It’s Indie-Pride Day, but why?

Are you indie proud?

Yesterday was indie-pride day, so it’s a timely question.

If you’re a self-published author, how do you explain to ordinary people that you publish your own books?

Do you?

I met a woman a week ago who actually asked me how my books were published—whether I had a publisher. She had studied screen writing, but had given up on that dream for a more practical job with a steady income. She wanted to go back to writing though and so was curious.

I explained to her briefly that I published my own books, but didn’t go into more detail than that.

Do you?

Do people ask?

Are you proud to be an indie-author? Does it make a difference?

It’s still an unknown thing in the wider world. I don’t believe it carries the stigma it used to. Now people aren’t sure when you tell them that you’re indie—they don’t know what that means exactly because there’s such an enormous range of indie-books. There’s everything from the picture of someone’s foot to typo-ridden, poorly formatted, never-edited books which someone wrote and posted on Amazon without giving professionalism a thought, to books that are indistinguishable from those produced by any of the big publishers in New York.

When you tell someone that you’re an indie-author do you clarify that you’re a professional author who cares about the product you put out into the world? Do you tell them about the rounds of editing, professional cover design and all the other work that goes into producing your books? It’s kind of awkward to do so, but if you don’t how would they know that you’re a serious professional?

The wonderful thing today is that there are so many indie-authors who do care and who do put a lot of time and money into their work to produce something professional so that a lot of readers don’t even know which of their favorite authors are indie, and which are traditionally published. And even better—they don’t care! All they want is a good read.

So, if this is true—do we need an Indie Pride Day? Is it necessary to have a day when authors proclaim to be indie and proud? Does that mean that they’re not proud to be indie other days? That they don’t admit to being indie other than on indie pride day?

I suppose it’s something like Gay Pride Day, when the LGBT community (and it’s friends) all come out to support the idea that anyone can love anyone else and they don’t need to be ashamed to do so. But then, that would imply that we’re ashamed to be indie authors, generally—or we might be.

Are you a closet indie-author?

I’m not. I’m proud to be indie. I work hard to write the best books I can and make sure that every aspect of it is as professionally done as possible. I put a lot of time and money into my books and I think it shows. When I meet people, I tell them that I’m an indie author, and if they ask I’ll go into more detail about how much work that entails. Their eyes soon glaze over, but that’s okay, they’ve gotten the point. I’m only going to put out a product which I can be proud of.

It’s not easy to be indie–we’ve got to be author and publisher, but it’s certainly worth it when someone looks at your books and says “You did that yourself?” with awe. I always demure that they’re just looking at the cover (usually) and that it was done by a professional cover designer, but yes, I publish my own books.