Meet Willie Pena of Northridge

Today we’d like to introduce you to Willie Pena.

Hi Willie, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I’ve spent over 15 years in Los Angeles as a digital creator and founder of Teens Wanna Know — a teen-focused entertainment brand that’s covered red carpets, profiled rising creators, and reached millions across YouTube, Instagram, and teenswannaknow.com. But from the beginning, I was building toward something beyond traditional media.

I wanted to merge storytelling, technology, and world-building into a new kind of experience — one where fiction doesn’t sit on a shelf, but moves, talks back, and evolves with its audience.

That vision became The Enchanted Life of Cerine — a dark YA fantasy universe built through an AI-powered transmedia pipeline. The characters have their own social accounts. The lore drops in real time. The world expands through videos, digital artifacts, Discord transmissions, and now the first novel.

I work as a one-person studio with AI as a co-producer. My role is AI content producer, storyteller, and transmedia architect. I’m part of the first wave proving you don’t need a publisher, studio, or team to launch a global IP — you can build it directly with the audience and let them step into the world as it forms.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
The challenge has been doing this entirely alone — writing, art direction, branding, world-building, video production, social strategy, community management. I run every part of the universe myself. AI made it possible to operate as a one-man studio, but it also means every pressure point lands on me.

The second challenge was realizing that virality doesn’t equal sustainability. I’ve had reels hit 30M views and videos pass one million, but attention alone doesn’t build a franchise. Turning followers into participants — and participants into an ecosystem — requires more than the creator-economy model of gig work and small brand deals.

The real shift was strategic: stop trading time for content, start building a scalable asset. That meant redefining what IP is in 2025. People don’t just want to consume stories — they want to influence them. Giving them access while maintaining a coherent narrative has been the hardest puzzle.

Every constraint ultimately clarifies the vision. The obstacles I’ve faced aren’t walls, they are things to solve with good prompt engineering, lol.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My work sits at the intersection of AI, storytelling, and audience architecture. I design transmedia worlds that treat books, video, social media, and AI as one continuous medium.

Cerine — my YA fantasy IP — is built on that principle. The novel (The Enchanted Life of Cerine: Book One – Dreambound) serves as the spine of the world, but every platform carries part of the lore. Readers don’t just consume the story — they can interact with it, influence it, and enter it.

What sets me apart is the method: AI is not used as a production shortcut. It becomes a narrative instrument — both a creative tool and an in-world character — mirroring how new generations already engage with technology. For Cerine, I even built an AI archivist who releases transmissions across platforms in real time.

The result is a blueprint for how an independent creator can launch a full IP without waiting for permission from studios or publishers. That’s what I’m building — and that’s what I’m proud of.

Before we go, is there anything else you can share with us?
This is for anyone, in Los Angeles and beyond, with a world inside them who was told they needed access, budget, or permission to build it. They don’t. The tools exist. The audience exists. What’s missing is the model — and the will to build in public.

Cerine is my proof of concept. A blueprint for creator-controlled franchise building — scrappy, tech-driven, and audience-integrated.

I’m using the book as the backbone, but the real experiment is the launch method: build the world first, let the audience witness and shape it, then solidify the canon. That’s the inversion. That’s the point.

The work exists to demonstrate that you don’t need anyone’s permission to create something vast — only a system, a story, and resolve.

To see it in motion, there’s an Advance Preview Edition of the complete book. It includes raw chapters and access to Delphi’s private Discord realm where readers uncover hidden lore and influence the final draft.

Enter the world here:
https://houseofozis.gumroad.com/l/enterthetide

This is the ground floor before the final edits and polish and I lock the canon.
I invite you all to join me in this “build in public” phase—before it closes and the Tide rolls in forever.

(you’ll know what I’m talking about when you read the book.)

Pricing:

• The Advance Preview: $5.99

Contact Info:

• Website: https://williepena.com and https://houseofozis.gumroad.com/l/enterthetide
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/houseofozis | https://instagram.com/marisolpedrayes | https://instagram.com/cerinehyland
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/williepena
• Twitter: https://x.com/_williepena
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@WilliePena
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@delphi.intercept