Building A Mystery

Going indie is fraught with difficulties, triumph and fear. Since making the decision to publish my own works, I’ve vacillated between telling myself I’m crazy and sneaking pleading looks at NY, and setting my face to the wind, sure of my step. Outside of the logistics of self-publishing, I’ve come to realize the most difficult issue a would-be indie author has to face is to stop looking at their career from the viewpoint of your NY-published peer.

When you make the decision to write, package, market and sell your own fiction or non-fiction, you’re building your career from scratch. You don’t have an editorial board, or a marketing department, or an art director, or press agents, or booksellers holding a piece of the publishing process. You don’t have the option of placing your complete trust in the odds of your success in the hands of others. In a way, when your book tanks, you have a convenient scapegoat: my cover was horrible! my print run was too low! Wal-Mart refused to carry my book! etc etc. Because you don’t have that buffer, or that “support,” an indie author cannot afford to base their career or goals on that of the basic NY model.

The indie author must be completely autonomous–essentially, independent. I can even say that what is good for one indie author is not necessarily good for another. For one thing, you’re operating outside of the flow and ebb of being a writer and existing within the publishing industry. NY can be seen as a public high school, where everyone streams into one door, through one path, and where everyone goes to classes they have no choice to take. Though each student has their own strengths and weaknesses, their own tragedies and pains, but the playing field is level. There is a bigger chance of middle-of-the-road success. Compare this to the home-schooler, who does have a required list of classes to take, but they have the freedom to build upon their home education with activities, or field trips, and the like, to supplement their learning, and in the process learn whether they possess the aptitude for independent study. I’m not advocating home-schooling vs public schooling, but the analogy seems fitting.

In the process of being an independent publisher, one explores and expands the concept of being a writer, of what it means to control your art. And, while you test and try different things as a writer, you can do the same as a publisher. As an indie, a failure isn’t the result of some unfathomable puzzle, and success isn’t because you’ve hit the right buttons for the marketing department. Ultimately, when you make the decision to control your writing, you’ve essentially said, to quote our new president, “Yes We Can.”.