Remember Those Indie Authors!

What is an indie author? (No, it has nothing to do with Indianapolis.)

I didn't know the answer for the longest time. People threw out the phrase "indie author" right and left and I just sat there in bewilderment. I later found out that indie is just short for independent. Independent (or indie) authors publish their books themselves. They may only independently publish, they may publish traditionally (with an established publishing house) and independently, or they may be publishing independently as a step to traditional publication. They're independent.

But indie authors get a bad rap. In fact, most people don't count them as "real" authors. General opinion is that indie authors:

---are authors who have simply been rejected by all other publishing companies
---poor writers
---not willing to put in the work to traditionally publish their book

None of this is actually true. But why do we believe it?

With the rise of resources like Amazon KDP, a lot of authors previously unable to do so are now able to show their work to the world. Anyone--literally anyone--can publish a book.

Unfortunately, most of these people are not authors. So we now have a ton of books floating around on Amazon that have poor formatting, poor covers, and ever poorer writing.

That means that the indie authors that did it right are getting lumped with those who didn't put in the work.

The truth is, most indie authors do even more work than traditionally published authors.

Indie authors:

---write the book
---self-edit the book (and then pay professional editors to polish the manuscript)
---format the book so it's nice to read
---pay a professional cover designer
---market the book
---and take care of all the business things, too.

While traditionally published authors do the same, they have in-house editors, designers, and marketers to work with.

Indie authors have a lot to work against. And there's a good deal of them that are writing fantastic books. So today, let's remember those indie authors and let them know their skills and work are not unnoticed.

*Who are your favorite indie authors? Share your adventures in the comments!*