I'm an Indie Author ....?

I learned about a year ago that my mother’s grandfather - Professor Allen Johnson - was a prominent historian of the very early 20th century. His books – including a Jefferson biography – are still available in print on demand format from numerous venues, including one publisher aptly named “Forgotten Books”. He died in 1930, hit by a car, and I don’t even own a photograph of him, but after reading his books, I have a bit of a sense of what he was like, at least inside his head. Funny, effortlessly knowledgeable. Probably interesting to talk to; at least that’s how I’ll remember him. Another great-grandfather was a prominent rabbi of the late 19th/ early 20th century, and his autobiography is also available on print on demand. He was outspoken and stern, and the woman who was his first great love was deported to Poland, many years after he last saw her. Another ancestor on my mother’s side, Jenny Slocum, left behind a slim volume, which was posthumously published privately in 1909 as Grandmother Slocum’s Stories, and which recounted my family’s earliest ancestors in America. According to her, my family fought on both sides of the Revolutionary War, battled pirates, and socialized with John Hancock. Grandmother Slocum was a good storyteller and as modest as it was possible to be, considering everything.

I finished writing my novel, The Ghosts of Watt O’Hugh in mid-2011. What I had written, I think, has great popular potential, but it is a literary Western historical fantasy novel, with a dash of magical realism. I am at the age of sudden heart attacks, and worse (and there is always the memory of that car that felled Professor Johnson), and so I didn't want to spend the next year convincing agents and publishing houses, especially when there was another option available to me. I wanted to leave behind a little volume on the shelves for any descendants who might care to know me, as I now know my great-grandfathers and Grandmother Slocum, and my book would do all that - it reflects my voice and my view of the world. This tome on the shelf would make me feel better about myself at work, as I sat beneath those popping, buzzing fluorescent lights.

So out it went, and to my surprise and joy, I’ve gotten good reviews and even some nice sales. Suddenly I am an Indie author, rather than just a guy self-publishing a book for his kids.

I am part of the Indie community?

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