Rob Mortell Interview - Indie Author - Fantasy

Dozens of agent queries, mostly form rejections. So he took his fantasy novel to Substack. We sit down with Rob Mortell, author of the indie fantasy TALES & TREASURE, for a full author interview. Rob explains how a quirky bard named Vatis, a bards guild, and bard tourneys became the spine of a four-year discovery-writing project. We get into soft magic versus Sanderson-style hard magic, a haunted Fangorn-style forest he invented mid-draft, why he wants fewer morally gray protagonists, and why he can't stand first-person present tense. Then the publishing side: six months of querying, serializing the finished book chapter by chapter, releasing a lost prologue and cut bard stories, and what changes in book two, BARDS & BARGAINS: three POVs and a more traditional plot. Rob Mortell Book: https://a.co/d/5yYruJV Website: https://storiesofemre.com/ Substack: https://robmortell.substack.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/robmortellwrites/ (00:00) - Intro: Meet Indie Author Rob Mortell (01:15) - From Dr. Seuss to the Quirky Bard (04:06) - Book It and Becoming a Storyteller (05:31) - Why Stories Make Us Human (08:40) - From Sports Journalism to Fiction (10:02) - Bards Guilds and Bard Tourneys (12:18) - Putting Himself in the Antagonist (14:22) - Is Magic Real? Soft vs. Hard Magic (15:52) - Side Quest: Are Dragons Real? (17:52) - Pantsing and Stories That Never Stuck (21:36) - The Fantasy Trope He's Tired Of (24:29) - Keeping Characters Fresh (25:47) - Overrated Writing Advice (29:59) - When the Author Steers the Story (32:50) - How a New Character Is Born (34:57) - Why He Hates First Person Present (36:49) - Querying Agents and Handling Rejection (42:01) - Finding a Writing Group (44:02) - The Indie Author Community (45:23) - Serializing a Novel on Substack (48:43) - The Lost Prologue and Cut Chapters (50:11) - What's Coming in Bards and Bargains (52:27) - Life After the Trilogy (55:02) - His Biggest Flaw as a Writer (57:04) - Indie Authors Worth Reading (59:26) - Where to Find Rob Mortell — 📺 SUBSCRIBE https://www.youtube.com/channel/@sidequestpodcast🎧 LISTEN TO THE AUDIO VERSION All platforms: https://linktr.ee/asidequest 🌐 JOIN THE GUILD Official website / Quest Log: https://www.thesidequestpodcast.com/ 💬 FOLLOW OUR ADVENTURES Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesidequestpodcast TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@sidequestpodcast Discord: https://discord.gg/WAPRX9Hbq 🎬 CREDITS Hosts: Slava and Jonathan Editing: CharacterNorth6081 — https://www.instagram.com/parasss.__ Music: HoliznaCC0 Distribution: Transistor.fm — https://transistor.fm/how-to-start-a-podcast/?via=slava Side Quest Book Club is a podcast about books, the people who write them, and the tangents in between. Some links above are referral links. If you sign up through them, we may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. #SideQuestBookClub #TalesAndTreasure #IndieFantasy