How to make an indie author squeal like a kid at Christmas

Maybe I’m still an over-exciteable new author, but yesterday this made my evening:

Going public with one’s work can make any writer anxious, but I think indie authors especially so, because we don’t have a publishing company to support us. We stake everything–our self-esteem, our reputations, our chances of getting a conventional book deal in the future–on reader’s opinions. (I won’t even start on that inconvenient artistic impulse to write a good story that people will enjoy.) The tweet from @Sarahplusbook made me glow inside. While I consider myself far from “perfect”, as a writer or as anything else, it’s incredibly gratifying to hear my book elicit such a strong, positive reaction from a reader.

I don’t think any indie author gets into publishing because they expect to make their fortune (although that would not be an unwelcome outcome, heh). We do it because the stories clamoring in our heads demand a voice, and because we want to share the joy we feel in those stories with others. When someone like Sarah finds such satisfaction in my tale she wants to shout it out to her friends, all the uncertainty of self-publishing dissolves for a little while. It gives me hope that no matter what the commercial success of Blue Karma, it’s doing exactly what I intended: entertaining readers and giving them a little something to think about!