It happened. 

You’ve finished working on the thing.

But what happens now? Well now you have to live with the curse of having done the thing. And that means you now have to package the thing. You have to sell the thing. And even worse yet, you have to talk about the thing with people both in reality and online. 

Like, a lot. 

The thing we’re discussing today is, in fact, a novel. And not just any novel, but one you've worked on for years. One you’ve poured sweat and blood and a good amount of sanity into—sanity that may never return.

But anyways, congratulations! You’re now an author! I’d feel bad for you, but you did this to yourself.

As someone who’s just published an independent novel, I thought we could go over some questions that I had during the indie publishing process. This is also an excuse to organize my thoughts, evaluate some of my bigger, weirder feelings, and partake in something akin to therapy.

Wait... I’m getting word that this isn’t actually therapy at all. I’m going to choose to ignore that. This will be great. For both of us. 

Promise.

Is My Manuscript Actually Done? Like for Real?

Probably not. It’ll probably never be done. But let’s check your progress. You’ve proof read your manuscript dozens of times? And you found a friend to double check your work? Wow! Obviously, it is perfect and there are no errors.

Well shit. Bad news. I’m sorry to inform you, but there are still errors. Lot’s of them, actually. To be fair, almost all novels have errors, but there are things we can do to reduce their number.

Beta readers help at a high level. And if you want to go a step beyond that, a development editor will work with you to close plot holes, tighten up pacing issues, and polish the overall structure. A line editor will take you further forward (they’re the ones fixing grammar and punctuation at the sentence and paragraph level). Finally, you’re going to want a proof reader with fresh eyes to do a final check for typos. 

Not bad, right? Reasonable, when you think about it..

Let’s see how much each one will charge for their service. Hmmmm. Oh no. Oh fuck, actually. A professional developmental editor is thousands of dollars. A line editor? A couple more! Proof reader? At least a few hundred bucks. Good thing most contractors online work in USD and the Canadian dollar is super strong right now. Wait, I’m being told it’s actually weaker than a child coming out of wisdom teeth surgery. Yikes.

Look, here’s the rub, if you want to have the same resources that a traditional published author has, it will cost money, and Penguin Random House ain’t footing your bill. 

My advice: Spend within your means and be smart about it. There’s a good chance you will never see this money again, so don’t gamble what you can’t afford to lose.

My second piece of advice: Fuck Reedsy.

Reedsy is a market where you can find contractors for hire. From editing, formatting, cover design, whatever, you can find them on Reedsy. What you won’t find is a close collaborator. Most people you get on Reedsy will take a deposit, vanish for a bit, and come back with the final product seeking final payment. In my experience, professionals hired on Reedsy were fairly mercantile. There’s little room for discussion, feedback, or notes. You get what you get. To be clear, I understand why this is. I’m sure they’re taking a ton of jobs and have been burned by frustrating, picky clients. But paying for something only to be unhappy with it, and then being told no changes can be made... Well, that sucks, and yes this did happen to me. I had to go hire someone else to redo the work. 

You’ll have much better luck finding someone through the indie writing community itself. Find an independent novelist you love, and see who edited their book or did their cover or designed their interior. Maybe even reach out with a DM. Find a Discord server with other authors (Dream Foundry and Indie Book Spotlight were my go to), and likely they’ll point you in the direction of someone who will actually work with you, not just for you. 

And when you’ve gone through all this (and more) and your book is ready to launch, order an author copy and read it, front to back, bio, blurb, dedication — all of it. Because even with all of this done, and edits on edits on edits, you’ll be surprised what can still get missed. No joke, the first round of books I shipped had no author photo and some strange errors, and this was on me. I was too excited and fired from the hip. I should have taken a breath and done another pass. Impatience is your enemy.

Okay, But is My Book Good?

Alright, big dog, this is the worst part. You will likely never know if your book is shit or not. When I read my novel, my brain alternates between two thoughts:

“Oh damn, was I cooking???” and “This is sun-baked trash.”

Which is correct? Well, let’s check with The People.

• My friends and family say it’s good, but they love me. They literally have to compliment it. Not to mention, most won’t actually read it, right?

• The people who edited it enjoyed it, but I paid them money. I think contractually, they have to say nice things.

• Reviewers said nice things too, but I don’t know, many of them are authors, and they don’t want to be mean, right?

• Any unaffiliated beta readers ghosted me, so... 

Welcome to being inside my brain! It’s warm, gooey, and full of self-doubt. 

What I’m trying to get at is you define your relationship to your own writing, and no one will be able to help you with that. No friend. No family members. No editor. No critic. You will talk to people who enjoyed your book and you will find others who didn’t (and this WILL hurt). 

But who is right? Who is the arbiter of good art?

Fuck if I know.

Is that a good conclusion for this section? Probably not, but I’m not going to pretend I’ve come to terms with my writing, because that would be lying. There will be moments of pride where you love your work, and there will be moments where you want to burn it with kerosene. 

That's life as an artist, baby.

But at least you’ll make money off it, right? 

No, I’m not laughing. I swear. Just...

You Are Buying a Lottery Ticket and Every Other Author is Too 

Oh, you wrote a book to get rich quick? Oh dear. You poor thing. You sweet summer child. You silly little bitch, you. 

Didn’t you realize we live in the age of The Attention Economy? The age of The Influencer? The age of Screaming Into The Online Abyss Alongside The Mass Choir of Discontent?

And don’t get it twisted, indie books can and do find success. Christopher Buehlman’s Between Two Fires found a large audience years after publication. Travis Baldree’s Legends and Lattes is a bonafide indie darling. And this could happen to you.

Maybe.

When everyone is vying for attention, only a select few receive it. Anyone who’s ever made anything and shared it online knows the pain. There are millions of people holding up their beloved creations and chanting, “Me! Look at me!” But there are few who actually get discovered. The odds are low—and much of it is chance—but what you want to do is increase those odds anyway you can.

There are ways to do this, but before I spill my juicy trade secrets, I want to be clear: my sales are meager and my success is limited. I am not a breakout titan of independent publishing, so take everything I say with a grain of salt. 

First step, make sure your book is a polished item (refer to the second section of this blog). If your book doesn’t feel like a quality product, then people won’t feel drawn to it. Or the ones who are drawn to it, won’t recommend it. Editing, cover art, designer, etc. are important. If it’s on a bookshelf, the least you can do is make it pop. I spent a good amount of money making my book look pretty, and I want you to know, I will likely never see a return on that investment. It’s called business, loser (and I’m bad at it). 

The second step is landing reviews and getting press coverage. I wasn’t great at this. I’ve seen others who built mailing lists well before launch in order to lock in early reviewers. I’ve also seen services that provide you with reviewers. I did neither of these, BUT I did manage to network with someone within the indie SFF scene, and they were kind enough to give me a list of targets reviewers to hit up. Many didn’t bite, but some did, and it was enough to get some coverage out in the wild. Every little bit helped. If you take anything away from this long, unhinged blog, it should be that talking to other writers is good, actually.

The third step is... Oh god. No. Wait! I don’t want to do this next section yet. Stop. PLEASE! NO ST-

You Will be an Influencer and You Will Smile

I thought about calling this section The Unbearable Lightness of Being Cringe, and I still think it’s a funny joke, so I’m parking it here. It’s my blog. I can do what I want. 

This is probably the bit that I dislike the most about being a creator in the age of social media. The strongest marketing tactic is to become an influencer and create some sort of community around your work, and as someone who recoils at the thought of talking into my phone camera everyday, this makes me want to run my head through my apartment’s drywall.

It’s easy to underestimate the amount of work and mental lift it takes to post daily. How much effort is a single post? One isn’t too bad, but weekly? Daily? It adds up. I worked as a social media manager in the game industry for years, and I can tell you that it’s actually incredibly grueling to put together unique posts that feel genuine at a regular cadence. And being genuine is important, because if your smile is wavering and your eyes are dead, viewers will slide off your content like wet tomato on a burger. 

I am beyond impressed with my peers in the indie space who manage to post regularly. They have clever insights on writing, thoughtful book reviews, podcasts, interviews, hot takes, and they make it look effortless. More impressive yet, they seem to enjoy it. 

Unfortunately, I do not enjoy it.

But I do have some advice if you’re someone like me—someone who would rather get keel hauled than post a reel—and that advice is to get others to talk about your book. That way, you won’t have to (as much). Once again, this goes back to press coverage, but it can also be your friends and family. If ANYONE posts about your book, reshare it. This can be a simple image of their copy, a review, a picture from a bookshop. But it’ll really make it seem like people are talking about your novel outside your own bubble, which is great! Surrounding yourself with others who post about writing and reading will also increase your chances of your work breaking containment and showing up outside of your limited following. 

This isn’t perfect, though. When you’re a small creator with little to no following, posts about your book are finite, and I don’t have a solution for this. But if you can get a bit of momentum, you should be able to get some good value out of resharing, rather than having to create every post yourself. 

At the end of the day, you will need to post about your book, and there are many ways to do this. I suggest looking at some successful indie authors for examples of what good looks like. Adrian M. Gibson, MJ Kuhn, Kaden Love, and Michael Vadney are a good start. Their Instagrams will give you an idea of what successful social media marketing looks like in the indie space. And if you need a counter example, maybe look me up on there too. 

I’ve read many times that it’s important to create your following before you launch your novel, and to this I say... Well, I don’t know how to do that. People give this advice like it’s something you can merely do in a year or two, like you can conjure a social media following using a summoning circle and a bit of zoomer blood, but I’ve been building my following online my entire life, and it is small and fragmented. 

But hey, maybe you have more drive than I do. Maybe you’re a natural on camera. And MAYBE you won’t find your following of fans until you release something that creates them. Cart. Horse. Etc.

No matter what anyone tells you, remember: becoming an influencer isn’t something you do without a massive amount of effort and a good helping of luck. If you need to be one to publish a book, then I would never publish a book. So even if you don’t have a high follower count, don’t let that stop you. Let it rip.

Sharing is Caring

I’ve written a lot about reposting other creators when they talk about your work, but that’s a lot of taking and not a lot of giving. I’ve discovered the indie space is a community. It’s a network of creators whose shared support creates visibility for books that would otherwise vanish into the ether. 

So be sure to share the love now and then. If people are resharing your work, you should probably reshare some of their stuff. What goes around comes around. 

But don’t feel bad if you can’t keep up. I know authors who review and comment on multiple books a week, and as someone who only reads about 10 novels a year, this isn’t viable. But a repost or a like or a comment can go a long way. 

In Conclusion

I don’t fucking know. 

I’m actually shocked you read this far. Most won’t. Because posting on the internet for many is like pissing into the wind. Like yeah, it probably won’t accomplish anything, but hey, maybe you’ll feel some relief.

Okay, bye.