What I've Learned as an Indie Author

This upcoming year (actually, it won't be until October of 2015) will mark my 4th year as an indie author. To say it's been exciting is an understatement! I'm thrilled to have made it through all these years, which I have to say are the best years since I began writing professionally. Besides having been a great ride, it's also been an awesome learning experience.

So here's my list, in no particular order, detailing what I've learned since becoming an indie author:

1. I don't need validation from publishers or editors anymore. HALLELUJAH! Back in my newbie writer days, my opinion of my work and of myself as an writer highly depended on responses from publishing houses or editors. You sent me a rejection? I must be the. Worst. Writer. Ever! Oh, so, the book IS "right for your list?" Yes! My work has to be worth something, right?!?!

Not anymore. Full disclosure: I DO still work with a few publishers (mostly smaller ebook publishers) that I will continue to work with, but that's because I enjoy writing for them and we have a great professional relationship. But I don't need validation anymore, and that's freed me mentally to be able to concentrate on honing my craft as an author. Being an indie--taking the reins in all areas, from writing to editing to promo--has also increased my confidence in my abilities. That's a very liberating feeling. That means you spend less energy rebuilding your faith in your own work and more in areas where your energy is put to better use, i.e. working on your WIP.

2. My journey isn't someone else's journey. Neither should I allow anyone to dictate how I should measure my own success. Some of my books do better than others; I write each book as if it is my all-time favorite  project. I doubt I'll ever make it rich. Doesn't matter. I'm already a success because I am still here, still productive, and still getting paid for my work. Best of all, I can honestly say that I am writing the books that I have always wanted to write, under each of my pen names. If my work brings joy or encouragement or just entertainment to someone else, that's more than I could have ever asked for, and I give the Lord the glory for that.

3. Publisher lines have come and gone. Heck, publishers have come and gone. But we writers are still here.

4. Knowing a book is definitely going to be published (as opposed to hoping and wishing some editor finds it "right for our list") is great motivation to finish a book.

5. Knowing a book is definitely going be published (as opposed to hoping and wishing some editor finds it "right for our list") is motivation to start planning promotion and causing some kind of stir before it's even out there.

6. There's been a lot of talk in the past couple of years about how giving books for free is not the great promotional tool it once was. I have to agree with that, though I will continue to offer the occasional perma-free book, as well as special promotions. I still have readers who have read GREETINGS FROM MY SANDY DREAMS or UNCONDITIONAL for free, then decide they want to buy one or more of my other books. Simply put, that rocks. Ultimately, it's not about individual sales anyway, but about building a readership that enjoys your work and looks forward to the new titles coming out.

7. Even as an un-techy, 50ish grandmother, I CAN learn how to create an ebook, a book cover, a paperback version, and seek out promotional opportunities. If I can at this age, so can any writer with the passion to get his/her work out there.

8. I've learned I'm having more fun as an indie author, and I also have more opportunities open to me, than I ever did when I wrote for traditional publishers. The world has changed since the mid- 1990s, when I first began writing professionally. I was never a "favorite" of the traditional publishers, so I wasn't trusted with the types of projects that I now entrust myself to work on. Neither were certain promotional opportunities open to me; now, in the age of ebooks and technology in general, there are marketing opportunities that have leveled the playing field for authors. As a bonus, those opportunities have provided me with the chance to meet and befriend other authors.

9. It takes an adventurous spirit to become an indie author.

10. Indie publishing is NOT for the fainthearted, the lazy, or the impatient. I guarantee you: There WILL be disappointing days.You WILL be taking on more responsibility and work (including editing, unless you hire an indie editor). If you put out ONE book, only one, with the expectation of seeing it on the bestseller list, you may become discouraged. I'm a person who happens to believe that nothing is impossible, but this doesn't happen to everyone.

I've learned it's better to have the attitude that you are basically starting your own small business. How would it be to open up your own restaurant? Besides working on developing an enticing menu, hiring the best chefs and wait staff you can afford, and decorating the place so it's welcoming to the public, you'd be concerned with building up the restaurant's clientele. That takes time and patience unless you're already a big name chef.

That's not very different from becoming an indie author. These are YOUR babies you're writing and sending out into the world. Treat them with respect, be gentle with them, pour your whole heart into them. Remember that there's a reader--a human being--on the other end of it. Make it worth the hard-earned money they put out for it. Expect the occasional disappointment and the bad review, and soldier on with as much passion, curiosity and enthusiasm as the day you jumped into the indie pool headfirst.

and finally,

11. What doesn't kill you really DOES make you stronger. It's not just a song by Kelly Clarkson!

Background on CRYSTAL WAVES

As promised, here is the background story for my upcoming book, Crystal Waves, which is a Christian mainstream novel.

A book that started out with a "what-if" premise, it also has the distinction of being the first book I wrote back in the early 1990s, when my kids were small and I was a secretary for a brokerage house, and I decided that finally I would try to get my work published. Before my YA books, before my romance novels and Christian inspirational novels, before my short stories published by the confessions magazines, I wrote a Christian novel entitled Crystal Waves, which was roughly about 320 pages long (about 80,00 words, I believe). Someone back at the time suggested I send it to an agent in Texas, a man I'd never heard of before, but remember--I was a total newbie at the time, a complete tenderfoot tossing my hat into the ring. There were a lot of people I'd never heard of. Neither did I think of researching the person to whom I was trusting my work.

Eventually, I was repped by two terrific agents whom I'm proud to have worked with: Jean Price, who is no longer in the business, and Meredith Bernstein of New York. Today I work on my own. This guy, whoever he was, basically kept my book for months on end (though I suspect he just tossed it upon arrival, even though it had been sent with a SASE), and when I worked up the nerve to call him he callously said, "Oh, did I not send that back to you? I'll do that."

He never sent it back. Surprise! Boy, do I miss those days now as a self-pubbed author. Not. Anyway, that's okay. At least I had enough common sense to keep the original, which was written on Multimate. (Yes, it goes back THAT far.)

Crystal Waves then languished in my drawer for a while. In the meantime, I received rejection after rejection on other books and stories, like most new authors Back in the Day of Traditional Publishing, with my YA projects that almost made it but then ultimately didn't. I lost faith in the project and then eventually was published in other genres including romance. At one point, I deep-sixed the floppy on which the book was written and the original hard copy, believing it was just an early work with no potential and no prospects of ever being published. Besides, I was finally a "pubbed" writer who'd found some measure of (slim) success as a midlist author working in other genres.

In recent years as an indie publisher, I've been able to come back to my roots: the Christian/inspirational and mainstream genres. It's been a real pleasure to work on two series, namely Larkspur Valley and now my current series, Joyful Noise. With two books done and one to go in that series, I found myself remembering my "firstborn" baby, Crystal Waves.

I believe the Lord put that on my heart, to remember this what-if story, this big, sprawling novel with a big cast that includes--well, I'm getting ahead of myself.

But I couldn't publish the book. I threw it out, floppy disk and all. I've even gotten rid of computers that USE floppy disks. Besides, it had its share of warts, as most First Books.

Which means the book would have to be rewritten...from scratch.

From memory.

With a 54-year-old writer's memory, no less.

Much of the book is lost to me. Again, it's been years since I first wrote it. I remember key points, even parts that I KNEW wouldn't fly (and have since been eliminated from this new version). And yet the desire to rewrite and publish the book, to share it with my readers, became stronger and stronger.

So I am now rewriting Crystal Waves. Every author, I believe, has a Beloved But Forgotten Book. This is mine.

I'm writing it with the skill I've gained over the years, which I didn't have as a tenderfoot. I'm writing it not timidly or with the will-it-ever-see-the-light-of-day fears of an unpubbed author, but rather with confidence and with love. I could leave it there, in the Past, in the Revolving File, with all the newer irons I have in the fire.

Yet there is something to be said about something that was forgotten by the world, even by the "parent", that is resurrected and is given a second chance, that truly makes me want to return each day to work on this project and to nurture it and see it to the words THE END.

I'm hoping to publish Crystal Waves sometime in late October or early November, depending on its length, which will determine not only its writing but editing time frames.

Now to any authors out there...have any forgotten babies out there you need to take a second look at?