Episode 18: What to know if you're going the indie publishing route

This episode is Part 2 in a short series focused on publishing. We discuss the indie publishing route and what you should know about distinguishing this from trying to do all of the work yourself. While indie publishing is a form of self-publishing, we make the distinction that it's different because it becomes like a team sport. You surround yourself with the people who will help you succeed rather than trying to do all of the steps by yourself.

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Transcript

0:01

Welcome fellow writers to the Inspired Writer Collective podcast, your go to hub for all things writing. We're your hosts, Elizabeth and Stephanie. Whether you're a seasoned wordsmith or just dipping your quill into the ink well of creativity, we're absolutely thrilled to have you with us. Drawing from our experience in publishing diverse writing genres and the daily grind of showing up for yourself, we're here to be your writing companions. Expect insightful discussions, expert tips, and a dash of inspiration as we navigate the twists and turns of the writing journey together. So whether you're listening on your commute, during your writing session, or just relaxing at home, get ready for an immersive experience that celebrates the art and joy of writing. Hi,

Elizabeth: 0:51

All right, guys, we're back for part two. If you missed it, we had an episode about big publishers, traditional publishing route, and now we want to focus on the indie publishers and the small presses.

Stephanie: 1:08

Yes. So I'm excited to share with you the experience I had when I went to the Association of Writers and Writer Program about independent publishing and we'll call it indie publishing. we're kind of making a distinction here between self publishing and indie publishing in that From our perspective, we think of self publishing as someone who does it all themselves, does all the pieces and puts it out there. Whereas indie publishing is where you're being your own agent, essentially, and you're going out and you're marketing your book. And then you're finding a whole team to work with. So was interesting. I went to a panel discussion amongst a selection of authors a couple of the authors were traditionally published. And one author was very, you know, sold on having gone the Indie publishing route. He talked about how he had started to go the traditional route. He put out his query letters. He celebrated his rejections and, you know, kept going forward. And then at a certain point, he was just feeling that It wasn't exactly working the way he wanted it to go and he wanted more control of the process. And so he decided to go the independent route and what he talked about. And I kind of love this idea of that. When you do the indie publishing in the same way as traditional. make it like a team sport. You have to have a team of people around you. It's more sustainable for you as the writer. You're not going to exhaust yourself as much in the process. And you have people in your corner who are cheering you on helping you with every step. So, you know, as an indie publisher. for yourself. You know, you'll want to find an editor maybe a book coach. That's kind of up to you. A book coach is great to have for accountability, keeping you on track from week to week, and also with developmental edits to make sure that you're staying true to All the pieces that you wanna have in your novel, all the pieces are working together. And then the editor is the one who fine tunes it. And now I know there are some book coaches who do the editing, but it's not as common that you'll find a book coach who does everything for you. So it's important to have that distinction. And then you also find beta readers. You can do your own marketing or you can hire marketers. I know that several of the indie. Published authors talked about how it was worth the investment to hire a book publicist that was just not part of the process that really interests them, interested them. They didn't want to have to do all the social media stuff. They didn't want to have to do all of the organizing of readings at bookstores or readings on zoom or however they were going to get the book out there. That wasn't the interest of the author. And so they decided to invest in a publicist. a lot of them talked about how, when, when you're a debut author, that making that investment upfront as an indie published author can be really worth it because you get one time to get yourself out there one time to be noticed. And then you don't have to do it every time. You know, you don't have to invest in a publicist every time, because depending upon who you have as your publicist, it can be A pretty high dollar investment but several of them talked about how they felt that it was really worthwhile for getting them out there. And of course with the indie and self publishing and we have an earlier episode about this, you often, of course, end up with A smaller press, which is just as beneficial, especially if you have a great team around you that gets the word out about your book and that you really rally, you know, friends, family, encourage them to share. It's a great way to support, you know, a new author in that way. And you know, and some of them talked about, you know, you can do go the Amazon KDP route yourself. And and there are other avenues Ingram spark and draft to digital are a couple of resources. There's another one, 48 hours that you can use yourself to, you know, have your book printed, have your book in ebook form. So there are lots of. avenues and you really have to decide for yourself what's going to work for you. I mean, certainly if you're someone who wants more control over the process, especially when it comes to book design, title, content of what you've written, that it, know, that that can be really helpful right, when I was seeking out an editor springtime of last year, one of the groups I found was called Gatekeeper Press. And one of the things that they do, they work with, you know, self published or indie published authors, but they have a lot of those features in house. So they have editors in house, they have book designers in house, they have formatters in house, and so you can build whatever sites you want. Package you need depending on where you're at, whether you've already hired an outside editor and you just need the book to be compiled and designed and you, you decide, okay, I want hard copy. I want paperback. I want audio book, whatever. And there are different, you know, costs for that. So you as, you know, the indie published or self published author are deciding those things and putting the upfront money as opposed to that being taken care of by a traditional publisher. But there are groups out there that do make it simpler by providing all those features in house. And at the time, I want to say it was something like 2, 500. And that included your ISBNs that included the book cover design They would guarantee you like three different designs plus one edit Of whatever final design you chose. They would help you write the back of the book blurb and then they would they had their list of distributors that they would help you get in front of But again, like you're saying stephanie, you are still essentially the agent. You are still the one overseeing the entirety of the project, but that also means that you maintain some of the Creative control way more than you would with the traditional publishing route And I have to say one of the things for me that has made me oscillate the most back and forth between Thinking I wanted to go traditional publishing and then Wondering if I should just self publish or indie publish is the marketing piece. I think it is just the scariest part and the most unknown part for a lot of authors. We tend to be more introverted and we're just wanting to put these words on a page. The thought of like having to be on social media or talk to people or go on podcasts or whatever can sound really intimidating. But what I have found as I've, you know, gotten closer and closer to this point where I have to make decisions about this is that you're going to have to market anyways, whether you go traditional publishing or you do it yourself, you're still going to have to be out there slinging books and figuring out how to get those sales up and make sure that either your publisher is happy with you or your bank account is happy with you. So you're going to have to do it regardless. And so just as a word of support, don't let that hold you back. There are ways to learn that skill. There are things you could be doing as you're writing that help you market your future book. You can be going ahead and putting systems in place, whether that's a. Email newsletter to your family and friends that slowly grows whatever that looks like So many of these authors if you think of these authors, they're out there pushing their books all the time the publishers guarantee something around five to ten percent Of the sales that they will be responsible for the rest of reaching that those 10 000 So 9 000 or 9 500 books that's up to you as the author to sell through your avenues So, if it's a matter of strengthening your avenues, then do that. You can come on a podcast like ours and talk about your book. There are a number of avenues out there to, to get your message out, and you're gonna have to do it anyway. No, I a hundred percent agree with that because that was something else I was going to touch upon was that the marketing piece is the piece that it doesn't matter which road you go down. You're going to have to do it because so many are handing that over and that's of course why I mentioned, you know, some people do hire publicists for that reason. But again, you know, with that, you can take the sort of the slow road into it. You don't, you don't need to wait until your book is ready. You can start a year. In advance and ease your way into the process to make it feel more comfortable, you know, start with one social media channel, then maybe, you know, like, Elizabeth talked about have that website about you as the author, where you have a sign up for your newsletter, and maybe you're giving little teasers away of, you know, parts of your book to hook people in and you're talking about your writing process and, and don't feel like people aren't going to care because really, People do want to know there's that natural interest in connecting and especially when it's family and friends who are curious about what you're doing. And I think you'd be surprised how much support once you start talking about what you're doing and embracing your identity as a writer, how many people will start to rally around you. you'll find your community. And then along with that, those are the times too, to start to build those relationships with your local, especially your independent bookstores, because they love nothing more than to support the authors who are local in their communities. You know, talk to your libraries, do, you know, find ways that you can get your book into communities, find ways that your book connects different You know, maybe stores, maybe there's a special interest that in some way that your book connects with others, that you can have your book featured. And so there are lots of ways, and like Elizabeth said, it doesn't have to be scary. And I will say that You know, doing our podcast and our recordings, like this was scary to me. And now, you know, we're well into it and it's less scary. Cause I'm definitely a, an introvert. Like I am very far on the introverted side. If you're familiar with any of those, you know, personality tests. things. I'm very far introverted, but the more you do it, and especially when it's something that you care about, when it's your

Elizabeth: 12:38

Mm.

Stephanie: 12:39

when you've put your heart into it, when it's a story you care about, it's so easy to talk about it. And it's so easy to share. you know, So really it's up to you, which route you want to go. I said, I definitely, just like Elizabeth said, like I've been going back and forth and I definitely lean more towards the indie publishing route. And again, some of that is just because I like to have a little bit more hold on what's mine. Cause certainly in traditional publishing, you might have to change the title. You might have to change aspects of the book to make it. you know, what an editor and a publisher wants to have out there on the shelves. And so there's definitely a lot to think about. And one of the other things I wanted to mention too in the indie publishing to really make sure that if you decide to go that way is to really surround yourself with a community of writers. Don't try to do this in isolation. And I mean, it's the truth, the same for, I think, traditional publishing too, a little bit is, you know, really surround yourself with people who are going to be. Your biggest cheerleaders, because sometimes, you know, people who are not writers. Even though everybody often likes to say, oh, I could write a book about that, or I'll write a book someday, you know, 98 percent of the time, those people are never going to write a book. They just talk about it. And want to be around people who really understand what it means to write a book. Drag your feet through the mud some days because you're just stuck or, you know, run so fast you can't stop other days because you're so excited about where you're going and just understand that the process that goes into it because you're in it for the long haul and it's a long process and. You want to be around people who understand that.

Elizabeth: 14:38

For sure, for sure. There are a couple of things I wanted to add to that. One is that Barnes Noble has changed how it does its management. Now they don't buy as much at the big level. They leave it up to the general managers. Which has made it easier for people who do indie publish to approach their local Barnes and Noble, and it essentially will operate like your indie bookstore. You can go in, we know people who have had success. Going in and offering to do a book signing you bring your folding table you pick the time And you sit there you you know buy your author copies of the book So you have them on hand and then you sell your books and a particular author in our local writer community Who's done this has said that you know plenty of saturday mornings She could sell 50 copies of her book simply from being there and representing her own story and her own work You And, you know, people are happy to support, especially when you're a local author in your local community. And so I think, you know, just kind of demystifying some of that, that marketing process is really important. And it's interesting because I actually had the opportunity to pitch to an agent as part of my participation in this weekend long conference. And I pitched to an agent who was looking for young adult, middle ages, and also adult fiction, but her themes, she had listed some themes about identity, and change, and diverse voices, and power dynamics, and relationships, and she was open to also hearing pitches about memoirs that if they had those same themes, so that's why I selected her, because as I read those pieces. Kind of themes, I was like, oh my gosh, yeah, like, my book hits on a lot of that. And so I pitched to her, and it was definitely an eye opening and interesting process. And her feedback was that memoir is ultra competitive, and she said that My story about, you know, not feeling secure in my connections and wanting more connections and more community and also feeling, you know, intense loneliness in my own marriage were not unique. It was for that reason that she felt like I didn't have a unique voice to add to that conversation and therefore The memoir was unappealing to her from a, you know, publishing, marketing business perspective. Which I found so interesting. Because it's that exact sentiment that seems to resonate so strongly with people when I share with them about what the book is about. And they're like, Oh yes, me too. Oh, I want to read that. Oh, I'd buy that. Oh, I know five other people that I'm going to buy your book for because they will appreciate, you know, that conversation. So it's so interesting to me that the thing that made it seem like it was Unappealing to the agent for the traditional publishing route is the exact same thing that makes me feel confident that I have a message that's going to sell because yes, everyone feels this way. So many people feel like they aren't surrounded by community or have trouble finding community that they deeply resonate with. So many people struggle with feeling unseen in their marriages. Or especially in those like early years of motherhood, just feeling like that's the one dimension of their identity that they're able to express. And there's just nothing else of value to them. And so it was really eyeopening for me. I'm so glad I went through that process just to get that feedback. And I've since then seen some other examples of people who have extremely specific viewpoints and topics of. of message and conversation that are so In line with what's going on in today's culture And they are also still struggling with being picked up by the traditional publishers Despite having more direct access and connections because of their roles. And so it's so interesting and eye opening to me just how Competitive the memoir Genre is for traditional publishing and so it's like I did a quick search and it's so many of the people who are getting picked up for publishing memoir are already famous. And in some other capacity, whether, you know, they're celebrities or sports stars, or they were already a well known author in like fiction or poetry, and this is their one memoir book, you know, they already had agents and publishers and that sort of thing in their wheelhouse and then their memoirs get picked up, but to come in as a debut author. That's, that's an uphill battle, for sure.

Stephanie: 20:12

Well,

Elizabeth: 20:12

I mean, even, like, you look at Cheryl Strayed, she had her Dear Sugar column for how long before she wrote Wild? Like, she had this, this whole, you know, publishing system and, and, and background and Kind of credit to her name before ever getting a memoir published.

Stephanie: 20:37

well, a couple of things come to mind from what you were just talking about. One is what you were just talking about in respect to, you know, a lot of the current memoirs being published or people who are famous or have some, you know, in that realm, whether it's through sports or TV, you know, and they're getting memoirs published. And that goes back to from our previous episode that we have the podcast where we talked about this really being a business. And of course, they know, you know, publishers know that those books are going to sell on the flip side of that, though. going back to what you were talking about before about the agent saying that, you know, what you had is not unique, I would argue with that because only one you, your voice is unique, you're the only one who can tell it, and you're the only one who can shed A different light or a different perspective on an experience you never know whose life that's going to touch. You don't know who that's going to connect with. And so for an agent, and this is where, you know, I think sort of having a thick shell is like important in this process too, is just being like, okay, well that agent said I'm not unique, but really I am unique. And, you know, Elizabeth, I know like your story is very unique and your journey is unique. and your story is one that I feel so many people will be able to relate with and connect with. And again, I think it comes back to that piece of marketing it. You are close to your story. You have it to share. You know, it will resonate. so to just remember that, and I know for me in the contemporary romance genre, it's another one that's incredibly flooded in the market. But again, you know, I think back to how I've read recently some advanced reader copies from people who are you know, groups that I'm a part of on Facebook and other spaces. And I have to say, it's pretty obvious to me when someone doesn't have a team around them. And yes, they're putting their book out. On, you know, Amazon and yes, they're getting, you know, reviews that are, you know, highly rated reviews. And then, you know, that brings in all of those questions around reviews. But I think that, you know, making sure you have a team that's high quality and that, you know, you're putting out something that's high quality, that You know, important and I think that's why a lot of agents, you know, they are a gatekeepers to the bigger publishers and they do have things that they have to meet. I'm sure, but don't let that discourage you. Certainly when the conference that I went to, you know, there were lots of people who talked about how they. You know, they celebrated their rejections and then they use them also as a learning point to say, huh, I wonder what it was. And if they got specific feedback, they'd say, oh, okay, maybe I need to go back and look at that. And maybe I need to go revisit my, my manuscript. Maybe there is something missing. really looking at it as an opportunity to learn for yourself. But definitely, I think like Elizabeth Having the experience of getting in front of an agent, you know, look for those opportunities. I'm not quite there yet with, with my but I know that when I'm at that point in the same way that Elizabeth is with where she is with her memoir, that I'll be looking for those opportunities just to have the experience, just to make it so the next time it's less scary. And so, you know, all those things are good to think about.

Elizabeth: 24:19

For sure, and I wasn't discouraged at all from her feedback. I even asked a follow up question about whether, you know, because I had just written that pitch. This was my first time doing it. There's certainly ways you can. You know, curate your pitch and rewrite it to emphasize how your voice is unique. And she gave me very helpful feedback about be more specific about this or do that. And I also asked her follow up of whether I should really push the, the queer aspects of my story. I did, you know, have one mention of coming out. But then I, I referred to my marriage with my spouse. I didn't say wife. So I don't, there wasn't as much translation of. You know, that being a more diverse voice than maybe what is standard and sort of there are certainly ways that I could tweak the pitch and the way that I promote my story in my book that do emphasize that unique voice. And so that's absolutely an option. And what's also interesting is, you know, that I got that on Saturday, on Sunday, I received an email from an online literary magazine that I had submitted one of my stories to one of those stories from early on in the memoir. And I got an email saying it had been accepted and they're going to be publishing it on their online literary magazine in early April. So it was so cool to. Have that sort of bookend, right? So I just went through this online course or conference I did the agent pitch which kind of sounds like a But then someone who's actually read one of my stories Yes, I like this. My readers will like this. So it's always important to keep that framework that those rejections coming from like the traditional publishing world. You do have to remember that that's about the business. It's not about the content. Your art your story your work. So there are a number of ways to publish Even if you do these, you know small literary magazines and you publish story by story short story by short story There are ways to get your work out there to readers who will love it It doesn't mean that there aren't people out there that will buy your book and read your stories and appreciate the message that you're putting out there. It is just one aspect and it is very business minded. And so I just want everyone to keep that in mind. It is in no way a reflection of the value of your writing.

27:03

Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Inspired Writer Collective podcast. We hope you found inspiration, insights, and connection to yourself as a writer. If you enjoyed this episode, please share, subscribe, and leave us a five star review. Remember, the power of storytelling lies within each of us, and by supporting one another, we can make a difference. We invite you to schedule a coffee chat with us on our website, www. inspiredwritercollective. com. Just like our style here on the podcast, our coffee chats are casual and a way to connect about your writing and discover if book coaching or joining our upcoming writing cohorts for memoir and contemporary romance writing are for you. You can also become a part of our community by connecting with us on social media. You can find us on Instagram and YouTube at Inspired Writer Collective, on TikTok at Inspired Writer LLC. Let's continue this writing journey together. You can find links in the show notes. Until next time, fellow writers, may your pens be mighty and your stories captivating. Happy writing!