Indie Author?

I recently came across the term “Indie Author” while researching more avenues for self-publishing and promotion. While I personally like to avoid labels, in the world of writing and publishing genre and identification are so important. It shows that the author understands their writing and where it fits in with traditional publishing. It’s a much nicer label than “self-publisher”, which has so many negative connotations. It used to be if someone told you they had self-published a book you would smile, nod and maybe even ask politely “about what?”, all while feigning interest in something that hadn’t been “good enough” to be published. It’s not the case anymore. With print-on-demand companies it’s become so much easier to create a professional looking product that can sell.

The bottom line is: If you write a good book, that is well edited, and tells a compelling story you can definitely break out of traditional publishing and into the world of independent publishing and achieve success.

Does that mean you can write the first draft of a novel, print it and hope it will sell? Nope, not at all.

You have a lot of revising, editing and reading to go. You need friends that can help you out with the things you aren’t as good at. For example, in the 3rd full revision of ‘Inked’ a reader of mine pointed out that I had the word “isle” every time I meant “aisle”. I had 11 readers, who weren’t me, from various walks of life. I was able to learn what readers with wide ranging literary tastes thought of the book and the character. I made tons of changes based on what readers thought, and honestly sometimes I didn’t. Their feedback was invaluable to the end-product. There’s also the fact my boyfriend did the cover art for my book, and it turns out he was better with Photoshop than I was. My sister took the picture and her friend is the model. It’s become quite the family project.

All of this was so much work, but the easy part was getting out the first draft in one month by participating in National Novel Writing Month. It seems that the line between the traditional idea of self-publishing and “Indie Authors” is the amount of work. I don’t laugh, scoff or demean traditional publishing, it makes it a lot easier on the author, but I think it’s nearly impossible to break into. I heard an agent speak at a writer’s conference in July and she said that she would have turned down the book “Bridges of Madison County” because she didn’t like the language it was written in. Now, I haven’t personally read Bridges, but it seemed to be a very popular book. You have to wonder how there are so many published, famous authors with rejection letter piles up to the 50’s before they were “discovered”. It’s just the way traditional publishing works, and if you want to turn your wheels in the system for months or years, as some of my colleagues have, that’s one option. Taking control of your own book, your own writing, your own future and making something of yourself is also another option.

Just remember that it’s not easy. I have tons of email in my inbox right now I should be responding to. I have organizations and business partnerships that need my attention. I have more self-promotion to do. I have a short story to edit for a literary magazine, and another to write for a friend’s collaborative collection he wants to self-publish. NaNoWriMo is only 22 days away, and I’ve got a region to Liaison and a new novel I’m plotting. Oh and yeah, I’m also broke because any money I’ve earned from pre-sales has gone straight back out into the book.

But it’s so worth it. I have written, edited and loved this book from the moment it was idea in my head. Now, I have a revised, finished and printed book. I can throw all the passion I have for this story behind bringing it out to the public.

So, am I an Indie Author? You better believe it, and I think that’s a really good thing.