From South Africa to the U.S.—Without Leaving My Desk: The True Story of How I Became an Indie Authorpreneur at 60

By Kim Bock (Author of The Chronicles of Erenor)

If you told me two years ago that I would be running a U.S.-based indie publishing business—complete with an LLC, U.S. bank accounts, a Shopify store, and a Kickstarter campaign in the works—I would have rolled my eyes so hard you’d hear it echo across the Karoo. After all, I’m 60. I’m Gen X. I remember cassettes, no internet followed years later by dial-up internet, and my first cellphone was heavier than the average papaya. Technology was something the kids of today were supposed to figure out, not me. And yet, here we are.

This is the true, slightly bumpy, often exhilarating story of how I, a South African indie author with a dream and a lot of grit, built a transatlantic publishing business from my dining room table—with absolutely no funding, no fancy marketing team, and no relocation required. And in case you’re wondering—yes, I did it with a lot of help from a certain AI assistant. (You know who you are, ChatGPT. You’re the real MVP.)

Phase One: The Chronicles of Erenor and the Amazon Dilemma

Everything began with my series, The Chronicles of Erenor—an epic fantasy story close to my heart. I self-published on Amazon KDP, navigating ISBNs, formatting hell, and keyword puzzles like a one-woman publishing house. I set up my author website using WordPress, promoted with limited resources, and kept all systems running on caffeine and determination. But I quickly hit a wall: as a South African author, my opportunities were stifled.

No Stripe account. No Kickstarter. No Apple Books access. No Google Play Partner access. No way to receive payments easily. No possibility of crowdfunding. And most painfully—no real way to expand unless I hit it big on Amazon.

I couldn’t even get a business credit card because my business was a start-up, and start-ups in South Africa, especially in the creative field, get more polite rejections than Tinder profiles. I was entirely dependent on royalties to grow my business—an impossible task when you need capital to even reach readers.

So, I did what any frustrated but hopeful indie author does: I started “Googling”.

Phase Two: From Pty Ltd to LLC (and a few tears in between)

I already had a registered South African company, Kim Bock Books Pty Ltd. But that wasn’t enough. I needed access to global platforms, and for that, I needed a U.S. presence. That’s when I found USFormations—a godsend for international entrepreneurs. I researched all the U.S. states (yep, I went full spreadsheet-mode) and settled on Wyoming for its privacy, simplicity, and low fees.

In November 2024, with the help of USFormations, I registered Kim Bock Books LLC as a single-member LLC, wholly owned by me 😊, still operating from South Africa. The waiting game for the IRS EIN felt eternal, but when it finally arrived in January 2025, I felt like I had just been handed the key to a secret kingdom.🗝️

From there, it was a whirlwind: I opened a Wise Multi-Currency account. Then a business checking account at Mercury Bank. I got a Stripe account—finally!—and connected it to my Wise USD account. I acquired a real U.S. address via USPotsScanMail (not just a registered agent address), and a U.S. phone number from KrispCall. Every step was a battle and caused a lot of sleepless nights (literally as the time difference between the US and South Africa is significant), but each success built momentum.

Phase Three: Transferring My Business to the New Infrastructure

One by one, I began transferring everything to the U.S. business infrastructure:

• Draft2Digital for wide distribution.

• IngramSpark for print books.

• PublishDrive for Google Play Books.

• BookVault for direct-to-reader sales.

• BookFunnel for delivery and ARCs.

And then came the online store: originally on Payhip, but eventually (this month actually), I migrated everything to Shopify. I even transferred my domain—kimbockbooks.com—and set up a fully branded store, entirely designed and built by geriatric me. (Yes, both the WordPress and Shopify versions were my work. Gen X’ers may have  ended the 20th century with floppy disks, but we can still code if you hand us enough coffee.) ☕

I designed everything. I connected the dots. And I did it while fighting off algorithms that tried to geo-limit me to South Africa, like TikTok ⌚, which only wanted to show my content to fellow South Africans. Explaining to every platform why my IP address said “Pretoria” while my bank account said “Wyoming” became a daily occurrence.

The Emotional Cost (and Triumph) of Building a Business at 60 

There were days I cried. Days I wanted to give up. Days when the emails from Stripe, the bank, or yet another form demanding a U.S. tax number and “please don't try and give us your EIN, we want a ITIN”, made me feel like I was losing my mind. There were moments my husband thought I was crazy (to be fair, I probably was at 2am trying to figure out how to prove beneficial ownership to one or  the other Support Team).

But there were also days I felt like I could conquer the world. Like when Stripe finally verified my account. Or when Shopify showed my store live. Or when I finally understood the U.S. tax system (okay, semi-understood). These small victories weren’t small to me. They were enormous.

And now, on 10 April 2025, I’ll be filing my very first IRS tax forms. (Yes, I still have a South African Accountant who's learning with me and doing it for me. Yes, he’s brilliant. No, I wouldn’t survive without him either.)🧾

What’s Next? The Kickstarter Campaign

Now that the structure is in place, the next step is the big one: my first Kickstarter campaign. I’ll be launching special edition print books of The Chronicles of Erenor and maybe The Cauldron and Quill Mysteries, complete with magical extras and exclusive swag. It’s the kind of thing I used to dream about while stuck in the limitations of self-publishing from the Global South.

I’ll be documenting the entire Kickstarter journey—step-by-step—just like I’ve done here. If you’re a fellow author trying to figure out how to launch a U.S.-based business from another country, I’ve got you. I’ll walk you through everything.

And yes, if you’d like to visit my store and see how I’ve set up my Shopify site, you can check it out at 1kimbockbooks.com. It’s the same domain I started with, just transferred and reimagined on a stronger foundation. I’ll share that process too in an upcoming post.

I used to believe that you had to live in the U.S. to be a successful indie author. I now know that’s not true. You just have to be determined - even if you're at the ripe young age of 60! And maybe just stubborn enough to wrestle the internet until it gives you what you need.💻🤼♀

And while this isn’t my first time publishing—I was traditionally published in 2009 by LAPA, (now an imprint of Penguin Random House South Africa), with my historical romance “Gee my jou hart.”—this new journey is something else entirely. It’s mine. Fully mine. Yes, I am going to ask the Publisher to give my Rights back so that I can publish that book under my own imprint as well (after translating it to English - yes English is my second language 🇬🇧and I speak German 🇩🇪too).

If you’re interested in following the journey of a 60-year-old Gen X’er building a profitable author business in the USA while living in South Africa 👵🇿🇦, I invite you to subscribe to my Newsletter. (You will also receive a Free Downloadable Novella, which I intend to add to every month!).

 I want every writer who dreams of more—of international success, of creative freedom, of building something meaningful—to know that it’s possible no matter what age you are.

And trust me, the continuation of this journey will be just as informative… and probably even funnier. I’m still 60. I’m still Gen X. And I still don’t understand TikTok.

—Kim Bock (Proud Indie Author) and a “Yankee” in South Africa!