The Rise of Indie Authorship Credibility

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A great article over at IndieReader continues to drive home the message: readers are smart enough to choose the books they want to read.

Think about all the art out there:

Would you only buy a painting from an art gallery?  Probably not. If you saw someone selling their watercolor paintings at the boardwalk and you really liked it, you’d buy it!

Would you only buy a CD from Best Buy? Of course not. If you see a band play at a local bar and like what you hear, you pick up their home-made album and enjoy it on the way home!

Would you only buy jewelry from a “real” jewelry store or department store? Not if you saw some beautiful hand-made dichroic glass jewelry at  a local festival.

Would you only spend your money on Broadway shows in Manhattan? Chances are, your community theater puts on great shows that are well worth your time and money.

SO…

Why would you only buy a book that was printed by one of the major publishing houses? Why do they get to choose what you can and cannot read?

Send a message to traditional publishing with your wallet: buy indie books. Let the world know authors are finally in control of their work, and that readers are finally free to choose.

Why I’ve Chosen to Indie Publish My Novel

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Indie music, Indie video games, Indie publishing. It’s all the rage, haven’t you heard?

I’ve been a nerd/geek for as long as I can remember. Being trendy has never been an aspiration of mine. I’m very independent.

Hence, Independent publishing.

Thanks to Amazon, the ebook revolution is well underway, and now authors have a new and inexpensive way to reach readers, and maybe some can even make a living out of it.

My reasons for choosing to go Indie with By the Light of the Moons are the following:

  1. Royalties: Let’s just get this one out of the way first since it’s a no-brainer. 70% royalty per ebook paid once a month when Indie, vs. 10-15% per book paid 1 or 2 times a year when with a publisher? No contest.
  2. Marketing: Wait, what? Don’t Indies have to market their books themselves? Yes, but so do first-time authors going traditional publishing–and for substantially less money for their effort, too. If I’m going to have to do it anyway, might as well make more money. And do it my way. Which leads me to…
  3. Control: I choose everything. The cover, the title, the blurb, the layout, the ebook formats available, the marketing, and most important the price are all controlled by me. For the perfectionist, this is heaven.
  4. Ownership: If I chose to publish with a traditional publisher, I would have to sell my rights to the book to them. Indie publishers retain their intellectual property.
  5. Speed: Indie publishers can get their books out instantly. Legacy publishing can take 1 to 2 years to print and get in stores.
  6. Sold Forever: Legacy publishing is cruel; if you don’t start selling within a few weeks, your books are pulled off shelves. With ebook indie publishing, everyone shares the same web real estate, and a book is only pulled if I want it to be.
  7. Freedom: For the first time, writers are now able to be the artists they truly are. Think about all the other professions of art: painters, sculptors, jewelry makers, soap makers… you name it, they have the freedom to create, produce, market and sell, all on their own. Sure, it’s hard. But they have the freedom to try, and succeed or fail by their own merit. They’re not held back by the enormous power that publishing companies have to deem which writers are worthy of print. And now, the writers are free, too.

Despite all the above, there is still that little part of me (the one that wants recognition and prestige) that wonders, “Could I have made it the traditional way?”  I don’t know.

But  really,who cares? Why should a person I’ve never met get to decide if my book is “worthy” of print? Let the reading market decide if I’m worthy.

Independence. It is here. It is now. Savor it.