Some Good Insights
Indie publishing is a liberating phenomenon for authors. No more trying to find a gatekeeper who just might like your work enough to hawk it to a publisher. No more hoping that the agent is good enough to convince a publisher to give it a go. No more long preparation time with editors, proofs, and demands from the publisher. Let the readers decide, by God! Let the market decide, the intelligence and discerning readers who all know the difference between fine literature, or at least entertaining stories, and pap.
Ahhh, the writer’s bliss.
But wait!
Now the Indie author must write, design, find an editor, re-write, copy edit, re-write, proof, re-write, format, oops – re-write, fit the cover, fit the cover, fit then cover (finally), proof, upload, fix price, decide distribution, and. . .
All of that along with the really important part: staring out the window for a few hours to see if the muse might be walking about your lawn.
So all of the above done we can sit back and let the money roll in. Oh. Wait. I forgot marketing. Another part of the process the publisher does that is now under the purview of your independent-ness.
The link below is a bit out of date (anything that is more than twenty minutes old is out of date in the electronic universe) but gives great insights about the tricky and time consuming business of publicity for the indie author.
This is from the successful author J.A. Konrath:
