Today for my day job at the newspaper, I got to write about indie writers. I’m pretty proud of this article, and love the authors I got to interview for it.
You can read it here: http://bit.ly/10WDg2M
What I love most about it is that it shows that success really is possible, but also tells the reality part – that indie publishing – and marketing – takes a lot of work.
It’s funny, before I published my book, I figured it would be a piece of cake to sell my book by the thousands. Now I realize it takes a lot of patience and dedicated work to keep things going. And sometimes even then, nothing happens.
The one thing I’m learning in all this is that I must never forget why I wanted to publish a book in the first place. It wasn’t to become rich. It wasn’t to sell hundreds of thousands of books. Would those things be nice? Of course. But they are not why I decided to write. I decided to write because NOT writing didn’t feel natural. I was born to write. I live for writing. If I have a feeling, I write. This book I wrote, it would have torn me apart had I not written it.
My favorite question I asked each writer when I interviewed them was “what advice would you give an indie writer?” My advice – never forget why you’re doing this. When the numbers are low or the work you’re putting in doesn’t seem to be producing results, remember the real reason you are doing this. And then find your joy in that. After all, you are an artist. And no number is going to make you any more or less of an artist.
Now go, write. Create art from your words. <3
I asked one other person this, but, aren’t indie writers people who self-publish and go through a non-‘mainstream’ route of getting their book out to the public?
Or is there some sort of writing style you need to conform to.
Cause if there isn’t… well, 50 Shades of Grey lady self-published originally. I don’t think many authors would want to be associated with her.
Indie publishers are people who self-publish instead of publishing with a traditional publisher. There are many reasons as to why someone would want to self-publish – the main ones (at least in my case) are to avoid the hoops traditional publishers put in place for authors to be able to publish, and to retain control over their material. While it’s true that the 50 Shades author self-published, and I’ve heard the material isn’t very good, she also did really well for herself – making a lot of money and gathering a lot of interest without the help of a publisher. That’s inspiring for an indie author to hear. Of course, those of us who aren’t basing our stories on sex have our work cut out for us, lol!
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