Nicole Sune Sbitani

With just enough frequency to keep you informed without overloading you, my emails provide tips, tools, strategies, and opportunities to help you get more bang for your book with less stress and more results. I'm a bestselling author and expert publishing strategist who loves leveraging my 25+ years of experience with Big Five publishing and indie bestsellers, along with my team of skilled experts, to serve as your books’ best ally. We've served hundreds of authors with editing, design, publishing, and marketing services and support to help them achieve their dreams. Are you next?

Every other week, I send out a newsletter as part of my Tuesday Telegrams; one is on writing, publishing, and craft, and the other personal reflections on my life and the times. THE BRUISING OF QILWA, my Crawford-, Locus-, and World Fantasy-nominated novella set in a queernormative, Persian-inspired world, is out now from Tachyon Publications. My queer MG mushroom horror debut, THE GLADE, is out now from Aladdin, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. I regularly teach writing classes focused on inclusive and marginalized storytelling at organizations like Tin House, Clarion West, Carl Brandon Society, and Roots. Wounds. Words.

I help burned-out indie authors figure out why their production stalled and build systems that actually match how their brains work. Every author has an archetype — Mythmaker, Heartweaver, LoreKeeper, or Wildscribe — and each one needs a completely different approach to outlining, drafting, editing, marketing, and sustaining a career. My weekly Substack breaks this down with real talk, real strategies, and zero fluff. Take the free Author Architecture Diagnostic at realindieauthor.com/diagnostic.

I build fantasy and sci-fi worlds and tell stories about them. My Worldbuilding Workshop for Fantasy Writers is a bestseller on Udemy, and my writing courses have over 15K students enrolled from all over the world.

For a long time, I sent new subscribers an automated welcome email that was all about me. But that bored me rigid. ❡ So, for a change I’m going to make it all about you. ❡ That is: about some of the people who have subscribed in the past (maybe still do). ❡ They include: Authors of non-fiction, fiction, travel books, poetry and books for children. Journalists. People who may not have been published yet but just love writing (and reading). Performers (stage and TV). A film director. A Mercury Prize-nominated musician. Artists (paint, sculpture, typography, photography). People who just love art. Publishers (including a Booker Prize-winning publisher). Speechwriters (UK, Europe and elsewhere). Some of my north London neighbours. Nosy friends of my daughter(!). Academics. Coaches (mostly working with execs). Corporate trainers. Lawyers. Accountants. Feminists. Speechwriters. ❡ I’m sure I have forgotten some others, will kick myself when I remember. ❡ (Therapists!) ❡ But that’s enough to be going on with. ❡ I hope some of the types I’ve listed might seem familiar to you. ❡ What are they interested in? ❡ I wish I could tell you, exactly. ❡ I sometimes imagine that these are people who already do some of the things I do and are curious about other things I do. ❡ For instance: artists might be interested in writing (I do both). Writers may be interested in public speaking (one of my books was about that). People with “proper” jobs may be interested to know what it’s like to be (as I am) self-employed. ❡ Really, I’m guessing. I don’t know. ❡ If you haven’t unsubscribed already - and I see you are still here! hurrah! - please sign up, and send a reply to my welcome email. ❡ That way, your email system will recognise my address as basically OK (not spam). ❡ Help me to understand why you subscribed. ❡ But if you can’t be bothered, or can’t really explain, just say “Hello”. ❡ Even that will do the job.