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Inspired by a new thread in the Recommendations section, I got thinking about the indie label...

It's a term that has evolved over the years. 20 years ago (even less) most people would have said an indie author was someone published by a non-mainstream, independent publisher. This was still a proper commercial arrangement. A person publishing their own book was a self-published author and there was little bit of sneering going on if they claimed to be indie.

But the industry and the language moved on. The indie label is now perfectly acceptable for self pubbed authors. I'm guessing there are many reasons for this - partly the sheer proliferation of people calling themselves indie authors, and partly the vast improvement in production standards for indie authors. Indie books at least look like proper books.

Perceptions of quality (indie v non-indie) is a topic done to death so I needn't dwell on it here.

As for myself, my first few books were published by small independent publishers, so I was an indie author. But both of those publishers went out of business, and the rights reverted to me - making me an indie indie author.

Then my next book was accepted by a decent sized publisher who, six months later, rang me to say they were in financial trouble and cancelling everything in the pipeline. You can imagine how I felt, but after a month of gnashing and wailing, I decided I couldn't go back to square one, and published it myself - making me an indie indie indie author. (It hasn't done very well.)

But my next book, coming out late 22 or early 23, is published by another small independent publisher (who I desperately hope will not go out of business). I'm not going to suggest that makes me an indie indie indie indie author, I wouldn't insult your intelligence.

But I really am interested in other peoples' experiences. Have you had a taste of both worlds? What were the pluses/minuses of either? Do you have any advice for people wanting to become an indie author? Have you had (what might objectively be called) success as an indie author?

Again leaving perceptions of quality to one side, the only advice I would give to people thinking of self pubbing is:

- don't think you're finished when you get to the end of your draft - the work has only just started;
- be prepared to pay for professional editing/production - it's an investment in your writing career (if that's why you are writing);
- be prepared to get off your arse and sell, sell, sell - this has been the hardest thing for me, as I still work full time, but I gather it's the indie authors who really work at this who tend to be successful.

As for the title of this thread - yes, it should have said "and Too Many Books" but I couldn't resist the pun symmetry.

My ebooks have been published for ten years now via a small publisher that promotes new authors by offering their ebooks nearly for free (free basic reader membership, limited monthly downloads and format vs V.I.P. members who pay a small fee to get unlimited downloads in all choices of formats). I however don't get paid as an author, like the other authors promoted by that publishing house, which is fine with me (I write purely as a hobby and am a retired pensioner). While I don't make a cent with my books, I got good recognition online and tons of reviews and ratings, which is plenty for me. Does that make me an indie author, a self-published author or something else?

Adrian wrote: "Inspired by a new thread in the Recommendations section, I got thinking about the indie label...

It's a term that has evolved over the years. 20 years ago (even less) most people would have said a..."

Yes, I have seen this business from both sides now, as Joni Mitchell sang. I was published by a medium-sized press in the nineties, then put writing on the shelf because career and family had to come first. When I was able to go back to writing in 2014, the publisher had been acquired, I had lost track of my editor, and my agent had died. So, I went indie/self-pub.

The most obvious difference is that a press will take care of the production team, everything from the editors to cover design, to layout/production, and (today) narrators. Indie/self-pub puts the writer in the position of assembling this team. This can be a plus or a minus, depending on your taste for it. For example, it is possible to find very good freelance editors (I have multi-year relationships now), while with a press you probably have the editor who is assigned to work with you and editors do vary in style, skill and experience. I know of folks with the skill sets to take on some of the production team roles themselves, but I will reinforce what Adrian wrote before: you need a real, independent editor. A writer who is their own editor is like the defendant who is their own lawyer or the patient who is their own doctor. You can see where I am going with this.

Unless the writer is with a large house, and is high on their list, I think marketing is much the same either way. I've spoken to people from small presses, and people published by small presses, and there isn't much of a marketing budget. The writer is often on their own and not much different than indie/self-pub. This is a tough part of the business, and my impression is that it gets harder every year. I will say that my publisher in the nineties did virtually nothing on the marketing side. I have done better on my own (but that is clearing a low bar).

There are two big and obvious minuses to indie/self-pub compared to even the small press world. First, is that you have earn back the money you spend up front on that production team and on marketing. With even a small press, the production team is on them (but see above about marketing). The other big minus is perception. Many people equate indie/self-pub with poor quality (I could use a variety of scatological terms also) and will never read the books. It makes everything from marketing, to having a broad readership to breaking even that much harder.

Overall, am I doing better than I did when I was published by a press - yes. Could I be doing better than I am - yes. Plenty of work to do . . .

My story is, like yours Adrian, somewhat convoluted. I wanted to self-publish, but simply didn't have the knowledge or access (in 2010) to do so. I turned to a vanity publisher, coughed up the money, and got my first three novels published. The were well done, looked professional, two of them even won awards at a local F&SF con. Of course, with no promotion, they didn't sell.

For the next book, I turned to another vanity publisher who had contacted me, told me they could do it for a much lower price, would help me market the books, etc. They published my fourth novel (and republished the first three). Again, the new novel won an award. Did it sell? I don't know. The publisher closed up the office they had in Maryland (a mail-drop front, I later discovered), stopped answering emails, and went back to the Philippines where they were really located. Never paid a dime in royalties. I had to file notice of copyright violation with Ingrams to get the books taken down from Amazon and elsewhere.

Next got hooked up with a small indie publisher recommended by a local author. Got three of the books republished, but the publisher was a one-person shop, couldn't manage to get my fourth and fifth books out the door. I finally reclaimed my rights, when my books were recommended to another indie -- a larger, better organized operation. They republished the first four and the previously unpublished fifth over a six-month period, promoted the books, hyped them, put me on podcasts, etc.

It was a whirlwind ride, but now the entire series is selling well, being done in Audible (three audio books out already) and translated into German (again, three out on Amazon.de already, where they are selling well).

Took me a long time to get here, but my advice to those who will accept it: DON'T go for the vanity publishers. If you have to pay someone to publish your book, it's a scam. If you want to self-publish, yes, it will cost you some money -- hire an editor, get someone to design a decent cover, at least. Should you go with an indie? Sure, but make sure you know what you are getting into. What other books has the indie published, what editing resources and other services like cover design does the publisher bring to the table. Finally, what promotional support will you get.

Mind you, you should expect to work for it. Besides writing, you've got to do what the publisher suggests / demands to promote the books yourself -- get active on Facebook, build a mailing list, appear on podcasts, whatever. The best-written book will not sell itself, will simply get lost in the sea of mediocrity that's out there.

Also, with regard to indies -- there are a few out there that are rubbing elbows with the big houses. My current publisher put out 70 titles last year (and seven of those were mine).

Adrian wrote: "A person publishing their own book was a self-published author and there was little bit of sneering going on if they claimed to be indie.

But the industry and the language moved on. The indie label is now perfectly acceptable for self pubbed authors. I'm guessing there are many reasons for this - partly the sheer proliferation of people calling themselves indie authors, and partly the vast improvement in production standards for indie authors. Indie books at least look like proper books."

My guess is that it changed because so many self-published authors were claiming to be indies, initially possibly because they didn't know what the original meaning of indie was, and later because it was possible to set up their own publishing company (digital, not physical books) thus making them indies in the old sense of the meaning.

however, as a reader/customer, I'd still like a word to define the equivalent of:

a writer who is their own editor is like the defendant who is their own lawyer or the patient who is their own doctor.
I respect those who use an editor

it took me a long time to get past this:

Many people equate indie/self-pub with poor quality (I could use a variety of scatological terms also) and will never read the books.

It took Andy Weir, Torquil MacLeod (he was a copy editor and now also publishers other author's books), and a few other authors to get me past this idea for self-published authors. I have no problem with Independent publishing houses though and Amazon has one of the most respected ones for translated books (AmazonCrossing). You still have to sell me on your books though if you are purely self-published

Well, there have been some interesting responses already. John and Colin's stories are both fairly inspiring for any would be/emerging author, although the ongoing hard work might be daunting for some.

Just on marketing budgets, my first publisher had a budget of $500, which was basically the cost of mailing out a few review copies. My second publisher had no marketing budget at all so I decided to hire a publicist for a month, which was pretty expensive and absolutely useless.

Across five books I've spent quite a lot of my own money (especially the fifth because that was self pubbed and I did it properly) although have made more in royalties than I've spent.

Very much looking forward to how my new publisher manages marketing. I know they're quite scientific about it and blend a bunch of different approaches. I'm also hoping to cut back on work (5 days down to 2 days) in the next year or so which will give me time to market myself.

A question for others (especially John) - to what extent does having sequels help keep the ball rolling?

In regard to some of the comments/questions about terminology, I have seen a shift over the past few years. With the consolidation of the large publishers into 5 (or maybe now 4) giant ones, the term "small press" has been used with pretty much anything else. Definitely with what we used to call independent publishers. Along with this is the rise of the term "independent authors". This includes self-pub folks and "hybrids", those who use self-pub for some books but have contracts from publishers for others. Consequently, the term "indie" may mean different things to different people. (I don't know how much of this is regional; i.e., North America, as opposed to global.)

One other point I would make to authors either looking to self-pub or go with small presses, is to read SFWA's Writer Beware blog. There are a lot of bad actors out there who will prey on folks in this business.

Adrian wrote: "Inspired by a new thread in the Recommendations section, I got thinking about the indie label...

It's a term that has evolved over the years. 20 years ago (even less) most people would have said a..."

As for the title of this thread - yes, it should have said "and Too Many Books" but I couldn't resist the pun symmetry.

Ha. I was just about to take issue with the thread title.

Anyway, I prefer SPA / self-pub author. More direct, less BS about it. At one point, I sold a lot of art and I was just like, um, you know, an artist/the artist, the one who made it. So with a book, I'm the author, the one who wrote it.

I started out self-pubbing in 2011. Had no clue what I was doing. I just thought it was cool you could publish your own book (I settled on eBooks because print basically did squat). Just after starting, I landed in a Facebook group of self-pubbers with some of them doing extremely well. I learned a lot from them and from reading info from the internet, which you often have to take with a grain of salt. Anyway, I kept at it, kept improving, and I've had some good success with it, 80 works pubbed and over 300k copies sold. You can do it all on your own without spending a dime, but be prepared to go the extra mile to enlist people who can help. You are the author, publisher, and publicist. It's up to you to find the right people for your team.

What makes it harder now is there are about 8X the titles out there than there were back then. That means it's 8X harder to market and sell your books. Consequently, I'm now making about 1/8 what I was in 2013-2014, but I have done absolutely zero marketing for the last five years. Sure has been fun though.

Adrian wrote: "Inspired by a new thread in the Recommendations section, I got thinking about the indie label...

It's a term that has evolved over the years. 20 years ago (even less) most people would have said a..."

It would be kind of you to let us know who you are working with so we do not submit our work to them before you shut them down.

Andres wrote: "It would be kind of you to let us know who you are working with so we do not submit our work to them before you shut them down."

Yes, I certainly try not to open with the line: "All my previous publishers went to the wall." when approaching new publishers.

As a brand-new self-published author awaiting the launch date of his first book, I've been reading this thread with both resignation and despair. Probably more resignation overall, but I did tip towards despair several times. I had to quickly down a dram of Scotch before recovering sufficiently to add my own contribution.

The biggest challenge I'm dealing with is figuring out how to promote myself. Without a previously established social media presence, getting noticed is an uphill battle for sure. I've tried to make sure I covered the bases when getting the book ready, such as hiring beta readers and a professional editor. And even though I'm a graphic artist, I hired a professional book designer for the cover and formatting, since book cover design isn't my field. So in the end, I have a finished product I'm pretty happy with. But getting it noticed is going to be struggle, I know.

I've pretty much blown my budget on producing the book, so there's really nothing left for hiring a publicist. I did employ the services of a marketing professional to get some pointers, but I can't say the suggestions provided were tremendously helpful. A lot of it consisted of things I'd already found out searching the internet on my own.

I chose to self-publish because I had been told (as Colin pointed out) that publishers are going to expect the author to do much if not most of the marketing themselves, so not much different from self-publishing in the end. I still think it was the most practical decision. I have to assume that getting the attention of a publisher would be just as difficult - if not more so - than self-publishing.

It's been a lot of work to get to this point, and I know it's going to take a lot more work to really get my book out there. It's definitely been an educational experience thus far. Once or twice during the process, I even found myself getting dangerously close to enjoying it all. Fortunately, something would almost immediately pop up to snuff out those moments of near-joy, and bring me back to grim reality.

Lee wrote: "As a brand-new self-published author awaiting the launch date of his first book, I've been reading this thread with both resignation and despair. Probably more resignation overall, but I did tip to..."

No need to despair. I think there are some inspiring stories on this thread and some very good advice.

I've always said that in any artistic field you need any two of three things to be successful: talent, money and luck.

We've all seen stuff published which was clearly just money and luck, and no doubt the stories are legion regarding talent that was unsupported by money or luck.

I guess the one extra ingredient is persistence. If you believe in your talent then you just have to keep pushing until money or luck arrives.

Given the number of people posting in the new releases thread, I'm surprised there aren't a lot more stories in here.

One thing I'd like to explore further, from those who've done it, what difference did it make having a sequel (or series) ready to go once there was interest in a first book?

For the first time I have a sequel already written before the first is published, and am powering through the third. I've had demands for sequels before (which I never got around to writing) so hope there'll be demand once again. This time I'll be ready to go (although the published has been moving at a glacial pace).

One thing I'd like to explore further, from those who've done it, what difference did it make having a sequel (or series) ready to go once there was interest in a first book?

Completing a trilogy made quite a difference. My first book always sold steadily, and so did the second (book 2 of trilogy), but once the third book was available, and combined with a Bookbub promotion, there was a really nice uptick. I'm fortunate that my first series has an excellent 'sell through' rate. Basically, the majority of people who buy book one, then go on to buy the next two.

Coming back to this thread to report after a long time.

My new book was published in July and has been getting pretty good reviews. I've also been getting ongoing invitations to writers events and radio programs. Every time I do one of these I get more invitations so there's a little bit of momentum.

The publisher has done a reasonable job re marketing but I'm taking up the baton myself to help. Does anyone have any experience with using social media or bookTok?

Hi
I see this is an older thread, but I very much enjoyed the discussion and advice given. I was especially interested in the commentary around very small/nonexistent marketing budgets provided by small publishers. Would the main advantage of having a small publisher thus be physical distribution?
Has anyone come across a model/publishing contract where the publisher manages the physical distribution and the author retains the ebook rights and then manages this independently?

I think that model may have existed in the past but these days a small publisher is far more likely to make money from an ebook than a costly paper book that needs to be distributed and sold. POD is a good option now also.