Indie publishing has been in the news quite
a bit lately. With authors like John Locke and Amanda Hocking seizing headlines
and Amazon charging for the bigger slice of the pie, there have been numerous
debates as to how this will play out.
Should indie publishing be dismissed? There
is a scene from Charlie Wilson’s War which best describes this. The Americans
have powered the Afghanistan
“There's a little boy and on his 14th
birthday he gets a horse... and everybody in the village says, "how
wonderful. The boy got a horse" The Zen master says, "we'll
see." Two years later, the boy falls off the horse, breaks his leg, and
everyone in the village says, "How terrible."
The Zen master says, "We'll
see." Then, a war breaks out and all the young men have to go off and
fight... except the boy can't cause his legs all messed up. and everybody in
the village says, "How wonderful." And the Zen master says,
"We'll see."
Obviously, indie publishing is no war of
any kind. But the game is changing. New players are being added, rules are
being changed faster than they are being enforced.
I would say don’t dismiss something when
you can’t see the end of it. Yes, some writers are in it for the money and
couldn’t give a rat’s ass about language, formatting or appearance. But for
some of us, indie publishing isn’t how we earn our living, it’s how we live and
guess what, we’re here to stay.
Indie authors will have one consistent
thing to deal with in the years to come and this is change, a bit more change
and then some more change.
You will have those who have given up
because indie publishing failed to make them a few quick bucks and then you
will have those who have persevered. Irrelevant of which party you belong to, I
doubt the route will get any easier.
But then again, anything worth having isn’t
always easy.
To any writer wondering if indie publishing
is the way to go, here’s the best advice I can give you from my personal
experience - don’t expect overnight success. Rome
Set your own trail. Be consistent. Keep
away from negativity. And then work even harder.
Guest post By Pandora Poikilos, Author of 'Frequent Traveller'
