Claire Ryan's Blog, page 20

Fun with Google Alerts

Authors need Google Alerts. It’s another one of those Google services that are just too useful not to have. I honestly have no idea why it is that Google provides this kind of nifty thing for free, but hey – let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth. I do know that some authors are violently allergic to Alerts, but I really have to put that down to them not really knowing how to use them effectively, so here’s what you need to know about them and why they’re your best friend.

The Basics

Alerts are simple in theory: any time a particular set of keywords get recorded by Google’s massive search juggernaut, the system can notify you of them with links to where they show up in a nice, daily digest style email. The keywords can be anything at all you can think of that can be put into a Google search, and it returns the same results, broadly speaking. (Its determination of relevancy is somewhat different, as far as I can tell.)

You should have Alerts set up because:

You may have tracking set up on your website to keep an eye on who’s interested in you, BUT
You won’t know offhand that someone has reviewed your book, for example, unless you get a link in or a ping back or something, SO
You need a system to tell you when people are talking about you that doesn’t rely on your own site traffic.

You could just do a search every day and see what pops up, but who’s got the time for that?

The Usage

Okay, I’ll use myself as an example here. I have a very common name. Do a search for ‘Claire Ryan’ and I’m down at the bottom of the page, out of something like 54 million hits. Obviously I’m not interested in getting alerts about what all the other Claire Ryans of the world are doing, so I have to structure my alerts carefully to filter them out.

So let’s try this again – let’s search for ‘Claire Ryan author’. There we go, much better – that’s all me. Still, I may want to be absolutely sure that all I’ll get is stuff about me, so I use this for the alert itself:

“Claire Ryan” author

This specifies that I want to be alerted for a particular phrase, Claire Ryan, in conjunction with the word ‘author’. Unless there’s another Claire Ryan out there writing books, I’m probably safe with that.

This same reasoning can be applied to any author name or book title to filter the results down to just what you want. Here’s my list of alerts:

“Claire Ryan” author
“Claire Ryan” writer
“The Author’s Marketing Handbook”
Claire Ryan Author’s Marketing Handbook
Claire Ryan Raynfall
Raynfall Agency

You can see that I don’t have to be too specific when I’m using a combination of Claire Ryan and The Author’s Marketing Handbook. It’s highly unlikely that a page will be indexed with both my name and words from the book title without it having something to do with me.

How Do You Know if it’s Working?

You just need to blog on your site, and see if the index catches it. You can also see if known reviews or mentions of you come through. If you start getting too many irrelevant hits, you need to adjust the alerts to something more specific. If you don’t get alerts, you need to adjust them to widen the net, as it were. Whether you choose to get everything or just the best results is up to you – try out the settings and see what pops up. Just a note on editing the alert settings – for some reason, this doesn’t always seem to stick. If you need to edit an alert, it may be better to just delete it and create a new one.

You need to use Alerts. More information about your online presence, and the impact of your book, is great.

Related ArticlesThe Author’s Marketing HandbookThe Handbook is now AvailableDo Authors Need Websites?

Five on Friday: The Chutzpah of Hustlers

Required reading for the week! Little late today, sorry.

Victoria Strauss on the class action lawsuit against Publish America.

Smart Bitches Trashy Books on the utterly vile appropriation of Nora Roberts and James Patterson’s names to sell books on Amazon.

Susannah Breslin‘s rather mean-spirited post on Forbes about why you shouldn’t be a writer.

K.S. Brooks on the need for self-publishing to have a seal of approval.

Support indie authors!

Today’s candidate for indie glory is Becca Mills, author of Nolander, who popped up on Kindleboards in a thread where I was offering cover critiques. She writes very strange urban fantasy – and it is good, very very good, in a way that makes me wish all prose was this grabbing and interesting. She’s got no others out, but trust me – this one has a whole mountain of talent.

So how’s her marketing?

Cover? – tut tut, the titles need work. Not very readable. Could do with a gradient in the top and bottom to bring up the text.
Blurb? – reads more like a query, and doesn’t start with the main character. Gotta work on that, I’m afraid.
Social media? – kickin’ it on Twitter, but no sign of Facebook or Google+.
Web design? – functional, good layout, but needs a link to the book in the sidebar. Let’s see some more color there!

Everyone have a good weekend – I have six thrillers to get through, so I’ll be busy.

Why You Should Be a Writer

A recent article in Forbes was brought to my attention on Kindleboards, and I’m afraid it was with some horror that I read it and tried to digest its message. It is called, quite simply, Why You Should Not Be a Writer.

Needless to say, I can’t really get behind this sentiment. So let’s break it down, shall we? Here’s why you should be a writer.

1. You may not be good at it now, but…

Every author has to start somewhere. Even Shakespeare was terrible at some point. But if you’re committed to this, you’re always working to improve your craft, and you can’t do that unless you write all the time. What are you, if you write all the time? A writer.

The thing you have to remember is that writing is a skill like any other. Anyone can paint a wall; anyone can speak in their native language. But with enough practice and learning, anyone can hone their skill and produce works above and beyond the norm. A master of art creates scenes with line and color that fire the imagination. A master of words does the same with prose.

2. It’s too hard…

It’s one of the most difficult things that you can do with your time. If you were being sensible, you’d take up alligator dentistry rather than subject yourself to this. But there is nothing on earth like the feeling of getting a good review, of seeing a stranger smile and gush and tell you how much they liked your story. There is nothing comparable to spreading that kind of joy.

And you’ll find support and commonality with other writers, who understand the things you’ll never be able to explain to your readers. Why a bad review hurts so deeply. Why you can’t seem to get this particular plot point working. Why you’re watching TV rather than writing the next chapter. They’ll get you through the times when you want to give up, and keep you grounded when your head gets a little too big.

3. It’s tough to make money…

It’s tough to make money in any creative profession. But now, in the age of the Internet, authors have never had such immense opportunities to build their own career and take control of their publishing destiny. Never before have authors had such a huge part in the earning potential of their work. If ever there was a time where all the cards are stacked in their favor, it’s now. So yes, it may be tough to make money, but with hard work and perseverance (and a lot of practice on the art), you can do it.

Finally…

Writers are a funny, frequently neurotic bunch of misfits from all walks of life. They have one thing in common: the burning desire to tell a story, whether it’s to everyone who’ll listen, or just to the inside of their own head.

You should be a writer if you are one, if you can’t imagine a world where you are not a teller of stories.

You should especially be a writer if nothing, not even an article in Forbes, can make you stop dreaming and stop writing.

The Use of Amazon Affiliate Links

Amazon Affiliate links are useful things. There’s even a WordPress widget that let’s you add them easily to any post, which is very convenient. Many authors have taken to using them to add their books to the sidebar of their site, or when they’re doing reviews of someone else’s book.

I have to warn you – this may be a very bad idea. Please allow me to introduce you to a rather interesting little plugin called Adblock.

Now You See it…

Adblockers are the most popular plugins for Firefox and Chrome, representing over half of all net traffic. What they do is very simple, at heart: they have a blacklist of different advertising programs, which is being updated all the time, that cuts advertising sections from every webpage a user visits. There’s adblockers for every major browser – yes, even Internet Explorer – but the Firefox and Chrome plugins are the most well known.

They turn this:

Advertising in the header and sidebar

Into this:

All advertising disappears

…Now You Don’t.

They treat your Amazon listing in exactly the same way, because the blacklist includes anything in Amazon’s Affiliate program. Poof, no more books showing up on your website.

If you’re actually using it to get affiliate revenue, then great, you can leave them in and take your chances with adblockers. But this is one hell of an issue if you’re just using the links for an easy way to display your books on your website. This means that there’s some unknown number of visitors who never see your books and never get a chance to click through and buy a copy – and you’ll never know if that’s just one or two, or if it’s a significant percentage of them. It’s also likely that you’ve never been told about it if it is happening, because the cut is damn near invisible. It’s usually impossible to tell where the advertising should have been, so a new visitor who doesn’t know you will probably assume you only have your books listed elsewhere on the site, like on a main book page.

This was brought to my attention specifically because I asked one of my authors why they didn’t have an easily accessible book list in their sidebar. Turns out they did – I just never saw it.

So what about book reviews?

Plenty of sites do book reviews and run on their affiliate revenue. Again, it’s all about what you’re using the links for. If it’s worth the affiliate cash, then go for it and be happy. But if you’re using them for convenience, then you might want to figure out another way of displaying your books so that everyone who comes to your site can see them.

This isn’t a make-or-break thing. It’s just something you need to be aware of. The best thing to do is get Chrome or Firefox, if you don’t have one of them already, and install an adblocker plugin. Then check your site. If your book list has vanished into the ether, then you’ve got a problem – not a big one, not a critical one, but one that could be costing you sales.

The Cargo Cult of Social Media

The recent revelation that many successful writers don’t seem to use any kind of social media has hit rather hard. Writer Unboxed’s article on this very subject was a well-written and thoughtful examination of the whole thing. But the reactions have somewhat baffled me – I hear a chorus of writers suddenly trumpeting that they don’t use social media and they’re glad not to, because it doesn’t work. I also hear a somewhat quieter chorus of writers who want to know what they’re supposed to do, then, to promote their books, and the response is usually something like ‘Just write more books!’

This is bad advice.

No, I’m not saying writers shouldn’t write. That’s ridiculous. I’m saying that, as a means of promotion, just writing isn’t going to cut it. Without properly delving into the mechanics of promotion and marketing, new authors are going to read this, write plenty of books while ignoring any other kind of marketing, and… well, be surprised and confused when they get no sales.

The Why is Important

See, part of the initial problem is that writers were told a lot of not-very-useful things. They were told that they needed Facebook, and Twitter, and all those social media accounts, and they had to update them every day and do all this other social media stuff to get followers and retweets and good grief, is that the time? I could have been writing for the last six hours!

In retrospect, I’m not surprised that the pushback has been so vocal. They were told to do a lot of things without ever being told why or how it’s supposed to work, so of course it failed and their time was wasted. It’s a cargo cult of authors going through the motions of social media but not actually getting results (i.e. sales). But the why is important, and understanding the process is important, because using social media for promotion just won’t work otherwise.

Back to Basics

As I like to say, let’s start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

You have a thing you want to sell. There are people out there who you think would be very interested in buying your thing. Marketing is all the stuff you do to let them know about it and make those sales happen.

Do you think that books are somehow different from any other product? Yes, yes, you’ve poured your sweat and tears into writing the best book you can, but really – the work you did is no different from the work a car designer does to produce the latest Bugatti Veyron concept. The principles are the same, and if you want to sell the book, then you have to think of it in the same way. Here is your product, and you want to find customers for it.

Now, consider this: do Bugatti, makers of one of the most expensive vehicles in the world, market the Veyron in a manner similar to how Toyota markets the Prius?

No, of course not, because a Veyron driver and a Prius driver want completely different things and likely have completely different lifestyles, even though both are cars.

So how does this apply to books?

Simple, really. There are lots of different kinds of books, and lots of different methods of marketing. Yes, they’re all books, but what methods work best for each one will vary a lot.

Social Media Connections

So here’s your product. You should have some idea of who’d be interested in buying it – your target customers. Now you have to figure out the methods that will sell it.

Marketing, at its heart, is about communication. It’s about letting the right people know about your product, and giving them a reason to buy it. Of course social media can be included in this, because it’s another means of communicating – you just have to make sure you’re talking to the right people. If your customers don’t use a particular service, then obviously you don’t need to use it either – no point talking to an empty room, of course.

So how does this apply to books?

If your readers hang out on Facebook, then you can use Facebook to talk to them. No, I don’t mean you saying ‘BUY MY BOOK!’ all the damn time, and I may just scream if I see another author doing that. You need the hook, the reason for them to take notice of and follow you – usually just you being yourself, or a version of yourself that’s awesome and followable. The same is true for any social network where you know the readers of your genre like to congregate.

When it doesn’t work

Making sales is all about pitching the right message in the right communication medium to the right people. Get any one of those three things wrong, and you can kiss your sales goodbye. The same is true if you don’t even try to reach your customers at all. (Zero communication = zero marketing = zero sales.)

The right message? That’s the one that makes people want to know about you and the thing you’re selling. The right medium is whatever can get your message in front of your customers, whether that’s a billboard or a Facebook update or a message on a blimp. The right people are the ones who have bought similar products to yours, and who – through whatever you know about them – seem to have the means and interest in buying more.

So how does this apply to books?

Writers frequently get the last part of this wrong. They’ll get on Twitter and start following other writers. They’ll post links to their promo in forums that only other writers frequent. They form networks with other authors who like their Facebook page and comment on their blog. All the support is nice, of course, but they’re still missing the whole point by a mile because they’re not connecting with readers.

If you’re an author, you have to start thinking about what you’ve been told about promotion, and you have to figure out if and how your target readers are seeing any of the promotional stuff you do. You can’t pitch a crappy advertising message to the wrong people and expect to get sales.

Figuring it all out

The Writers Unboxed article had one main message: that there isn’t one true way to find success. This doesn’t mean that social media is a waste of time, and it doesn’t mean that you can get by without doing any marketing. It means exactly what it says: that how you find an audience is up to you and, contrary to what you’ve been told, not every method will work for every author.

So look, here’s my advice on this. Can you get sales just by writing more books? Sure – if you’ve got a readership already who are hungry for anything you produce. Can you get sales using Facebook? Sure – if your target readers use Facebook a lot and you put some effort into connecting with them. Can you get sales by blogging? Sure – if you’re blogging about funny, awesome, interesting, informative, whatever kind of stuff that your target readers like, and if they know about it.

Can you get sales by doing nothing? No.

There is your challenge. You have to do something to sell your work, and that something depends on so many different factors that trying to codify it will likely give you a migraine. But there is a fuzzy kind of structure to all this, and understanding the most basic ideas of how and why you should be promoting your work will let you work out the shape of it.

Authors have finally broken out of the cargo cult mentality of promotion. Now they have to stop rejecting it wholesale and learn how to do it right.

Five on Friday: Very Good Advice

Required reading for the week:

The Passive Guy’s thoughts on Amazon. Long but worth the read.

Zoe Winters on how she makes a good living as a self-publisher. Check out The Catalyst, her new book that’s just released.

Neil Gaiman on Ray Bradbury’s passing. Such a shame, and such a heartfelt tribute to a great author.

Michael J. Sullivan is doing a survey of authors of all kinds – go add your info to the pile.

Support indie authors!

Fellow Redditor K.W. Matthews has just started out as an indie author. His crime thriller stories, under the heading of The Arbiter, are now available on Amazon. Very Punisher-esque, noir stuff – check it out if you’re a comics buff.

Cover? – Veeeeerrrry comics. Good hook if you like that style.
Blurb? – possibly needs some polish, but it’s interesting at least.
Social media? – just getting started. Make sure you link your Facebook and Twitter to your site, my friend!
Web design? – a free blogspot blog. Nothing special, but definitely functional.

Shine on, you crazy diamond. Everyone have a good weekend!

Blogging for Fun and Profit

This is part of a chapter of The Author’s Marketing Handbook called Blogging for Fun and Profit. I think it’s probably one of the most useful to anyone, not only writers. I’ve cut out a few paragraphs for the sake of brevity, and it’s written in my less-than-formal style.

One thing I’ve noticed is that writers don’t seem to know what to blog about, and advice on that is not always very helpful. It’s a question I was asked by a few authors in the context of marketing, so obviously it had to go into the book provided I could say something useful on the subject. When I got to thinking about it, I noticed a trend in a lot of popular and viral content online, and this section was the result. 

What to Write About?

And now we get to the million dollar question. What do you write about? You’ve probably heard everything from ‘post book reviews’ to other, more nebulous advice like ‘blog about what you know’. In any case, the fact remains that your awesome stuff won’t be so good at drawing people to your website if it’s not the right kind of awesome stuff, or if it’s too similar to the supposedly awesome stuff that every other aspiring author is churning out.

I’m not going to tell you what to write. I’m going to tell you how you can figure out what to write in order to pull in your readers.

Information versus Attraction

The rule of thumb that I use for picking out the right kind of topic is information versus attraction. What this means, in general terms, is that you do one of two things when you’re blogging:

You present something that your readers don’t know in a format that they’re familiar with.
You present something that your readers do know, but in a format that they don’t expect.

This probably sounds a bit weird, but here’s an example: let’s say you’re a sci-fi writer. You know all about alien species from various sci-fi shows, books, movies, whatever, and your target audience is familiar with them too. You write an article describing a well-known alien race in the style of a Richard Attenborough documentary, complete with funny accent.

The result is something your audience knows all about, but presented in a format they don’t expect. It’s probably absurd, if you’re a good writer, and it’s something they’ll want to share and talk about

Here’s another example: let’s say you’re a financial writer. You know all about the stock market, and the nuances of trading. Your audience doesn’t know what you know, but they’d likely be interested in learning more. You write in a straightforward journalistic style on some lesser known aspects of short selling.

The result is something your audience doesn’t know, presented in a familiar manner. It’ll get shared around if the info is useful.

At this point, you’re probably wondering why you don’t present something unknown in an unexpected format. Well, it’s because of the last factor that muscles in between information and attraction – familiarity. If you give them info they don’t know, in a format they don’t expect, then there is no familiar hook to get them reading at all.

General Ideas and Examples

Here’s some ideas on things you can do. If you’re a sci-fi writer, how about doing a series of book reviews as if they were written by HAL 9000? If you normally talk about the creative process, how about describing the things that inspire you in the tone and style of an epic mythology? Do you have another hobby that you could combine with writing – like, say, using your skill at cooking to recreate dishes from well-known fantasy settings?

If you write chicklit set in the 1920’s that’s aimed at housewives, how about a series of articles on the fashion of that time? If you write alternate history novels, how about something on whether the Germans would have won WWII if they had developed the iPhone sixty years ago?

If you have a more analytical mind, commentary on various aspects of publishing, writing or your chosen genre can be a great idea – if you have something new to say about it. Some authors like to talk about why vampires are so popular, or what plugins they’ve found useful on their websites, or the effects of copyright law. Short stories can also be a good choice if you’re playing to your audience’s tastes. If you normally write time travel sci-fi, how about a story that uses a well-known plot but involves a dinosaur gentleman in ancient Greece?

Why the Usual Stuff Doesn’t Work

It’s pretty clear why things like book reviews or articles on writing just don’t attract the same kind of attention. No, it’s not because they’re badly written or boring. It’s because they’re usually not providing any new info and they’re usually in the format of ‘blog post written from my perspective’. There’s no hook there, and no hook means little or no attention and probably no book sales.

Here’s an experiment you can do at home, kids. If you’ve got a blog, and you were sensible enough to install some form of tracking on it, check out your most popular posts and analyze them from the perspective of information versus attraction. Are they saying something new in a familiar format, or do they provide familiar info in a new format or style?

Then, with those two things, in mind, ask yourself: can they hook your target audience?

Breaking the Bonds

Breaking the Bonds is the second standalone novel written by Perry Wilson. Raynfall provided new cover designs and a new blurb (a la carte service).

Twenty five years ago, the Meta appeared on the planet of Free Faith.

The peaceful, rustic human colonists knew nothing of war, or combat. Their idyllic existence was subjugated, their very lives made sport for the pleasure of the aliens.

The Meta take what they want by threat of force, and walk among the humans as lords; demanding, controlling, and contemptuous.

But the cruelty has gone too far. One callous act too many. One indignity on top of a thousand indignities. One life taken, like so many others. The Meta are not invincible, and their influence does not extend to the hearts and minds of the people. Three young colonists, Serena, Michal, and Oisin, begin the whispers of a word not heard on Free Faith in many years – REBELLION.

The cost is great, and the danger considerable. Many would prefer to remain under the heel of the Meta, and give up their freedom forever for the sake of stability. But the three friends find others of like mind, and the word moves from village to village, leaving a wake of determined, hardened people willing to risk their lives for the cause.

The time has come to break the bonds, and take back their home.

Closing the Circle

Closing the Circle is the first standalone novel written by Perry Wilson. Raynfall provided new cover designs and a new blurb (a la carte service).

AN’ IT HARM NONE, DO AS YE WILL.

In the dark places of San Francisco, a serial killer has chosen to ignore the words of the Wiccan Rede. It begins with one body, then two, then three, and the murders become more ritualistic and brutal with every new victim. Each one is burned, tortured, and discarded like so much trash, with runes and symbols carved into their skin. Each one is connected to the object of the killer’s desire: Felicity Armstrong, a believer in Wicca horrified at the perversion of her religion.

Only Sam Barton of the FBI stands between her and her pagan stalker. With his leave in San Francisco prematurely canceled, his task is to protect Felicity and find the murderer before everyone around her dies. In spite of the dire circumstances, they are instantly drawn to one another – but if he gets too close, it may be his mutilated body that turns up in the morgue.

The killer seems to defeat them at every turn. Cryptic notes reveal the depths of an obsessive, twisted mind that has latched onto Felicity as the incarnation of a pagan Goddess, and made a cruel mockery of all that she holds dear. Every slight to her, both real and imagined, must be punished with death.

The festival of Mabon approaches, and with it, the final sacrifice. The killer has a plan for the Goddess. The circle is open, and waiting for the last victim. And if Sam cannot save her, Felicity will be trapped inside.

The Nature of a New Medium

Something quite interesting popped up on my Twitter feed today – an article from Writer Unboxed on the recent brouhaha over some Things That Were Said by a contingent of professionals connected to the traditional publishing industry. The full summary there is quite succinct, but in short: there appears to be something of a war going on between the traditionals and the self-pubs. I’ve been following it with some interest, mostly as a bystander (my self-published book notwithstanding, I’m more of a designer and technician than anything else right now).

There have been flames and rationality on both sides, but one thing that struck me is that there are certain expectations in this conversation that don’t quite line up to reality, and at the heart of it all is the nature of the new medium of publishing.

The Traditional Dilemma

I read Sarah LaPolla’s article, and she has some good points – especially on authors who jump into self-publishing without researching it – but one quote stood out:

So, self-publishing community, for being called “self,” you’re not very autonomous. If you want to convince traditional publishing you’re its equal, stop drawing comparisons and start recognizing yourselves as your own entity.

Chuck Wendig’s article has more vitriol, of course. I feel his frustration in dealing with trolls; such is the way of the Internet. Here’s another quote:

To the self-publishing DIY indie community at large:

Call these screeching moonbats what they are: screeching moonbats. I’ve long said that the self-publishing community needs fewer cheerleaders and more police — meaning, more folks willing to say, “That fruity nutball does not represent me, my work, my ethos, my nation, my planet, my species, or my very molecular structure.” Don’t let them be the loudest voices in your community.

Nathan Bransford has some good ideas, and his experience speaks for itself. From the article about some self-published authors having a chip on their shoulder:

Your attitude reinforces the idea that self-publishing equates authors who were rejected everywhere else.

All this is interesting to me because it indicates one thing: the writers have imagined that the self-publishing industry is organized very much like the traditional industry. Therein lies the dilemma, because one is not at all like the other.

An Analogy

Consider America. It’s a large, culturally diverse region. It has its share of nutballs, even very vocal ones, but it also has its share of sensible leaders, new immigrants, experienced sages, and wealthy landowners.

Consider an article that addresses all Americans, and tells them to take responsibility and make the nutballs shut up – and, by the way, you shouldn’t call yourselves USians, because that isn’t the correct term for a citizen of the United States.

The response to this would be predictable, if nothing else. Some would respond, and say they do not speak for us. Some would ask, with justified anger, why the addresser thinks they can dictate what terms a person should use to identify themselves, especially when the term in question is in common usage and most people know what it means in context. But the most important one is this: most would either be unaware of it, or ignore it as irrelevant.

Self-publishing, as a whole, is just like that.

The Nature of the Medium

The traditional industry is based around limited things; limited space, limited shelves, limited numbers. It’s possible to conceive of a community of published authors with a certain level of commonality, in the traditional sense, because each one had to go through a process guarded by agents, publishers and bookstores, and the limits of the industry kept their numbers low. But, as I said in The Theory of Infinite Shelfspace, none of this matters in the context of the Internet.

The nature of the medium influences everything about the medium. As the Internet is infinite, for all intents and purposes, then what can you say about the self-publishing industry? I say that it’s not an industry at all, not in the conventional sense. There is no one self-publishing community, just as there is no one Internet community, just as there is no one American community.

Sarah LaPolla asks for self-publishing to develop an autonomous identity, but how? How can a hundred thousand authors with a hundred thousand aims, ideas and opinions find commonality? Would they even want to?

Chuck Wendig asks for more policing, but how can there be policing in a medium where there are no gatekeepers? If a few well regarded self-published authors speak up, what’s to stop the rest from ignoring them if they feel like it?

Nathan Bransford says that a bad attitude makes all self-publishers look like they only did it because they were rejected by the mainstream, but what does that matter to the authors who have no intention of doing anything but self-publishing? Why would they care for the opinion of the mainstream as long as they have an audience willing to buy their books?

Their expectations color their perception of what self-publishing is as a whole; as if it is a single entity, with a unified aim and methodology. I believe this particular battle will not be resolved until those expectations are altered to match reality.

In Conclusion

There will be some self-published authors who take note of all this. There will be some who refrain from calling themselves ‘indie’, as Sarah demands, and some who speak out against those with a bad attitude, as Chuck demands. But there will be just as many who will scoff at it all, write angry screeds, and continue to call themselves indie authors. There will also be just as many, if not more, who are completely oblivious to all this and will go about their business as normal.

In a way, they will all be right, because all of them will sell books if they have an audience. From this perspective, I suppose, the war itself is a moot point. But it would be appropriate for all concerned to consider the nature of self-publishing, and the nature of this infinite medium, before addressing the ‘self-publishing community’. I say this especially for those involved in the traditional industry: there is no such community, and there likely never will be. There’s barely even any consensus, as far as I can see. There are loose networks, and groups organized around certain websites, and authors working on their own, and professionals and amateurs of every stripe, producing works of every level of quality and selling them for any price you can think of.

It’s not really possible to lump them all together.