Hello, I'm Patty Jansen. I'm an Australian writer of Science Fiction and Fantasy and would like to bring you awesome fiction to read and art to look at.

My story starts in 2003, when my father died after a long illness. He was a very busy man, interested in everything, always noodling on his computer, writing things, getting involved in societies relating to the study of nature. If he wasn't at the computer, he was at the zoo, helping in research, writing their newsletter, coordinating volunteer guides... GONE. Taken by cancer. A long-standing family friend said that my father didn't have time to die, because he still had so much to do.

I'd written non-fiction at that time and decided that if I wanted to try fiction, I'd better get a wriggle on because you never know what lemons life throws you. Fast forward a few years, and I won the Writers of The Future contest (while this has received a bit of dubious attention recently, this isn't about that). I met a lot of people at the workshop in LA, was invited to submit to places, sold a story to Analog, completed a new novel, gotten some *really* positive feedback for it, with three requests for the full manuscript out of five submissions... and the GFC hit.

NOTHING was happening. No one made any decisions.

So I thought: It takes me 2-3 months to write another novel. By the time the world has pulled itself out of its collective funk, I'll have written a few more novels to submit. Let's self-publish this thing and have some fun. The frustration of waiting was killing me.

The novel was Fire & Ice, a dark twisted fantasy. I completed the Icefire Trilogy, and then started on the Ambassador series, a thriller-political-science fiction.

I've now written over 40 books, and never went back to the submission circuit (although I did sell a second story to Analog) and make my living from writing.

So why this Patreon?

Because I like to give readers the opportunity to support me. When they join my mailing list, I give four series starter books away for free. It's not uncommon for readers (or members of my ARC team) to buy the book anyway. I want them to be able to do that without giving retailers a slice of the pie.

Because the outlay on some projects is daunting. For example, people have been bugging me to get all my books in audio, but do you know how expensive audiobooks are to produce? And translation? Holy crap!

And last but not least, because it allows me to help other writers.

I run a newsletter called the Ebookaroo which sends readers an email every week with new books, promotions and giveaways by other authors. You can find it at https://pattyjansen.com/ebookaroo.

Other authors do not pay for this, because I select the books and I'm not in the business of providing a pay-to-play promotion for authors.

However, as a result of the success of this platform, I've had to upgrade my server and you do not want to see my monthly bill to my email list service. The cost used to be covered by affiliate sales on books, but Amazon has severely screwed down the affiliate earnings. I would love to upgrade services for that promotional newsletter.

In 2021, I started a podcast series called The Happy Writer. In each episode, I talk about an aspect of publishing from the perspective of my experience. The episodes are hosted on Youtube and will hopefully soon be at other podcast venues.

So, that is why this page exists: so that I can continue to serve readers of Science Fiction and Fantasy with new books, either my own or books by other writers.