Great guide to being an indie: Book Review of the Indie Author’s Guide to the Universe by Jeff Bennington
The Short Version
This book works. As a marketing tool for newbies, it’s pretty solid. It tells you what to expect from the beginning and it delivers. There’s no guarantee it’ll work for you and no false hope. Bennington is straightforward, thorough, and polite. However, some advice didn’t sit right with me or didn’t appear as fully supported—for instance, he mentioned a “statistical fact” without giving any research to justify his claim.
Still, this was a helpful read that introduced me to new marketing techniques and restated the fundamental staples to indie life. I definitely recommend it.
The Details
I’m on a nonfiction kick lately. It’s weird. I never read nonfiction, yet I’m picking up marketing book after marketing book. Ah…that’s right. My Treason blog tour is coming up. *panics*
Luckily, I’ve found some great books on marketing. I’m tearing through them and sourcing great ideas. The Indie Author Guide to the Universe is a helpful handbook filled with the basics and even some surprises. I had a few “aha” moments, which I wasn’t really expecting.
The book reads like a series of blog posts, which is likely what they originally were. Bennington is known for helpful content like this. However, their information was updated at the time of printing, and their short nature means you’ll breeze quickly through the book.
What I liked best is that he tells you about his successes, failures, and sales numbers. He’s transparent. That’s really important to me in a marketing book—if someone is telling me how to market, they have to know what they’re talking about. If they don’t, the book is worthless.
Bennington is an Amazon top-100 best seller. A few of his books have made it there, actually. He runs the Kindle Book Review: a site dedicated to highlighting quality authors and rewarding them with ad space, awards, and more. He gets roughly 25,000 hits a month between his two blogs. His name crops up a lot in indie author circles.
The man has a pretty good idea of what he’s doing. So yeah, I’ll listen.
From the beginning, Bennington states that this is an overview. He’s very clear that this book is designed to teach you about the basics of being an indie. It’s not a marketing powerhouse. It is a guide to figuring out what the hell it means to go indie.
Bennington talks about everything from writing technique to networking to cover design. He stresses the importance of hiring an editor (we cannot stress that enough! HIRE ONE!) and explains social media. He gives you names for advertising sites, and more.
I took a LOT of notes.
One component of his book that made me hesitate was his claim on the 3% Rule. I blogged about it earlier because I loved the idea, but couldn’t find the research he claimed existed to support the theory.
Basically, he said 3% of all ratings can be thrown out due to disgruntled customers that cannot be satisfied. While I see this all the time and it seems true, he claimed this was a statistical and well-supported fact. Google didn’t turn up anything, and we all know Google is omniscient. I still appreciate the concept, but as a theory. Check out my original post for more on this and to join the discussion. Please don’t discuss much of that aspect here in the review.
I think The Indie Author Guide to the Universe should be any author’s first stop when it comes to the decision to go indie. It’s a great introduction to our world, and I agreed with most of his comments. He’s clear that not everything will work for everyone, and he doesn’t promise anything.
New authors, just remember to do your homework and compare notes. Not everything will work for you, and this book isn’t enough to go on exclusively. You need to continue reading, researching, and learning to find out what will work for you. Make sure you check out my Indie Author How-To Index, too. It has dozens of posts and tons of resources that give you insight into what it means to be indie. It’s another great place to get started.
OH and one more thing. I recommend you grab the print edition for this. I know, I know, it’s more expensive. But with nonfiction, you should be taking notes. Highlight the crap out of it. Bend pages. While these features are available in eBooks, it’s easier to sort through a print edition. I also like to mark page numbers in my notes, which can change depending on what eReader/font size you have. My two cents, anyway.
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