Once upon a time, Erin Wright was that kid reading Romance novels by flashlight under the covers when she was supposed to be sleeping. Today, she’s a USA TODAY bestselling author, well known to Western Romance readers as the author of multiple series set in Idaho’s Long Valley. But she’s probably best known within the indie author community, for her role as president of Wide for the Win, an organization and online community of authors who publish their books across platforms instead of exclusively through Kindle Unlimited (KU).

This month, Erin shared her journey from reader to writer to author advisor with IAM, as well as the real-world adventure her books have inspired for 2025.

Early Life and Inspiration

Having spent her early years as a military kid, Erin moved around a lot growing up. It wasn’t until her teens that her family set down roots in the small Idaho town where her father had grown up. She describes it as “a town with more cows than people,” and says she struggled to adjust to the tiny town with a population of 211, where she was one of fourteen kids in her class, and the only one who hadn’t been there since kindergarten.

Needless to say, she wasn’t always happy there. What did make her happy, though, were her books. She loved reading Romance novels and writing and always wanted to be an author, but she says she never considered it a viable career path since traditional publishing involved acquiring an agent, selling your book to a publishing house, and jumping through many more hoops to see the book in print. Although writing remained a passion, Erin set it aside as she got older to pursue other careers.

So what did she do instead? According to her website, almost every job under the sun, including library director, barista, teacher, and website designer. At one point, she was even a ranch hand helping brand cattle. Although her many jobs have taken Erin and her husband around the world, she eventually settled once again into a small Idaho town, much like the one where she’d spent her teens.

This time around, the transition was less difficult. Since their move, Erin and her husband have settled into small-town life, and she’s even woven the people and the area into her writing.

Writing Career and Themes

Erin’s colorful careers drifted away from the literary world for a time, but it wasn’t for long; eventually, she found her way back to the books she’d loved as a teen—this time, with a peek at the other side of the publishing world. Around 2015, having put aside the idea of writing professionally, Erin says she stumbled onto an author forum by accident one evening. To her surprise, she discovered that all the authors there were self-publishing their books. It was her first exposure to the indie author community. She says, “I wasn’t cool enough to be one of these indie authors, so I offered to start reading and editing for them instead.”

While becoming more immersed in the world of self-publishing, Erin picked up work as a proofreader, a ghostwriter, and a personal assistant. Outside of the book world, she also continued teaching and pursuing her teaching certification. During this time, a motorcycle gang trilogy she’d penned as a ghostwriter took off. The trilogy was the spark that ignited her fire to try writing for herself—well, along with the encouragement of her husband, who told her, as she recounts, “‘Erin, I love you, but you’re dumber than a box of rocks. Why are you going to school? … Why don’t you write and make lots of money?’”

In 2018, when Erin finally decided to give writing a serious try, she, like many authors, chose to write what she knew. And what she knew was rural Idaho and Romance. Thus, her multi-series Long Valley Western Romances came to life. Long Valley is less than two hours from Erin’s current home, and she describes it as being full of farmers, ranchers, cowboys, loggers, and miners. But it’s also home to ritzy people from Boise vacationing around the lake and at the ski resorts there. Essentially, it’s rife with culture clashes and has tons of fodder for her books. As she says with a chuckle, it also gives her a reason to vacation, as far as the IRS is concerned, in one of her favorite places—she goes there annually for a solo writing retreat.

Going Wide for the Win

To date, Erin has four series and more than thirty Western Romance titles by which her readers know her. But among authors, Erin is better known as a proud advocate of wide publishing and a president of the author group Wide for the Win.

Wide for the Win arose from Erin’s deep love of libraries, after she discovered that being exclusive to KU meant her books could not be placed there. At the time, she didn’t know anything about going wide with her books, and many in the indie author community had yet to do so. Never one to be deterred from a challenge, especially if it involves learning, Erin set about to gain as much knowledge as possible, from as many sources as possible, regarding the process of publishing beyond Amazon.

Along the way, Erin shared bits and pieces of what she was learning within forums and author groups, and soon she found herself the go-to resource for other authors wanting to learn more about taking their books out of KU and going wide—“Widelings,” as they became known. It was a process she was still figuring out herself, so as more people came to her for advice, she searched for books on the subject, and she found that the few that did exist were mostly out of date or didn’t cover the topic in much depth.

What was an author to do, Erin figured, but write her own and share everything she’d learned?

Of course, that was much easier said than done. Fast forward six hundred pages and a lot of frustration later, and Erin says, “I just couldn’t see how I was going to be able to write this book.” She posted an apology on the Wide for the Win Facebook Group sharing her struggle, and that’s when she says author Mark Leslie Lefebvre stepped in and saved her. His book Wide For The Win: Strategies to Sell Globally via Multiple Platforms and Forge Your Own Path to Success published in March 2021 with a foreword by Erin, and details insights and advice from authors and publishing representatives about how to succeed at publishing books on multiple platforms. Lefebvre would become the communications and outreach director for Wide for the Win.

Today, in her role as president of Wide for the Win, Erin offers advice to countless authors on marketing and business strategies tailored to wide authors, and she provides one-on-one consulting and courses for authors looking for more specific advice. The strategy has grown more popular since Erin began experimenting with it. The Facebook group that started in 2019 has grown to eighteen thousand members strong, and on Circle, Wide for the Win’s primary platform since 2023, the group is quickly closing in on two thousand members.

Authors who want to learn more about Wide for the Win or want to become a Wideling themselves can do so by visiting the group’s website, https://www.wideforthewin.com.

Looking Ahead

Erin’s eyes, like the rest of ours, are turned toward the future of publishing. When asked to describe where she thought the industry might be headed, the subject of AI inevitably came up. In her words, “AI is just a tool, and it’s much like any other tool one would use and not something to be afraid of … It doesn’t mean that the hard part of writing the book doesn’t need to be done.” She feels that each author needs to make their own decision as to whether it’s a tool they want to use, she says.

As for where Erin herself is headed, the answer is everywhere. In the coming year, she’s excited to kick off a new project she’s called “driveway surfing.” Moving around a lot as a child and traveling for a year in an RV with her husband prior to the pandemic gave Erin a sense of wanderlust that, recently, has been pulling at her to get out and see the world again. Unfortunately, her husband’s job running the local newspaper no longer lends itself to travel. Although she’d prefer to see the country with her favorite travel partner, she says, “Going it alone presents the perfect opportunity for me to combine my love of travel, libraries, bookstores, and connecting with readers and other authors.”

As a result, Erin has customized a six-foot-by-twelve-foot cargo trailer that she can pull behind her Ford Escape—appropriately, and hilariously, named Houdini. She’ll be attending author conferences, signing events, and surfing her way across the US and Canada. She’s created a form to collect information from driveway owners and prospective hosts, letting people offer a parking place and set the boundaries of what they’re comfortable with in terms of Erin’s visit. The form covers everything from “Please don’t knock on my door” to “Feel free to use my shower.” One cannot help but wonder if a book or two might materialize from this adventure.

Erin’s many careers are storied in and of themselves, but her passion for learning and her willingness to adapt to changing trends in publishing have allowed her to thrive as an independent author. Over the years, she not only has won over readers with her storytelling but has also made a name for herself as a trailblazer in independent publishing—a trail that, thanks to Erin and Wide for the Win, countless indie authors now follow, too.

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