Meet the Man Behind 20BooksTo50K® and the World's Biggest Indie Author Conference
To an online author group of over 50,000 people, a wise man once said, “The most important gift you can give somebody is your time because you don’t get it back when it’s gone.” And while that statement isn’t novel, it seems apropos, almost ironic even, when considering the speaker: Craig Martelle.
For readers of a publication titled Indie Author Magazine, that name is likely known, or familiar at the very least. Until a conference in November 2019, to this author, the name was merely synonymous with 20Booksto50k®; he was part of the regular cast, a headliner, but distant all the same.
But Vegas is a place full of the unexpected, a place where the Craig Martelle shines.
The energy in the room was thick. You’d think we were all waiting for a popular band to start their set. The audience was enthusiastic as a voice echoed from the podium. “I’m Craig Martelle. This is Michael Anderle. Welcome to 20Books Vegas,” trailed closely by, “If we get a fire alarm, that means there’s a fire. Get the ... out.”
Thankfully, no actual fires were started over the course of the following few days. A few figurative sparks maybe, but we remained safe with our lanyards and giant cookies as the trajectories of more than a few author careers were changed on impact.
If you think managing the biggest indie author conference in the world is Craig’s—a man who claims to be an introvert—only gig, you’d be wrong. There are over a hundred books in the genres of Military SciFi, Space Adventure, Space Opera, Space Western, Post Apocalyptic, Apocalyptic Western, Thriller, Mystery, and Non-fiction credited to Craig Martelle as an author, co-author, and collaborator. He’s a hybrid author who understands the various paths up the mountain of publishing better than many.
When asked about what inspired him to start writing, Craig tells a story about being first introduced to the world of Dungeons and Dragons at the age of twelve while growing up outside of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where the game originated.
“I liked how it excited the imagination, and I liked the stories that people were writing from this stuff. Gaming was okay, but I really liked the world and the stories.”
His love for the stories was put on hold during his twenty-one years in the Marine Corps followed by what he describes as very unfun law school and a seven-year career in business consulting spent working inside the Arctic Circle in Alaska. Eventually, Craig decided that a temperature of -74 and being away from his wife for months out of the year was enough to consider retiring. After a yardwork accident resulted in lighting himself on fire, he was left bandaged and stuck in the house with far too much energy to sit idly. Sixty-one days later, a hundred-thousand-word book was complete.
By February 2016, he’d published book one with little fanfare and written two additional stories. A chance encounter with Michael Anderle on kboards.com, a forum for Amazon and Kindle, pulled him into the 20Books orbit, and as they say, the rest is history.
And by “the rest,” we mean the aforementioned sixty plus solo-authored titles and more than forty titles co-authored in less than five years, almost-daily focus videos, interviews, scholarship efforts for newbies, and so much more—definitely too much energy to relax and enjoy what could have been a nice, relaxing retirement.
“It’s ok to switch hats. I wear hats a lot because I have no hair.”
The Leader
Now, you might believe that extreme cold followed by brief pyromania is fascinating enough, but it’s even more interesting to listen to this very busy human talk about what it means to him to “lead from the front,” in relation to the work he does in indie author spaces. If you review the videos for Craig’s five-minute focus on the 20Books YouTube channel or in the 20Booksto50k® Facebook group, you’ll find topics on everything from author websites to mental health. You’ll also find an impassioned speaker preaching the gospel
