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Indie Author Project Expert Session

Success Without Stress

Indie author Sara Fujimura explains how to grow your author business exponentially by working smarter, not harder.

Your book is out! Now, what once was your greatest dream suddenly feels like your biggest nightmare. Join Sara Fujimura, 2025 STBF Illinois Author Project Contest winner, as she walks through her proven three-step interconnected marketing system that teaches debut authors—and seasoned authors, too—how to grow their businesses exponentially with the least amount of work. Let’s work smarter, not harder, authorpreneurs!

Sara Fujimura (Foo-gee-moo-rah) is the American half of her bicultural Japanese-American family and spends about a month each year in Japan. She started as a journalist, so it is no surprise that Sara’s young adult books contain a lot of facts to go along with the fiction. Whether you want to know about Japan (TANABATA WISH), the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 (BREATHE), what it’s like to be an Olympic-caliber skater (EVERY REASON WE SHOULDN’T), or how unscripted television works (FAKING REALITY), Sara takes readers on swoony journeys to unusual places. She is a creative writing teacher and literacy advocate who is excited to support the next generation of authors. If you go to anime cons, you may also see Sara as her alter ego, The Obento Lady. She is an active member of SCBWI and the Chicago-North Romance Writers.

EVERY REASON WE SHOULDN’T was named an NPR Best Book of 2020. Her little indie, pandemic book BREATHE, was chosen by Illinois librarians as the winner of the 2025 Soon-to-Be-Famous Illinois Author Project.

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