Our ecommerce & services websites allow readers to search our online bookshop for novels by title, author, genre, or era, and connects authors and readers on one platform. We've also launched several new features, including an ability to purchase book-themed products and author services such as marketing, blog tours, cover design, etc.. We also offer master writing courses, a podcast, an award-winning awards book award contest, and a blog. We are wanting to expand our reach, bringing in more subscribers through marketing and lead generation, as well as expand our services into exclusive book-themed writing retreats (The Jane Austen Writing Retreat) to historical venues, and a yearly reader/writer's conference in a major city.
I started the website,
The Historical Fiction Company, in May of 2021 during the pandemic on the same model as Verve Romance, which just recently raised $1.5 million for their startup search engine which connects authors/readers in the Romance genre, and in that time I have built up (and continue to build) a huge following and community across social media.
So, what am I proposing with this already launched and viable website? We already have a bookshop offering over 1000 books on our shelves; a one-stop service feature for authors to acquire everything from editorial reviews, book cover designs, book trailers, editing services, and book marketing; a unique boutique featuring items writers and readers love as they read books, plus some one-of-a-kind items seen no where else; a rocking team of authors and writing instructors posting weekly blog tours, reviews, guest posts, and more; a first-class Master Class workshop team coming soon starting in January 2025 ( teaching new writers the art of writing & marketing); plus a graphic design team with more than 40+ years experience in designing magazine, book covers, and branding.
What more do we want to offer? As I said, we want to be the first one-stop go-to website for authors and readers across the world, so our vision was to offer a boutique hybrid publishing house exclusively for historical fiction and the sub-genres (historical romance, historical mystery, historical time travel, historical biography, historical fantasy, etc.) - the name everyone knows when searching for a publisher or browsing for a book. As of 2023, we successfully launched the hybrid publishing house,
Historium Press, exclusively for historical fiction, and to-date we have 35 authors signed to the imprint. As of September 2024, we launched the "sister" imprint,
Xanadu Book Awards & Press, which will now be for ALL genres outside of historical fiction.
Also, our award-winning book award contest is now approaching its fourth year, and we would foresee offering an even greater cash prize and a publishing contract to the winner for 2025.
With the features already offered on the website, we want to turn up the volume, giving other writing workshops or master classes a run for their money (we already have some well-renowned authors just waiting for us to implement this). And we want to expand our website to include public relations and contacts with all the big name newspapers, podcast and television shows, and the top influencers in the book review industry, such as well-renowned book clubs. We need your support to do this, and we will not stop until The Historical Fiction Company, Historium Press & Xanadu Press are trending. We are on the verge of pushing over the hump of major success, we just need the right funding to make this happen.
We want to use the funds for these visions, implementing each step in a careful, organized manner to ensure success as I have done on the website. Every single page, graphic, video, etc. was vetted by me and I have invested ALL of my funds and time into making this a success.
Next, in the near future, a yearly HFC Writer's Retreat to a spectacular location for writer's to learn how to write a novel, and a yearly conference to rival the Historical Novel Society's conference.
The plan:
- find bloggers to grow our SEO content and audience
- expand our marketing reach for The Historical Fiction Company, Historium Press, and Xanadu Book Awards & Press
- grow our readership audience for current and future authors posting books in the bookshop
- acquire and offer MORE renowned authors in the Master Class workshops
- offer a fiction subscription box with new releases from the bookshop
- fine tune our historical research section with MORE resources for authors
- extend our marketing reach for authors through influencers and social media
- expand our draft-to-publication hybrid publishing houses and add more authors under our imprint
- apply for outside distribution, such as with 'Simon & Schuster's Perfect Bound' distribution program for our publishing company
- host a writer's retreat for fiction authors in a legendary location with top writing instructors
- host a yearly writing conference where writers and readers can mingle, authors can pitch to agents, with a special book fair, and classes on writing
Just since our launch in 2020 with only $50, with only me at the helm, I am now regularly bringing in about $2500 - $5000 a month, with a projected outlook starting in January of 2025 of doubling the monthly income if we can acquire the needed funding.
All of the funds I have made to date I have reinvested back into the company, and each time the website grows in readership and activity.; however, we just need a push, the right investment, to get us to the next level in our growth.
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