Hustlers in the woods of indie publishing
I’m reminded all the time that when I changed careers late last year, going from journalist to independent novelist, I traded 40 years of experience for I-don’t-know-what-the-hell-I’m-doing.
A year later I’m feeling pretty good about how it’s going. Thank you. But I’m still frequently feeling like a babe in the woods. For someone trying to launch a career as an indie author working in the field of small publishers, there’s really no standard manual, nor any well-referenced, go-to advisors. Instead, there are armies of sources promising indie authors better chances at success if only we will PayPal over a few hundred or a few thousand dollars.
Since I’ve declared myself a committed indie author, I’ve been inundated with ads, social media inquiries, email, referrals, etc., from all sorts of consultants and services wanting to take my hand. Sure, many are worth their prices, even necessary. Gotta be. After all, what’s the alternative for indie authors such as myself? Doing no promotion doesn’t work. I made that mistake with my first novel, The Roswell Swatch, a great story that sold poorly. I must do better with my next novel, The Murder Plague.
Yet there is no doubt the indie author/publishing field is crawling with scammers, hustlers, charlatans, and other wolves.
Think about it:
Let’s pretend you’re changing careers, intent on becoming a successful con artist (I’m assuming this’d be a career change, so humor me if that’s not the case.)
You say to yourself: who is my ideal mark? I mean, what’s a great target market for me?
Dreamers, perhaps. Folks who must believe more than anyone else in themselves, because, as business entities, they are independent, often isolated, even alone. People seeking places in a disrupted, rapidly-emerging, wild-west niche of independent publishing, outside the gates of an otherwise staid, locked-down publishing industry. Creative types who, odds are, are largely ignorant of how business works; spend more money than they can afford, while expecting only delayed and not-at-all-assured revenue streams; and, so, people learning to subsist mainly on hope.
Wannabe authors?
Did I mention that a lot of them were English majors?
You salivating, much?
There even seem to be wolf poster-children in the indie author/publishing community, such as The Notorious Mikkelsen Brothers. For all I know, Christian and Rasmus Mikkelsen are what they say, brilliant advisors who’ve helped countless writers succeed. In some indie writer circles, though, the Mikkelsen Twins’ reputation is of swindlers who’ve made millions by picking the pockets of indie authors. The twins even have answered such criticisms with their own blog post, entitled,”The Mikkelsen Twins Reviews: Legit or Scam?” I love this line, so reassuring from a business advisor: “The Mikkelsen Twins have made mistakes on their entrepreneurial journeys, sure, but who hasn’t?”
There are, in fact, broad warnings against nearly all players in indie publishing. You can’t miss them. And if you believed them entirely, you’d quit trying. Yet how much of that is just old-school thinking, old-school ways, the Big Five and their allies defending against emerging economic disrupters of independent publishing? That’s like Hertz warning against the dangers of Uber.
Me? I go forward, without a map, but not blindly; and with hope that a little due diligence, decades of professionally-earned skepticism, and a really limited budget should steer this babe away from the wolves and maybe through the woods.
I go forward with faith in myself and faith in you, my trusted newsletter reader-friends, my trusted sounding board.
So please, if you have any ideas, thoughts, advice or warnings on any of this or anything else, let me know. Drop me a note or leave a message here. I appreciate it. Really.
