So this weekend I attended the Wide for the Win Summit. Wide for the Win, Indie Author Magazine, and Indie Author Training are the three brands under one umbrella, Athenia Creative Services. This two day online summit covered so many topics: library distribution; newsletters; GEO, just to name a few. Unlike other summits, workshops, and conferences that leave you to figure out your next steps, this one ended with a "90 Day Implementation Plan." It was highly detailed and included a follow-up one on one meet. But this Summit came with another component: An Indie Author Training AI Assistant. This assistant contains all the knowledge and resources from the three brands: articles, trainings, summits, courses, webinar. The Assistant knows which courses, webinars, summits you took and you have access to that through the AI. Important note: this AI Assistant is a Small Language Model and is private and specific to you because you connect it to your LLM (Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini). Your info doesn't go into the Athenia database. Your info is private to you. The assistant is a data point coupled with your situation (what you and your AI knows about you) to create plans for you specifically. So here's how the Indie Author Training AI Assistant works: You've attended the Wide for the Win Summit and have decided that you want to go wide but only with print books and you want to start slow and small, maybe 2 new distribution sites. You would then go to your LLM that you have connected to the IAT Assistant and just tell it what you want to do. It will create a plan specifically for you because it knows you attended the Summit. It will cite which courses you took, making it easier to pinpoint videos you should rewatch. The Assistant through your LLM will also access the web so that it can get up to date info - for example, any new requirements or terms of services say at Kobo. Think of the brain power and hours of your time conserved. 1) All that training is no longer wasted or sitting on the sidelines for you to "some day" get around to using. 2). The hours saved can be converted into writing hours. And for me that's what AI does. It takes author business projects and tasks off my plate, leaving me with time to write. And now I can use my own brain to write and not use AI as a crutch or support because my own brain is no longer overtaxed with author business, forcing me to take desperate measures to meet deadlines. This is how we keep writing human created. We use technology to take care of the mundane so we can focus on the creative.

Check out the other post on this topic. It explains what the summit is. But I want to address specifically this strategy of "Going Wide." Before this Summit I was pretty casual about that phrase. In my head, it was about choosing to go wide and then selecting the distributors. Oh no, my pretties! The absolute complexity of Going Wide is mind boggling. Every distributor has their own manuscript requirements, their own publishing timelines, and their own terms of service. And you have to coordinate and manage all of that. Currently, my ebooks are exclusive to Amazon. But I have print books at IngramSpark and Barnes & Noble. I have been thinking of expanding my distribution. I am so glad I took this Wide for the Win Summit! My naïveté has been squashed. My eyes are now open. And that's a good thing. Getting banned from a distributor is a real thing. Being knowledgeable can counteract that. So my advice: educate yourself. If you don't know where to start, start by reading articles at Indie Author Magazine. (https://indieauthormagazine.com) And then proceed from there.

The CEO Author Business System Community Site contains both free and paid content. For both free and paid, go to Classroom (in the menu) and then click on a course. Course content can be found beneath the primary image or video AND sometimes on the left side of the screen. Paid content will have a pop-up. To make this affordable, this is a pay as you go course. Sometimes you pay for a course but don't get through all the modules, which makes you feel like you've wasted your money. Here you can work at your pace. Pay for a course. Then go apply it to your author business. When you're ready, come back to take another course. The $5 fee you paid is one-time only and good for the life of this site. Recommendation for the CEO Author Business System Course: Modules 1 & 2 are free. If you can only commit to a specific number of modules right now, I recommend Module 3, Module 6, and Module 4 in that order as the most important. Then Module 7. The marketing modules are the most complex. You will want to do them as a set. Module 11 is also free. Since this is digital information, no refunds are possible. This includes the $5 join fee. Thank you for understanding. I hope you find this course as valuable as I do. I created it for myself and use it every day. It's brought order to my author business and given me back so many hours of my personal time. You can read articles regarding the CEO Author Business System on my Substack: https://frominktoauthorpreneur.substack.com Best, E.

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