Michael La Ronn: Finding Kickstarter Necromancy

By Angelique Fawns

 

Michael La Ronn has launched a Kickstarter for his “The Good Necromancer” Urban Fantasy Series and is off to a magical start. His modest goal of $200 funded in fourteen minutes! How do you practice the dark arts and remain a good man? La Ronn’s series explores this very question.

Here is a blurb from his first person protagonist. “So here I am, back in the game. You know, making deals with grim reapers, casting dark spells, binding souls to dead bodies for protection. Typical necromancer stuff. But I’m channeling my powers for good this time. When I’m done, this demon will beg me for mercy.”

La Ronn, writing under the pen name M.L. Ronn, has published over 90 science fiction & fantasy books and self-help books for writers. I met him at the Superstars Writing Conference this February and was immediately drawn to his quiet confidence and knowledge. 

He’s running his very first Kickstarter and I sat down with him to learn more.

AF: Tell me about your writing journey. How did you get started?

MLR: My writing journey (as an indie author) began in 2012. I attended a nice dinner with my wife and fell ill later that night with food poisoning. I went to the hospital and didn’t leave for a month due to complications. While on the hospital bed, I remember staring at the wall and asking what I was doing with my life. Until that point, I had been pursuing traditional publishing and literary agents, with no success. Right then and there, I decided to choose myself. Fortunately, I recovered from my illness. When I got out of the hospital, I leaped into self-publishing and never looked back. It has been a fun decade with lots of ups and downs, but I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. 

 

AF: Which do you enjoy writing more? Fiction or Non-Fiction? Which is most profitable?

MLR: I’ll give a cop-out answer with nuance: I love both. I write science fiction and fantasy and nonfiction for writers (which is a small niche). Each writing style exercises a different area of my brain. Fiction allows me to be imaginative; there’s no limit to what I can do. Nonfiction allows me to be logical; it allows me to reflect on my fiction, what works, and what doesn’t. That said, while both are profitable for me, fiction is more so because it has unlimited upside. If you write a series that takes off, it’s much easier to promote. There’s always a sales ceiling to nonfiction because there are only so many people for whom your book will solve their problems. 

 

AF: How do you achieve work/life balance?

MLR: I don’t believe in work/life balance. Balance implies that you have equal parts that weigh the same. However, most of us are far more multi-faceted than that. We’re writers, parents, children, friends, and employees (or self-employed). We have hobbies and interests other than writing. It’s impossible to “balance” all of this. Instead, I focus on achieving work-life harmony, focusing on getting all the different parts of my life to play together in a harmonious song. It’s amazing how well your life can be if you harmonize it instead. I do this through good communication with my wife (my secret weapon), carefully managing my time (I get up around 5:30amto write), and by radically cutting things out of my life that create dissonance. 

 

AF: Why did you choose Kickstarter, and how did you get ready for your campaign?

MLR: A mentor recommended that I do a Kickstarter campaign. I trusted him and I’m so glad I did. I spent months preparing for the campaign by analyzing hundreds of campaigns and by supporting over 20 campaigns so I could see how successful creators ran their projects from cradle to grave. I reverse-engineered what seemed to work and what didn’t. I also sought advice from friends who ran successful Kickstarters. I also studied rewards and structured mine carefully. The hardest part about Kickstarter campaigns is the preparation, honestly. Sales copy, images, rewards, shipping logistics—there are a lot of little details. Once you’re ready to launch, the marketing is really just a formality. If you prepared properly, your marketing efforts will simply pour gasoline on the work you’ve already done.  

AF: If you could go back to the beginning of your career and give yourself some advice, what would it be?

MLR: Don’t keep your head down so much. Get out of the house and go to writing conferences. If you’ve ever met me in person, you’d find it incredibly hard to believe, but I’m a textbook introvert and I fear social situations. However, I’ve learned to come out of my shell and build relationships with author friends. At the beginning of my career, I just focused on writing books, which was great, but I would have progressed in my career much further and much faster if I had built deeper relationships. I definitely should have traveled to writing conferences sooner, too. 

AF: What is next in the career of Michael Ronn?

MLR: I plan to publish my 100th book sometime in 2024, which will be a major milestone for me. 

 

AF: What future projects should we be on the look-out for?

MLR: I’ll be publishing more books in my Good Necromancer series, which is about a necromancer who uses his powers for good. I’ll also be launching a new urban fantasy series later this year which I can’t unveil just yet, but I’m excited about it!

Kickstarter Link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/michaellaronn/the-good-necromancer-urban-fantasy-hardcovers/