The highs and lows of being an Indie Author
Self-publishing isn't supposed to be easy
‘If you can’t get your book traditionally published, you can always self-publish.’
I’ve heard it said many times from several people. It’s technically true. You can self-publish if you don’t get a traditional deal, and that is how many indie authors start out. Not all, but many.
But we are increasingly seeing the rise of those who have tried traditional and have become so disillusioned by the process, that they have got their rights back from their publisher and went solo with it themselves.
And even those with more success on the trad side just deciding that they have a big enough platform or they feel like they can have success with greater royalties by taking the independent route.
These so-called hybrid authors, I think, are absolutely the future of this whole gig.
There are pros and cons, highs and lows, of going either route solely. And so the perfect marriage to me seems to be a career that straddles across both routes, trying to maximise the benefits of both, while minimising the drawbacks.
The above quote, usually meant in a kind way to console writers, implies that self-publishing is the easier of the two routes - the one for failed or rejected writers who just do a quick cover on Canva, and put their raw manuscript up onto KDP.
Most of us know that the reality is very different.
Self-publishing is the harder path. At least in terms of the work involved, the multitude of different roles you have to do and continually try to become better at, and that writing the book is only a tiny fraction of the whole gig.
But it’s not fair to say trad authors have it easy - there’s an inherent expectation and therefore pressure that comes with someone giving you a big advance and expecting returns on that, in terms of you needing to produce an excellent story that sells. That must take a huge mental toll, especially if you’re maybe on book 2 or 3 and the previous book didn’t sell so many copies. And of course, traditionally published authors do end up doing LOADS of marketing and doing events etc, independent of their publisher, who will not support on this side of things at all, or very minimally.
I’ve even heard recently of traditionally published authors spending their own money on marketing and events. Which defies belief when you consider the awfully low royalties they get, and the fact that they won’t see those royalties until their advance is earned out in full.
Not path is easy, but the self-publishing path is certainly not easier.
It’s like either travelling over the Misty Mountains in a blizzard of passing through the Mines of Moria, to get to Lothlorien. Both paths are laden with obstacles and danger, but only one has a Balrog at the end of it!
‘YOU SHALL NOT PASS!’
Anyway, sorry went back to the mind of teenage boy who sat in my loft!
So, let me outline the HIGHS and LOWS of my experiences with self-publishing as I move closer to publishing my 4th novel, with 5 and 6 close to follow:
Highs
Creative Input - being able to have a big creative input into my covers.
I’ve really loved this part of the independent route. Trad authors get so little say (and sometimes that’s a good thing as the artists that do the covers are so good, but similarly there are a lot of authors who are not particularly happy with theirs) that I can’t now imagine now having any input at all - I guess if I go hybrid in the future, I’ll be sure to put something in the contract about that - you might think, would a publisher accommodate that - perhaps not, but then I don’t need to sign with them if they don’t - again, a high point of being indie.
Watch and track sales in real time
Now, this isn’t always such a high, but when I’ve done a marketing push or had a release, it’s really a wonderful feeling to see the sales dashboard clocking up hundreds of sales in real time. With trad, you’d never see that and would only get a royalty statement every 6 months, which as I know from my non-fiction books with Harper Collins, is the dullest, least detailed piece of paper imaginable. No real insights for the author.
Connecting with readers
The indie route meant I was able to do a massive giveaway after I published my first book for a class set of my book - the winning class all read the book together and it was the nicest thing to do a Zoom call with them, and to read all their letters to me, with their own fan art and favourite parts of the book. I’m not sure I estimated the emotional impact that a moment like that would have on me.
Lows
Financial vulnerability
There are many approaches to indie publishing, but I’ve chosen to do a business route, where I invest heavily in my product and in return, hopefully, get better sales. I’ve had mixed results with this on my various books. 2/3 have sold well and returned on my investment into them. 1 did not, but that’s something you have to factor in, and while I’d love every book to do well financially, the fact that one of my books has essentially died, and it’s a story I love, is a real low.
Overwhelming decisions
With it all being on me, which I like at times, that means I have a lot in my brain at any one time, and earlier in 2024 it all got too much for me. I had so many plans and so many, many things to do that I got that paralysing overwhelm, where you just stay on the spot, frozen and don’t move for months. And for me, it was months, I am sad to say. It’s set me back a lot on what I hoped to achieve this year, but it also allowed me time to reflect and I’ve decided I need to simplify my process to avoid this happening again. Wish me luck!
Lack of a team
Because it’s a solo endeavour, there are times where you can get so lonely, even if you have great writing friends and freelancers helping you, and that can make this journey so difficult. If you trad publish, you have an agent and an editor, and other peeps from the publisher all in your corner. Your agent especially is there to help and guide you. Without that, I have felt a little lost at times - especially with the lack of deadlines. Working on my own means I am only accountable to myself (and my readers to an extent) in terms of when I do things, and that contributed to that creative freeze I mentioned above.
So there we go, hopefully that’s a nicely balanced account of the highs and lows of self-publishing and the life of an indie author.
The grass is never greener on the other side, and all you can do is try to take care of your own lawn, whatever type it is, to the best of your ability. How well your grass grows, the outcome, is outwith your control.
So let’s not worry about it.
And a reminder that I am indeed an indie author, and if you find my newsletter useful, which is obviously free, you are welcome to buy one of my books (very cheap on e-book), as a way of saying thanks for all the useful info and experience.
One of those books has less than 100 sales from my total of over 3000 - can you guess which one?
