What Does "Indy Author" Mean?

The Internet Is Wrong.

It was some time in early 2020 when I made the decision to self-publish my debut novel, The Caretaker. (A novel which JUST GOT A RE-RELEASE with a brandy-new cover, an awesome 2nd Edition, and is now available on Amazon!)

I had been hanging out on Twitter at this point in my journey, getting a feel for the landscape in terms of being an author, self-publishing, or the process to go through pitching a book to agents, etc. I thought to myself … “You know? This book has a deeper meaning than a run-of-the-mill fiction tale. It would be a shame to hand it to someone only for them not to share your creative vision.”

Also, the idea of querying agents for years was simply unpalatable. I had the book done, and dammit I was going to shove it out into the world!

That was the nagging thought in my brain, so I went ahead and kept rolling on with my YouTube channel, seeing growth, engaging with viewers, and developing a community around MBTI psychology, more pointedly, being an INFJ.

Once the book launched I had an army of people interested in my story, ready to support the project.

And I ended up here:

To be fair, I could’ve written ANYTHING, and they would’ve loved to support it, because that’s the kind of relationship I developed with my viewers. They’ve always been wonderful.

What I wrote was an epic Urban Fiction tale, complete with INFJ Main Character, and I’m thrilled I did. It let me explore my own psychology in the midst of grief, and it was a character that resonated with the audience I’d built. Win-win, says I!

The other piece of this puzzle was HOW to get it out into the world. This is when I decided to self-publish, do everything I can to learn along the way, and do the best I could with the knowledge I had to create and publish something I was extremely proud of.

There’s the Indy Author origin story.

When you look up “Indy Author” with ChatGPT, you get the following hyseterical set of instructions:

Okay, so write a book, edit it, design it, add metadata, publish it, distribute it everywhere, THEN MARKET IT.

And last … join the indy pub community.

Please don’t take this advice, this is patently absurd.

First of all, let’s straighten this out - 8 should be 1, everything else bumps down, and bump 7 up to 1.5 because that’s the kind of timeline you’re going to need to make any traction.

These steps are goofy (marketing starts long before books get printed, and should), but it highlights something else. A fundamental question. Why do all of this on your own? Isn’t it better to have a team of people?

Well sure, if you can pay a team of people and have some form of guarantee that your book is going to pay for all of it and then some.

I truly thought I was only going to sell 5 copies of The Caretaker. My goal was to sell one copy to someone I didn’t know, and to have them enjoy it. And they did. After about a thousand sales on this book, there are piles of reviews from all of the world, and the book is well-loved and supported to this day. It’s awesome.

The reason though? It’s because I had control, and I had a plan.

Why go indy?

The answer here is simple - control. Control of your work, over your editor and editing, control over the look, the marketing, your brand, the story, the presentation, everything!

Now some authors see that and think this is a terrifying concept. “I don’t know how to market!” or “I hate the way I sound on podcasts!” or “I don’t know how to format a book!” When I made the decision to keep control of The Caretaker it was with a great deal of intention. This was a project that I was really meticulous about, particularly in writing it to honor my late brother. Every time I thought about handing that over to someone else, it felt wrong in my gut. Every time I thought (“I’m not good enough to learn XYZ”) I just told myself to shut up, sit down, and learn XYZ. And I did.

I’m not saying this is an easy decision. There is a lot to consider when coming to the indy/self publishing space. There’s a stigma around self-published books, first of all. Second, can you even shout at enough people to buy it, and lastly how do you DO all the other stuff?

For me, it came down to a set of decisions.

Deciding on self-publishing.

I trust my experience, my skills, and my direction, and that’s the most important aspect. If you honestly look at what you are able to do to promote your own work, and where you need some upgrading, a picture becomes clear.

For me the picture was basically, “I can do everything, except the editing. I must hire an editor.” For the first edition of Caretaker, I hired out the cover, the editing, and the formatting. The money for cover and format ate a HUGE chunk of future profits (we don’t make a lot off these, people). While I wasn’t in a place to take that up on my own, times have changed. Unless something crazy happens, this is my process from here out - EBTFE - Everything But The Final Edit.

I know how to edit video, I can record super clean audio, I’m good speaking and narrating (Just listen to my narration sample on Joy-Jitsu!) and I can pick up more design skills like formatting and the cover. I can do my rudimentary developmental edits and clean-up, so when the book is ready to hand in it’s really clean and needs minimal work. Then the editor takes over, I’ve made the project easy, and we’re all super happy.

These aren’t easy skills to acquire, and they’re not easy to maintain, but when you love being creative and dipping your toes into other creative spaces, this sort of thing comes naturally. I never set out to learn this stuff to “make money” because it’s not a job. It’s truly a love of presenting my own storytelling and my own words that drives me to create the things around it as well. That control feels just fine for me, because ultimately I know that nobody cares about my words as much as I do.

SPACE PEW PEW as an example.

SPACE PEW PEW has been getting out into the world, and garnering some incredible reviews. (You can see it all here). In this case, I worked with a small-press indy publisher to get the book launched, but that lack of control quickly came back to me and made me realize that, again, I have the skills to create and produce, package, and market my own work.

Handing over 40% of my profit and not being in an improved position was a no-go, so I asked for and received my rights back. The result? An epic re-designed 2nd edition SPACE PEW PEW with this awesome presentation:

Not to mention the stickers, more bookmarks, another set of Book #2 trading cards being designed, and this supremely epic poster I’ll be making available:

And yes, there is AI within these images and covers, and yes, I edit what I finally wrangle out of AI prompts, and yes, I license other images and fonts, do all of my own typesetting, and generally kick ass at creating things to support my projects.

Also, I don’t care if someone decides to lecture my use of AI as a tool, but that’s another article for another time …

My broad point here is that when you wear all the hats it can be stressful. You have to have the skills, know where your strengths are (everything but editing for me), and apply those to give you the best chance of success.

It’s hard looking into that self-publishing abyss, but as someone who has tried both self and indy press publishing, it’s clear that self-publish is home until either an incredible opportunity hits, or I decide to stop putting words down altogether.

Be smart out there folks, learn something new every day, and honor your words with the best version of you, and your vision!

’til next time,

David