Today is a very special day, my friends. Why? Because today begins a week-long celebration of indie authors...all in honor of National Indie Author Day on the 13th of this month! I am super excited for all the amazing posts coming every day this week, as well as the author spotlights I’m doing on Facebook! I hope y’all will join me in learning more about indie authors, what they are, who some of my favorites are, why I became one, and how you can become one too!
My introductory post is, of course, an answer to the question…what is an indie author?
That is a very good question. To be technical (and rather obvious), an indie author is an author who is published independently of a traditional publishing company. An indie author could be indie-published (meaning they’re published by a press that is independent of a company...like Enclave or Whitefire, for example) OR they can be self-published, which means they published their book themselves (typically through a print-on-demand service or e-distributor such as Kindle Direct Publishing, IngramSpark, or Draft2Digital).
But who really cares about technicalities, am I right?
In truth and at heart, an indie author is driven by love for writing and love for readers. An indie author strives for quality but also for beauty. An indie author isn’t concerned with marketability or profit (although profit never goes unwanted), but rather with telling the stories on their heart. An indie author is pure and raw, edited some but not edited out. An indie author shows their heart, not the cliché content algorithms revolve around. An indie author is a reader before they are a writer, focusing on what makes a good book rather than a good hook to create an unforgettable (in a positive way) experience for the reader. An indie author is part of an eclectic community of other indie authors from all walks of life, who work in harmony and support each other. An indie author is everything, from the editor to the designer to the marketer to the customer service rep. An indie author is independent of all the trappings of publishing politics.
An indie author is more than a name on a cover.