Support Indie Authors

tyunglebower ♦ February 1, 2016 ♦ Leave a comment

I’m an indie-author so far. I publish my own work. That brings special difficulties. Any indie author is aware of this, at least in the start, and we need all the support we can get, especially from one another.

I’m choosing to do that as a reader by eliminating the separation between indie-published works and traditional published works. I won’t read a book simply because an indie-author wrote it. nor will I take the route of some indie authors,and swear off reading traditionally published fiction entirely. Rather, when it comes time for me to read something new, I plan to survey both traditional and indie-published works in order to make my decision. There will be no “turn” or “special month” for indie-reads.

By doing this as a reader, I’m bringing indie authors into the sphere of just “potential reads.” Not as a favor to someone I know, and not hoping for a favor in return, but remembering, consciously to see authors as authors, books as books.

That’s what I want for my own work. While I’m thrilled with any reader that enjoys my work, I don’t want someone to read my novel(s) just because I published them myself. The solidarity with indie-publishing would certainly be appreciated, by me and others. But I am first and foremost a writer of stories, and it is stories I want to be known for, not for how I published them myself.

It is by seeing indie work as being just part of a reader’s options that in a sense helps the cause more than singling out indie authors. It “normalizes” us. It brings us into the author fold, from which we are often kept by nothing more than artificial constructs of snobs and those that stand to lose financially from the indie-book movement.

We indie-authors do need specific help in all kinds of ways. But by seeing each others work and just more potential good story telling that catches our eye when it comes time to be readers, we take a step closer to normalizing ourselves, even if society as a whole hasn’t done it quite yet. (It’s coming, for sure.) If we cross-pollinate our tastes, reviews, recommendations with traditional fiction, we inspire growth more so than just sticking to our own kind.