I like being an Indie

I like the control.  Yes, I have to wear different hats, writer, editor, proofreader, cover, formatting, and promotion.  I'll admit, I didn't promote my books before I published.  Luckily, I was blessed with readers who found my books and left reviews.  Not all were good reviews, which is a good thing, or my ego would have been unbearable.  If you didn't know it, bad reviews are helpful, but I'll write about reviews another time.
Would I take a trade publisher if they came knocking?  I couldn't say without knowing what they would offer.  I certainly would not give my ebook rights away.  Paperback? Maybe...  The nice part about a traditional publisher would be that they handle all those details that go with getting your book out to the public.  Having a professional editor without having to sell my firstborn would be nice.
Doing the work yourself means you decide what you will write about, which characters story are yelling for his or her own book.  Your timeline is whenever you're ready to publish, not dictated by a publishers deadline.  I've never liked having to wait a year on any of my favorite authors books.  I want it now!
Yes, my first two books were a year apart, but, I had breast cancer, dang it!  No, I'm not going for the sympathy vote here, just saying my 'excuse' is relevant.  Enough of that, moving on.

I'm sure many of you have seen the rants about indies, I've read several.  Just like anything else, there are good and bad books out there.  Indie and traditional alike.  But being an independent, we have to work very hard to make our books stand out.  Good writing, cover, editing, let me repeat that, editing, and making sure the format doesn't look like crap on different e-readers, is very important to the majority of us.  Sure, there are some who think they can throw out an e-book and make a quick buck.  I believe they soon find out that readers will not accept mediocre work.

I do make mistakes, believe it or not.  I uploaded my manuscript last night to correct a few errors, rode instead of road, etc...  I absolutely hate those stupid mistakes!  Add to the fact that they weren't caught, grrr, my proofreaders and I need to do better.
So, you've read your own work until you're sick to death of it.  Now it's formatted properly and you have a great cover, and blurb.  That blurb is as important as your cover, another good subject for a later blog.
Now you're published.  Take a break.  Okay, that's long enough.  Time to start that second book.  You don't have to wait a year, you are your own boss.  Get busy!