The Indirect Path to Authorship For many, the path to a writing career is a straight line. For Deborah Wilde, it was a “roundabout path” that began with a self-described “useless degree” in film theory. As a child, Deborah held the belief that being an author was a career reserved for “white men who lived in New York”. It wasn’t until she spent 12 years in the trenches of the Canadian screenwriting market—and felt the subsequent burnout—that she decided to pivot to books as an experiment to see if she still loved writing.

Refusing to “Pick a Lane” One of the most defining moments in Deborah’s career occurred when she was querying a New York agent for her adult urban fantasy novels. While the agent loved the work, he presented her with a choice: her books had “too much romance for urban fantasy and too much urban fantasy for paranormal romance”. He told her she needed to pick a lane.

Deborah’s response was a turning point for her career. Believing that other readers shared her love for both genres, she refused to compromise her vision. She chose the path of independence, launching her Deborah Wilde pen name in 2017. Her first book became an Amazon bestseller, proving that there was indeed a massive audience for “funny, sexy, urban fantasy” with screwball-style banter.

The Leap to “Wide” Publishing After 25 books, Deborah is candid about the toll the industry can take. For years, she was exclusive to Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited (KU), which rewards authors for staying “sticky” and publishing at a breakneck pace. However, the constant need to check rankings and feed the algorithm began to impact her mental health.

In 2022, Deborah made a major shift: she went “wide,” making her books available on all platforms and libraries. She even opened her own Shopify store and brought her husband into the business to run it. This move allowed her to reclaim her time and focus on her brand’s “genuineness” rather than just the metrics.

A Legacy of Representation Beyond the business, Deborah’s work is deeply personal. Growing up, she rarely saw herself in stories outside of the Holocaust narrative. She wanted to see Jewish heroines going “down the rabbit hole to Wonderland”. Consequently, she draws her magic systems from Jewish mythology and culture, creating a legacy project that allows Jewish readers to see themselves in the center of an adventure.

The Jewelry Metaphor: Advice for the First Draft To the aspiring female author struggling with self-doubt, Deborah offers a masterclass in perspective. She compares writing a book to creating jewelry: you do not “mine rings out of the ground,” you mine the “raw materials”.

Her advice is simple: finish the first draft. Give yourself permission for it to be the worst thing you have ever written, knowing that you can refine the “raw material” into something gold during the editing process. By pushing through the point where you “despise” the work, you uncover the brilliance that can only be found at the end of the journey.