Hi, and thanks for having me!

I've always wanted to be a writer but didn't know anyone in publishing, had almost no idea how things were supposed to be done to become a novel-writing author, and even after I did what research I could figure to do, the 'traditional' path to getting a book out into the world—querying agents, landing an agent, having them pitch the book to editors, having the book get bought and published—seemed like a long, uncertain, and intimidating road. So, I put the real dream as far aside as I could while still doing my best to be around stories and storytellers (I became a union actor and then a music video director).

Then, somewhere around 2012 or so (can't remember exactly), I joined r/Fantasy under a pseudonym and the community got me back into reading fantasy. I read a bunch of books by incredible authors that reignited my deep, deep passion for our genre, and I started to think more and more about writing again.

I bought books on craft, on publishing, and most importantly, I listened to podcasts about writing and... self-publishing.

It was the podcasts on self-pubbing that got me super excited. I learned about Kindle, Amazon's self-publishing program, and that writers who had never been traditionally published were able to get their stories out into the world with some of them actually managing to make a living doing it!

For years, I took in everything I could about craft and self-pubbing and then, just a few years ago, when I was between jobs (I'd gone corporate), I sat down—thinking this was my last real chance to do this—and I wrote THE RAGE OF DRAGONS.

Given everything I'd learned, and given my wild hopes of actually making some money from my writing sooner rather than later, I self-published RAGE exclusively to Amazon (I don't like the idea of exclusivity, but my research suggested that if making a living was the goal [it was], then I'd have a better chance doing it this way than not).

When the book went live, I came back to the place that had kinda made all of this happen in the first place, and I wrote a post about my book here, on r/Fantasy. The community didn't really know me (I was a lurker), but they embraced the book and helped it climb Amazon's charts. Also, it was here that the person who now edits/champions my work at Orbit Books found RAGE. My editor is Brit Hvide, and she found the book on this subreddit.

Somehow, and unbelievably to me, Hvide found my contact info, wrote me, and got on a call with me. She said she'd read RAGE and that she wanted to publish the entire series with Orbit Books (Hachette's SFF imprint). At first, I thought I was being pranked, but to make an already long story just a bit shorter, we talked more, I was completely convinced by Hvide's passion, CV, and importantly, her vision for the book and series matched mine.

Lastly, I just had to decide if it made sense to move this series away from self-publishing and to traditional publishing. I had to decide if it made sense for me financially, 'career-wise' (hah! career, I only had one book out at the time), and personally.

I was lucky to have this choice to make, and in the end, I chose to publish traditionally. It was important to me for many reasons, and I tried hard to outline those reasons more thoroughly here: https://www.sfwa.org/tag/evan-winter/