Who Dares Call Himself Indie?
Posted by Zoe Winters on May 24th, 2010I’m really excited that the term “indie author” is starting to catch on. I’m excited that indie authors are starting to be seen as the same thing as indie musicians and indie filmmakers. There is just one problem though.
“Indie author” didn’t come about as a term until we entered the world of youtube. What I mean by that is that indie musicians and filmmakers were around and that term was around and common way before the Internet as we know it, or Youtube, or iTunes or any of the other stuff that makes it possible for literally ANYONE to make “music” or “film.” (And I put that in quotes because if you’ve seen a lot of youtube videos… you know what I mean. Eeek.)
Indie musicians and filmmakers have existed as a concept and popular cultural term long enough that they can withstand the onslaught of youtube and iTunes. I’m not sure if the same is true for indie authorship.
Self-publishing has always had stigma. Some believe I want to encourage “more people to self-publish.” But this isn’t true. I want to encourage more GOOD writers to self-publish. People who will raise our street cred and help us get out of the “stigma” and into the light with other indie artists.
One of the major stumbling blocks to this is terminology.
The term indie author is meant to convey that we are just like indie musicians and filmmakers. We work just as hard on our craft. We take what we’re doing seriously. We educate ourselves. We care about packaging. We know about marketing. We’re “the little guy,” but we aren’t playing to a backyard full of our stuffed animals with a plastic tea set.
Unfortunately many people want to co-opt the term indie author without doing the work to earn it. I’m A-okay with it if you want to self-publish a rough draft with a homemade cover that looks like your cat puked on it if it’s just for you and your family and friends. If you’re putting it out for a larger market, I’m not so okay with it.
Granted, I can’t stop you. It’s a free market. Which means you can release crap and there is no law against it. The law is the law of the jungle and you won’t thrive. But there are enough people publishing crap that we never really get rid of it or that image.
I’d ask you though not to call yourself an “indie author” unless you’re willing to take yourself seriously.
I want to be an inclusive person, and I am not the grand high potentate of indie authorship. I don’t get to behead anyone who doesn’t do things exactly like I do them. And how I do some things may not even be the best way. There are people who indie publish circles around me.
The problem comes with the cut off point. Where is it? What makes an indie author worthy of that label? And what makes someone a poser who should stick to the term “self-publishing”?
While I want to be inclusive, I think this new awesome “indie author” label is going to carry the same stigma as “self-published” if indies who care about quality don’t start stepping up to the plate and saying loudly and proudly exactly what an indie is and is not.
This is kind of how some hideous people run around calling themselves Christians and make the entire religion look like a bunch of Bubba mouthbreathers. It’s just bad press.
This will happen to us as well if we don’t continually say: “This is what makes you an indie. This is what gives you the right to that label.”
An indie author cares about quality. And they don’t just care about it enough to SAY they care about it. They care enough to actually ensure they are getting it. You cannot tell your own writing abilities yourself. I don’t know why you can’t, but you can’t.
If you could, there wouldn’t be so much self-published drek published by grown adults who think they’re as good as JK Rowling. Yet, there are. It would be hubris to think you’re the exception to this rule. Get it vetted.
Indie Reader vets work and is run by people who have worked intimately with the “real publishing industry”.
Network and find people willing to let you know whether your writing sucks or not. And I don’t just mean a matter of taste. I mean empirically sucks. There are issues in writing that aren’t just matters of taste. I’m talking about basic ability with narrative structure and a vocabulary level high enough to sustain that length of narrative without sounding like Dick and Jane.
I am pretty “anti-trad pub.” I’ve tried to find a way to explain this without sounding so hostile. I don’t “hate” trad publishers, they are just irrelevant to me and what I’m doing. I’m not interested. I don’t think it’s a great business move in the current climate with the changes happening especially with epublishing. I just don’t. And I can’t help that everything in my gut screams to avoid them.
This doesn’t mean everybody else should do what I’m doing. Or think what I’m thinking. Or abandon a dream or ideal just because it sounds “cool and rebellious”.
And even if you feel the same way I do about trad pub, it still might be helpful if you tried to get yourself vetted through the traditional system in some way via acceptance from a reputable agent. You don’t have to take the deal, obviously.
While trad publishers do publish a lot of uninspired crap. Their crap isn’t usually as bad as the crap in self-publishing. Trad publishers may be publishing a lot of blah blah blah, but at least it’s usually blah blah blah by writers who are literate.
I mean I may bitch at length about Stephenie Meyer and James Patterson but they write CIRCLES around much of what is self-published. So no one should get too puffed up about how “bad” trad pubbed books are.
If you can’t or don’t want to go that route, then network and make friends with published authors or writers you KNOW are better than you. (Because you are NOT the best writer out there. I promise. And I’m not either, lest someone think I’m preaching at them from on high.)
At the very least get people who read in your genre who are NOT your friends and have no vested interested in salvaging your feelings, to read and tell you what they think. Get a statistically significant number of these people. Like ten. Not one or two. Put work up for free on your site or a freebie site (someplace that is not considered part of the “marketplace”).
Do what you have to do, but get feedback.
Get a professional editor. Get good cover art.
I understand we can’t all afford professional cover art. And I designed all three covers for the individual novellas being sold in ebook in my series. (I have a professional artist for future books.) But here are my covers.
Now, granted, I will never say these are “omg awesome!” But even with a few problems (and I readily admit these covers have a few problems they wouldn’t have if a pro had designed them) they are NOT so ugly you want to hide under your bed. (Well, at least not to my reader demographic. If you don’t like romance, they might be to you.)
And you know the kinds of really bad covers I’m talking about. I’m not about to post examples because then those authors will come after me with pitchforks.
There is a LOT of good information out there on self-publishing right. It’s just too readily available not to utilize it.
If you intend to be lazy and take shortcuts everywhere just because you can, and you don’t intend to put a competitive product out there, then please don’t call yourself an indie author. You’re hurting the rest of us. We took that label to get away from the image of unedited crap.
And we’re working our asses off to earn the label honestly.
Zoe Winters writes and self-publishes both fiction and nonfiction under a few different names and imprints. She’s been called a “publishing geek” and loves all the minutiae of publishing just a little too much. She’s very passionate about the indie author movement and helping other authors who want to self-publish learn how to do it in the way that best suits them and their goals. To contact Zoe, visit her at: smartselfpublishing.com or http://www.zoewinters.org
Tags: indie authorship, indie publishing
Great post Zoe! Yeah, as I have hopped on the indie train myself, I find myself frequently encountering the stigma of self published and politely educating people on the difference between that and indie. It’s a slow process, I think, and I’m not sure how we can combat people coopting the term when they aren’t really serious about what they’re putting out.
Hallelujah and Amen, sister! (or however that goes.)
Thanks,guys!
I’m also not really sure where the lines in the sand are. Writing is so subjective. One person’s crap is another person’s “OMG that was awesome!” and vice versa.
True, but I think it’s obvious when professionalism, or a striving for it, at the very least, is present. And there’s a big difference between being on a learning curve and just not caring.
That’s true.
A lot of self-publishing authors will make excuses for their work like “It’s free,” “I don’t make enough money at this to do it as a job,” “I have kids,” “I don’t have the money for an editor,” “It’s just 99 cents what did people expect?” etc. etc.
I could use all of those excuses. In the end it boils down to respect for your readers.
True. And I think there are some things every author isn’t willing to change about how they write a book that is more subjective. (i.e. not to the point where you can say it’s empirically “bad” but a matter of taste.)
Sometimes those choices gain you more readers and sometimes fewer readers.
Absolutely. And in that regard, as the philospher Nelson remarked, “You can’t please everyone so you’ve got to please yourself.”
Yep. I think the challenge for an indie is learning the diff between style and stuff you really need to “fix.”
As an aside, one of the most frustrating things about writing is that if you do anything different, some of your fans will hate it and be disappointed. If you do everything the same other readers will complain about how everything’s alike. So, meh.
Go Zoe!
But… But I like it here!
Trouble is, the people who will slap up crap are not going to read this–only the people who are already trying to learn. The worst writers are those who think they know it all already and the world owes them and they are geniuses. You’ll never change them. But int he end the labels don’t matter. The audience willd ecide, not the authors themselves.
Scott Nicholson
Drummer Boy
Hey, Scott. Agreed. I just hate that there is that initial prejudice to climb over.
Exactly what I’ve been thinking – why have stigma around indie authors just as musicians can create a CD and sell it and if people like it, they buy it. But, oh so true, quality is what’s key.
Hey Kathy, thanks for commenting!