- USA TODAY Bestselling Author
- Chicago Booth MBA
- Former Software Engineer
- Co-founder, Writer MBA Conference
- Author, Getting to Six Figures Sustainably
- 50+ published books
- Fiction author (romance, fantasy, sci-fi)
About Monica
Building things at the intersection of creativity and business.
Monica Leonelle has spent her career at an unusual intersection: she's both a fiction author and a systems thinker, a storyteller and a strategist. That combination is rare, and it's why she built Create Expand Prosper.
Monica is a USA TODAY bestselling author with more than fifty published books across fiction and nonfiction. She writes romance, fantasy, and sci-fi under her own name and pen names, and she's spent years studying what makes independent creative businesses work — and what makes them fail.
Before she was a full-time author, Monica was a software engineer. That background shaped how she thinks about creative businesses: as systems, not just activities. Every part of the creative life — from how you write to how you sell to how you build your audience — can be designed to work better.
"Most creator education focuses on craft or tactics. Almost none of it covers the actual business mechanics — how to build something that earns reliably, grows sustainably, and doesn't exhaust you in the process. That's the gap I built Create Expand Prosper to fill."
Monica earned her MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, one of the top business schools in the world. She brings that rigor to how she thinks about creative business strategy — but she translates it into language and frameworks that actually make sense for creative people building independent businesses.
She co-founded the Writer MBA Conference, known for working with established authors who are mid-list, side hustle, semi-pro, and bestseller — expanding beyond one retailer to multiple retailers and direct, championing AI-friendly approaches, and teaching sustainability principles. That conference, and years of working with creators across genres and experience levels, is what led to Create Expand Prosper.
Create Expand Prosper is a yearlong summit series designed to give creators the playbook to build a Creator Economy business in 2026 and beyond — the complete picture of what a sustainable creative business looks like — and how to build one.
Why This Series Exists
The publishing world changed. Most creator education hasn't.
The shift to independent publishing created an enormous opportunity for creators — but it also created an enormous amount of noise. There are tactics everywhere. There's very little strategy.
Monica built Create Expand Prosper because she wanted to create an event that treated creators as business owners: people who needed frameworks, systems, and strategic thinking — not just another list of things to try.
The three-summit structure maps to the three most important layers of the sustainable creative business: how you create, how you grow, and how you profit. It's the curriculum Monica wishes had existed when she was building her own business.
Create Summit
Build the creative system that keeps you writing, finishing, and showing up over the long haul.
Expand Summit
Build the audience ecosystem and revenue diversification that doesn't require chasing every algorithm.
Prosper Summit
Build the financial and business infrastructure that makes your creative work keep earning.
Past Events
Background & Expertise
The unusual background that makes Monica the right person to host this series.
Working Author
USA TODAY bestselling author with 50+ published books. Monica is actively writing and publishing fiction — this isn't theory, it's practice.
Business Education
MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Monica brings rigorous business thinking to creative entrepreneurship.
Systems Thinking
Former software engineer. Monica thinks in systems — which is why her frameworks are designed to be built, tested, and refined, not just followed.
Conference Founder
Co-founder of the Writer MBA Conference — one of the first events to take the creative business as seriously as the creative craft.
Published Educator
Author of Getting to Six Figures Sustainably — 12 of Monica’s best frameworks for building a business container around your creative work.
Community Builder
Years of working directly with creators across genres and experience levels — Monica knows what's working and what isn't right now.
Join Monica at the 2026 Create Expand Prosper Summit Series.
Three summits, one year, a complete framework for the sustainable creative business.