In my country, Indonesia, indie authors can’t get a place in the bookstore to sell their books.

[Fernanda]

In my country, Indonesia, indie authors can’t get a place in the bookstore to sell their books.

They only use blogs, websites, sell them via online or offer it from person to person .

The poetry anthologies and the short story anthologies are so difficult to attract large publishers (Just large publishers have connection to bookstore, in Indonesia). They considering the readers wants and “Sell by ‘Big Name’ ”.

In fiction genre, Indonesian is very bad readers for interest. They now prefer to read teenlites or novels about love. All about love or Korea. They hate poems and short stories.

So, the indie authors are using poem and short story columns in the local newspaper to show their works.

Indonesia users in Goodreads (which have Librarian status but in the fact aren’t Librarian) didn’t help anything for some Indie authors in Indonesia, especially about book cover. Because indie book not available in the bookstores.

[Thomas]

Indie authors have a difficult time in many locations as I understand it. My experience in the US is that stores are still quite reluctant to put indie books up because many aren't going to bring in much for profit (Barnes & Noble for example).

There are independent stores here that will allow you to consign books, which is nice. But in reality having your book in a book store doesn't really mean much of anything unless you have a following. I had my first book in a few stores spread out across a couple states. Even with doing panels, signings, and events, the turnout for people was pretty low and sales even lower.

What I'm getting at is, don't put all of your hope in brick and mortar stores. Yes, they are a good place to have your stuff if you're a big name, but focus on your work, focus on your presence (online and offline), and as the indie author tale goes, people will eventually find your works. If your local newspaper allows you to submit your work there, do it. It's exposure for you.

[T. K. Elliott (Tiffany)]

It's similar in the UK. Many of the bricks-and-mortar book shops have closed down; other than Blackwells (which does mostly academic books on university campuses), the major chain is Waterstones. The new MD of Waterstones has cut back drastically on what he allows his managers to stock - last I heard, if you're not a big name with guaranteed sales, Waterstones won't stock you, regardless of whether you're indie or traditionally published. This is actually one of the reasons I'm not that interested in being traditionally published: if the biggest book shop chain in the UK won't stock me even if I get published by one of the Big Five, I might as well go it alone.

Independent book shops are still a good bet, but bricks-and-mortar for indies depends very much on personally going around and placing your books (and not only in book shops - people have apparently had good results with craft shops, or tea shops, or any other shops where a few books might be placed).

Whatever you think about Amazon, they have made it possible for "indie author" to be a realistic and respectable choice, not just another word for "vanity publishing".

With respect to what genres sell, I think poetry is one of the hardest wherever you are; romance is one of the top-selling genres. So it's not just Indonesians who want to read love-stories! Equally, there's always the lure of the "exotic". So don't despair - or rather, don't assume that your countrymen are uniquely lacking in literary taste. It's the same all over the world!

If you are publishing in English, consider spreading your marketing endeavours across other English-speaking outlets. People are people wherever they live, and if your writing speaks to people, it won't matter if those people live in London, New York, Sydney, Pretoria or Jakarta.