Why I Choose to be an Indie Author

 
The short, somewhat flippant answer is: Because I can.
 
Any time there's an indie option, I trend in that direction. I have a problem with authority and established channels.
 
Any time I can produce a product and sell it over the Web, I trend in that direction. I have my own ideas and I want to pursue them my own way.
 
Any time I can produce a product and sell it without having to actually be there, in person, to sell it, I'm all for it. I like economies of scale, and I like making money in my sleep.
 
A Business Perspective
 
In 2003, I wrote The Indie Game Development Survival Guide based on my own experiences as an indie game developer. In that book, I gave the following three reasons why going indie had become a viable option for video games:

Stable platforms and inexpensive development tools (for creation).
Ubiquitous Web access (for distribution).
Acceptance of try-before-you-buy software (for selling).

 
I was a still teenager when I first decided I wanted to be a writer. I wanted to see books with my name on them in bookstores and libraries. I wanted people to enjoy the stories I made up in my head. Until recently, though, the only way that would happen was to have your book published by a "real" publisher. Vanity publishing was, and still is, viewed with disdain and pity. Self-publishing was considered a fool's game, a desperation ploy for wannabe's.
 
It's a different world now.
 
Ereaders like the Kindle and the Nook and others have become mass market items. So have smartphones with ereader applications. And on top of that, more people are willing to read books on laptop screens.
 
Print-on-demand services like CreateSpace provide low-cost, high-quality printing of paperbacks and even hardback books.
 
Distribution channels like Amazon and Barnes & Noble exist that readers use on a daily basis to find their books, both ebooks and printed, both online and offline.
 
The integration of print-on-demand services and distribution channels means you don't have to carry an inventory of your book or take and fulfill orders.
 
Not all the work is done for you, of course. Just like in indie game development and indie software or pretty much anything else (including having your books published in the more traditional way), you have to do your own marketing. In this case, you have to go out and find your own readers. I'm still learning how to do this, but I would like to think I'm getting better at it.
 
The tools, though, are there. All you have to do is make use of them.
 
A Personal Perspective
 
After my failed attempts to find an agent in 2005 and again in 2007, I became quite disillusioned with the entire publishing process. The staggering inefficiency of the process really got me down. As I understood it at the time, I was supposed to send out dozens, maybe hundreds of queries to an agent, 95% of which (or more) would be ignored or rejected. And then, once I had found an agent, I would get to do the whole process again, this time sending queries to publishers, but with the same (or worse) predicted failure rate. There was to be a lot of time (and a lot of rejection) between writing something and seeing it published.
 
Rejection I can take, but I hate wasting time and energy. And it looked like there was a lot of wasted time and energy in the process as a whole.
 
I wanted to write, but it was hard to see the point of writing if I wasn't going to be able to penetrate the process. I've never been good at jumping through hoops, and it looked like I was going to have a lot of hoops to clear. And that's when I slowed down my writing (plus, in 2008 and most of 2009 I was working fulltime developing The Journal 5).
 
In the second half of 2009 I discovered that I had been…not lied to exactly, but misrepresented to repeatedly. I did not need to get an agent first. I could go straight to the publishers and get rejected by people who matter–and who if they didn't reject me could actually write me a check. Half of the wasted time and effort could be eliminated.
 
Also in late 2009 I started hearing about authors who were releasing their work straight to the Kindle and other ereaders. And they were making money at it. Maybe even publishers weren't needed.
 
Both of those got my attention, and I changed my writing goals for 2010. I decided that I would still submit a book to publishers, but if that book wasn't picked up, I would release it on my own.
 
That decision helped me start writing again. I think a big part of why that decision helped is that it put me back in control of my writing. I like being in control of my career. Nearly 12 years of being self-employed has demonstrated that rather well, I think. My writing, though, had never felt under my control (except during A Short Story a Day when I was making no attempt to sell my work). I had to write for agents, and for publishers. I had to follow edicts and decrees of people I didn't know and couldn't influence.
 
I did submit a book to publishers this year, back in the spring, and I wrote throughout the year (after a bit of not-writing in the spring). As the year continued, though, and as I learned more about ebooks and heard about authors who were doing well as indies, I decided I wanted in on that.
 
The world of books and publishing has evolved to the point where indies have an inroad. A massive distribution channel is there, the stigma of self-publishing is going away, if slowly, and opportunities are growing with the sale of every Nook and Kindle. Just like the worlds of software and video games had evolved over a decade ago.
 
I had to give it a try. The mile-wide indie streak in my personality insisted that I give it a try.
 
And here I am.
 
-David