Spanish writer Alice Kellen has built a literary phenomenon from anonymity. Her new novel The Forgetfulness Club arrives in July, coinciding with the film adaptation of Everything We Were Not and the series The Map of Longings. Citizens gain more accessible entertainment options in books and on screens, while her career shows that independent authors can succeed without major publishers.
Digital Self-Publishing as the Engine of a Multiplatform Franchise 📚
Kellen initially published on Amazon, using a pseudonym to separate her personal life from her professional one. The self-publishing platform allowed her to control prices, rights, and release schedules. Her success led to agreements with production companies for audiovisual adaptations, a logical step in a market where transmedia storytelling is profitable. The model is replicable: any author with perseverance can scale from Kindle Direct Publishing to the big screen, as long as they connect with their audience.
The Forgetfulness Club and the Forgetfulness of Traditional Publishers 🎬
While major publishers weep in their boardrooms, Kellen laughs all the way to the bank. Her strategy is simple: write, publish on Amazon, repeat. Now she even has a series and a movie, all without asking permission from a reading committee. The icing on the cake is that her new book is called The Forgetfulness Club, because it seems the only ones who forgot her existence were the publishing houses that rejected her. Market ironies.