profitable in addition to being a creative outlet for myself. Yet instead, I was spending far more than I was making, pouring my personal finances into what others already claimed was a pipe dream. It was easy to become discouraged and believe that they had all been right after all. There was no such thing as a profitable author … or at least, if there was, they were few and far in between.

Yet at the same time, I knew many successful authors were succeeding at doing just what I was trying to do. I could name dozens who were making 50K a year or more simply from the sale of books. Why couldn’t I be one of them? Was there something inherently flawed in me and some of my friends that made it an impossibility? Or did we just need to keep moving forward and figure out how to do it?

In the meanwhile, I developed a huge passion for working with other creatives. Specifically, I wanted to work with indie authors. I started a business with a scattering of good friends in September 2018 called “Reveries Co.” We planned to help indie authors reach their dreams by providing necessary services and offering coaching, encouragement, and other vital information.

Yet by the end of 2019, the business had made little headway due to various factors in my personal life. A falling out with one of the team leaders at the beginning of 2020 complicated the process. Within a year, Reveries Co. shut down, and I was left with a big hole in my life.

Yet my passion for helping indie authors had not receded.

Dreams circulated then. I considered turning my imprint into a small press, yet that seemed like too much of a risk. How could I, who had only made some small successes throughout my career, hope to help other indies? Was there any hope at all?

Throughout 2020 and 2021, I began to gain some traction as an author. My books had stronger launches, and in July 2021, I realized that I was making a larger income and getting more traction than many of my peers.

There were a variety of contributing factors there. Some of it was simply years of hard work and sticking with it. A lot of it also came down to cracking down on marketing: looking at what worked, and what didn’t, and implementing a more professional launch plan for every one of my books. However, there were a variety of factors at play. I couldn’t sit down with an up-and-coming indie author and give them all that information in five minutes. If I wanted to help other authors get to where I was, I had to do something more.

That was when my desire to help indie authors resurfaced in a big way. Of course, nothing could be done about it immediately. I was transitioning into a different job, getting married, and moving to a new city. Over the course of 2021 and 2022, as I settled into newlywed life, the dream simmered on the backburner. It wasn’t until late 2022 that I finally had time to realize my dreams.

Wild Blue Wonder Press was born.

My idea was simple but unlike what I’ve seen done before. I wanted to help indie authors, and one of the biggest things indie authors do at the beginning of their careers is taking risks.

Don’t get me wrong … I support taking big risks in a small business. However, knowing which risks to take and which to pass on is a difficult balance that takes knowledge and maturity. This is often learned via experience.

Some of the most troublesome risks to take are financial ones. Spending money before you make it seems counterintuitive, but it’s necessary for small business owners.

Wild Blue Wonder Press exists to help minimalize those risks for authors. As we expand our business, we will support indie authors much like a traditional publisher while still allowing authors creative freedom.

Once I developed my plan for the press, I began working on the business details. I shuddered as I researched LLCs, business bank accounts, and taxes; these types of details aren’t my thing. Yet it was worth it knowing that in the long run, I could be creating something great.

By late 2022, I began telling close author friends and other creatives about this business. I had our website and branding set up, and officially hired our first editor, an administrative assistant, and several different talented creators to help with our social media.

Our official launch date was in January 2023; however, by that point, we had already begun to work with several talented authors. The response has been enormous, far beyond my expectations. Everyone is excited to either join us or watch what we’re doing in hopes to emulate it.

Some of the things that I think have helped us are:

1: Having a clear mission statement.

On every first page of our website and in every social media post and email, we emulate our mission. We want to create quality fiction that inspires and matters. That bleeds into everything we do and makes it simple for all our team to know what their next step ought to be.

2: Creating content categories for our social media content.

In particular, one of our social media managers worked to develop a social media posting schedule and topic rotation that attracts new clients, encourages and maintains current ones, and creates a community.

Our community knows what we’re doing, why we do it, and are enthusiastic about supporting us!

3: Being a team – not an individually-led organization.

I think there is value in individually-led organizations. After all, every company needs a head. However, onboarding other creatives to join me in my endeavor has made everything about launching Wild Blue Wonder Press easier.

Kellyn, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Wild Blue Wonder Press is a small indie company that began as an “imprint” for me to publish my books through.

The name itself comes from a special location on my family’s property. As a child, I always said “wild blue wonder” instead of “wild blue yonder,” and in particular, I named a certain (rather unattractive but homey) valley “the wild blue wonder.” I love how it evokes that feeling of adventure, too. I knew at once that the logo would include a chickadee—my favorite bird and my grandpa’s childhood nickname for me—and have a snowy, cozy aesthetic.

However, once I had that set up, I realized that first, I would have to do some marketing to make the press name familiar to my audience.

Further, I am always the kind of person with a lot of irons in the fire, and it is exhausting. I love helping indie authors and young writers; I want to provide safe places for them to learn and grow. But how to do that when I have a thousand other things going on?

It eventually made sense, for that reason and just because it’s the next logical step, to combine the two. At that point, with my decisions made, it was just about finalizing the branding, deciding exactly what we would offer, and making sure the launch went smoothly.

I decided we will start off with launching three anthologies, but we will soon be helping indie authors kick off their career with full-length works, too!

At this time, we publish Christian historical women’s fiction, but we are rapidly expanding into different genres. Our hope is to eventually develop imprints supporting all genres of books.

Our primary mission is to help indie authors achieve their goals in a professional, organized matter and reduce the inherent risk of indie publishing while still giving authors freedom to make their own decisions.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

Though I’m not a big believer in niching down to an unreasonable level, most social media platforms do have some kind of algorithm that drives who sees your content and when.

For that reason, it is vital to understand who you want to reach and post content that they will consistently enjoy. In particular, it’s important to be able to divide your content into categories that are cohesive but still vary slightly.

You need content that will reach new potentials fans and attract them to your profile, to interact with and eventually follow you. You need content that your current audience will respond to enjoy, that will keep them coming back. And you need the more salesy content that promotes your product or service.

A few ways to help with this in general are:

1. Always have a call to action on your post, no matter how small. When people are doing things for you, no matter how small, you’re developing a relationship with them.
2. Encourage interaction by encouraging your potential clients to share with you. Always respond to these interactions and try to provide further value.
3: Come to social media with an attitude of service. You want to help your audience with the content you provide, whether that it entertainment, education, or something else entirely. Serve your followers, and they will be more likely to become buyers.

To gain followers, I recommend:

1. Partnering with our creatives in your niche. If you’re a writer, find other writers. Get to know them, share tips, and collaborate.
2. Reach out to people in your niche! Don’t be afraid to follow them and interact authentically with their content. Though you don’t want to “cold DM” them if avoidable, it is important to be an active member on your chosen social media profile.
3: Figure out what the social media platform wants you to do to gain more followers, and do it. For Instagram, that is currently reels. For TikTok, that is following trending sounds and posting consistently. This changes often, so keep an eye on what other creatives are doing and emulate them.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

One of the hardest things for more traditional people to understand is the process of starting a small business.

This is due to a variety of reasons. The first is that, fifty years ago, it was safer to go to college, get a traditional 9-5 job, and stick with it.

Now, the economy and society in general has shifted. A college degree is no longer as valuable as it once was, at least not in some fields. Traditional 9-5 jobs often don’t offer opportunities for growth, are becoming increasingly toxic environments, and can feel stifling. Oftentimes changing up what you’re doing several times is better than staying with one thing when companies avoid promoting from within.

The second is that there is that stigma of “the starving artist.” Despite the fact that many artists, authors, and other creatives are making perfectly acceptable or even phenomenal amounts of money doing what they love, it is generally accepted that this is not possible or at least not likely.

So what then?

Starting your own business centered around your creative endeavors is the smart decision for many. Yet, it can be challenging for more traditional people to understand this, and even harder to gain information and encouragement about how to do this when you are surrounded with negativity.

I just encourage non-creatives to be supportive of their creative friends. Sometimes it can be hard to understand giving up what seems like safety and security for what may seem like a pipe dream. But trust me, we know what we’re about, and more often than not, it is totally feasible.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://wildbluewonderpress.com/
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/wildbluewonderpress/
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/wildbluewonderpress/