But, once a reader *tries* an e-reader, the vast majority of them, even if they never leave print books completely (and no one is asking them to), want one. E-readers are convenient, create no eyestrain, allow you to carry a library in your pocket, buy books anywhere at any time, read in bright sunlight, text to speech, etc. etc. The only thing standing in many readers’ way right now is a cost barrier. But the cost of e-readers keeps dropping, and will likely be under $100 by Christmas.

As I lurk around on blogs (yes, sometimes I lurk, don’t act so surprised), I’ve noticed that the ratio of people who say they’ll never own an e-reader, to the ratio of people who are vocally in love with their e-readers, is shifting, in favor of the e-reader lovers.

I never expected this to start happening this quickly. In fact, in another 2-3 years, I would not be surprised at all if digital books were completely dominating the reading world. This is a great thing because it enables independent authors to be able to reach a wider audience and readers to be able to find a wider variety of things to read. It also allows reading to go “high-tech” appealing to a broader range of people who may be used to reading all kinds of things on the Internet and find this a comfortable shift. More comfortable than print books.

Another interesting shift that has started to take place, is a growing reader awareness and acceptance of indie authors. The “indie author” label has even started to catch on. I’ve seen threads on Amazon Discussion forums asking: “Does anyone know of any good indie author books about…?”

Readers are becoming aware of indies, and seem especially fond of the lower price points (at least in digital books). While there will always be “crap”, the good indies are starting to rise to the top, and already there is enough good indie work that many readers are learning how to be able to find the good stuff and avoid the bad.

Additionally book bloggers are helping to pave the way for indies because many of them are willing to read indie work, which helps start the word-of-mouth buzz. Often if one book blogger blogs about a book, others will start to do the same. Many times an indie book catches fire through the blogosphere.

Interestingly the only place where people still poop on indie authors wholesale is inside publishing… mostly other authors and wannabe authors. Readers increasingly just don’t care. And some are starting to seek out good indie work after having a few positive experiences with it.

The next few years, I believe, will continue to show a shift in attitudes for both e-reading devices and indie authors in general. It seems we’re at the front of a recognition of indie authorship as legitimate and unique, similar to indie bands and films.

While the publishing landscape will become increasingly competitive for both traditionally published and indie authors with so many more books to choose from, there will be more opportunity for authors to get their work before an audience.

Zoe Winters is an indie author of quirky paranormal romance and a passionate advocate of the indie author movement. Visit her at: http://www.zoewinters.org to try free samples of her fiction.

I remember a few years ago when I very first started my writer blog, I was SO paranoid about “saying something unprofessional”, that somehow an agent might stumble upon it and they might never sign me. Oh noes!! This paranoia sucked the joy right out of writing for me.

Writers were all so concerned with saying just the right thing in a query letter and following all the right rules “just right”, and not getting into any arguments on writer loops (though the drama in such places is still at terror level orange all the time… This is people holding back to look professional?), not saying anything on your blog that would give an agent or editor the idea that you couldn’t play with the big boys.

But then, I decided to self-publish. Almost immediately the depression and anxiety lifted and suddenly I could write again. Many indie author friends of mine have said the same thing happened to them. When I decided I didn’t want a publisher, suddenly I could say whatever I wanted to say on my blog. None of this weird censorship on the off-chance an agent might stumble upon it and decide to steer clear of me.

Of course, in hind sight, I don’t think most agents are worth being in awe over. Dean Wesley Smith has a lot to say on his blog about troubles with agents and why having one might not really be the best thing for your writing career. I agree with a lot of what he says.

Now that digital self-publishing has become viable, and several indie authors are starting to make some good money, even a living in some cases, suddenly many authors are losing their fear of pissing off the wrong person and losing their “one shot” because “editors and agents talk”.

The attitude is turning into: “Who cares if they talk? Let them talk. Doesn’t affect me.”

The new question is becoming: “What can you do for me that I can’t do for myself?” Agents and editors now have to come to the table with something more impressive than the talented and savvy indie can acquire on his or her own in the age of the Internet and social networking. It’s not worth it to give up creative control over your work if the payoff won’t be significantly larger than what you can achieve eventually by going indie.

There are many legitimate reasons to seek a traditional publisher, but with the money situation in publishing today as well as all the new opportunities for authors to get out there and connect with an audience, “money” is no longer one of them in most cases.

Prestige might be a reason, but as self-publishing becomes more acceptable in general, the value of that badge will fade. And anyway, you can’t eat prestige. It tastes too cardboard-y.

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

Any marketing an indie gets they either purchase or do themselves, or get through the help of their fans. Everything about being an indie is grassroots. Our work lives or dies based on your (the reader’s) response to it. Every person who reads a book, likes it, and then tells someone else about it, helps the author.

For an indie, everything they are and have is built by two things… the work they’ve done to put out a quality book and market it, and the work the fans have done to help fuel that flame and keep it alive.

As a reader, if you’re starting to become more aware of the concept of indie authors around you, you’ll notice that many indies tend to be very interactive with their fans. Social networking is key. You might follow and “hang out” with them on Twitter or Facebook. You may have even interviewed them on your blog.

While traditionally published authors also will often form strong fan bases through social networking and grassroots efforts, that may only be one part of their entire marketing package. If they do well and sell well as an new author, their publisher is likely to give them a higher advance and a bigger marketing push the next time. The traditionally published always have this to aspire to.

Not so with the indie. If the indie has one successful book, there is no one but the fans to help them market their next book. The only way a publisher will get involved is if they offer them a contract. But for many indies, the goal is to BE indie, not to “get a NY publisher”.

The world of publishing is changing so much and so fast, that many, including myself, believe the smartest bet is to build a strong platform and self-release your work digitally and perhaps also in print-on-demand. Many of us believe the best way to build a career is to build a backlist and a fan base. It’s no more complicated than that. Many of us also feel NY publishing is a sinking Titanic and we have no intentions of boarding the vessel now that we’ve seen the iceberg.

If you love an indie author’s work, your support is more important to us than you realize. You might see indies doing Amazon book blitzes and blog tours to promote their work. Some may offer some pretty sweet prizes to sweeten the pot. For example, all this week, I’ll be involved in a fairly intensive blog tour (two blogs a day), where I’ll be giving away a free signed copy of Blood Lust at each stop. But the big prize is a free Amazon Kindle, which you can see the details for at my blog.

Indie Author Scott Nicholson is also doing a similar blitz, except his is more of a marathon and less of a sprint. (He’s far braver than me!) He’s on a 90-day blog tour. He’ll also be giving away a Kindle.

If you follow and pay attention, you’ll notice your favorite indies offer incentives for you to be a part of the grassroots effort to get their work out there. This is a strong inducement for you to follow their blog, Twitter, or Facebook, or sign up to their newsletter so you can stay in the loop. As a fan, you are part of the marketing department every indie relies on. Please, support your indies!

Zoe Winters is an indie author of quirky paranormal romance and a passionate advocate of the indie author movement. Visit her at: http://www.zoewinters.org to try free samples of her fiction.

It’s not unfair to say most self-published books suck. What is unfair is to “assume” that because most self-published books suck that they all do, or that there can’t be true quality among self-published work. Or to assume that if someone self-publishes they did it because they “couldn’t get a publisher” without acknowledging that there are some pretty compelling reasons someone might want to self-publish as a choice, not a necessity.

I’ve read the work of many talented indies that I’m proud to call my peers. There is no doubt in my mind that these writers could have gotten traditionally published. They are absolutely “good enough” to be published by NY. And most of them weren’t my BFFs before I read them. So most of the time I didn’t go in with any kind of bias.

And when I *do* read an indie friend’s work, I always walk in worried that it will suck and then they might ask what I think. I’m sometimes shocked by how often I am pleasantly surprised.

There is a very big difference in someone who started writing last year during Nanowrimo, slapped their rough draft up on Kindle and Lulu… and someone who cares about their craft, has written several “trunk novels” (those books no one ever sees because they were practice attempts. I have about 6 of those. I will never publish them.), someone who goes to the time and trouble to get a good cover artist and good critique readers, betas, and an editor.

While I don’t want to create an “us” and “them” mentality, I think most serious indies do not want to be associated with those who just don’t give a crap about quality or wouldn’t know it if it bit them in their posterior region.

But, denying the crap only makes us look like *we* can’t tell quality from crap. It hampers our credibility and makes our words about the quality of any indie work, suspect.

It’s my belief that when confronted with this “most self-published books” suck argument that we should acknowledge, “Yes, most self-published books suck, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t an increasing amount of indie work which you won’t have to sift through in the first place, because it will rise to the top on its own merit.”

I’m not arguing that anyone shouldn’t be allowed to self-publish. We live in a free market and anyone can create a product. That product whether it be a book, a piece of music, or a widget, will live or die based in large part on how good it is.

I’m not afraid of the self-publishing drek “taking over” the good stuff. No matter how much of it there is most of the crap will fall to the bottom and most of the good stuff will eventually rise to the top. The drek isn’t a threat to me or anyone else. There are over 9 million books on Amazon. No one could sift through them all, even if they were all “vetted” by NY.

It’s up to each indie to rise above this stigma and do everything in their power to put out quality work. It only takes a few truly good indies to change our image and make it clear that what we are doing is “not” publishing our rough drafts two weeks after we wrote it.

One interesting thing to note: I’ve been informed by the head of Indie Reader that they expected to have to reject a lot of what was submitted to them for inclusion in the Indie Reader store, but they’ve ended up being able to accept 2/3rds to 3/4th of what they’ve been sent. We’re not sure if this can be attributed to savvier or more serious indies submitting to IR, or what. But there has been a lot of good work submitted here.

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

Answers run the gamut of showcase sites/bookstores that vet and sell indie work such as Indie Reader, book bloggers, GoodReads, Amazon’s review system as well as their “customers who bought this also bought this” lists.

Human beings like to organize things. Besides eating and procreating, organizing is probably our very favorite thing to do. We like to label things, put them in boxes, make lists. The fears of not being able to find the indie gold in a sea of self-published drek, is a silly boogeyman given the human organizing condition.

Another unique site has cropped up to help assuage those fears of “How will I know what’s good?”

Flashlight Worthy Book Recommendations is a site that was created by a couple of book lovers, Peter Steinberg and Eric Mueller who are passionate about organizing and helping people find good books.

The intro to their about page says:

Amazon sells every book in print, but the choice can be overwhelming. Flashlight Worthy is here to help:

* We don’t list the best selling books — we list the best books.
* We don’t list 6,072 results when you search for John Irving (including 251 versions of Garp!) — we list only his best books just once.
* We don’t make you hunt around for hours to find the very best books on parenting — we do the work for you.

Flashlight Worthy is nothing but thoughtful, hand-picked recommendations…
Organized into hundreds of useful, interesting, fun lists…
And all we do is books.

While Flashlight Worthy isn’t an “indie only” book site, it’s not opposed to good indie books. The site also has a bit of a “GoodReads” vibe since you can sign up and list the books you’d like to read, then click a box if you liked it after you’ve read it.

Lists of books are “shelved” in many different categories to help readers find appropriate books to their tastes, such as “Beach Reads”, “Book Club Recommendations”, “War”, and “Nature”.

Another interesting feature of the site is “Questions and Answers”. Think of it as the Yahoo Answers or Ask.com of books, where you can ask the site questions and get direct answers from other members.

For readers, this site offers yet another way to find good things to read. For authors, the site offers the opportunity to promote your book by submitting a list of books you recommend. You can’t recommend your own book, but if your list is approved there is a sidebar with information about the list contributor (that’s you), where you can give a link to your work at the bottom.

What you can do to help the site succeed:

Sign up and use Flashlight Worthy.

Submit a book list.

You can also help support the site by clicking on their referral link when you shop at Amazon so they can get credit and a small commission for your purchases.

Zoe Winters is an indie author of quirky paranormal romance and a passionate advocate of the indie author movement. Visit her at: http://www.zoewinters.org to try free samples of her fiction.

Publishing of any sort whether traditional or indie, is not “get rich quick.” It’s more like… “Get a livable wage slow… maybe.” Sounds sexy, huh? I thought so.

One thing I’ve experienced is that some have seen the amount of success I’ve achieved so far as an indie (selling thousands of ebooks a month), and they intellectually know that it took me a long time and a lot of hard work to even get to this point, but it doesn’t hit home until they put their first indie book up on the web.

I’ve had more than one new indie friend come to me with this issue. It’s become so frequent, that if I catch wind that someone I know is going to go indie based on anything they’ve seen me do, I usually do the disclaimer thing:

“This might take a long time. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t have an amazing sales rank right out of the gate. It can take months or years to start building steam. Be patient. Build your platform one reader at a time.”

I have a friend who recently released his first novella on the Kindle for 99 cents. It took him a long time to decide whether to pursue primarily traditional publishing or being an indie. Now that he’s up there and sold 21 copies in the first 6 days, he’s back to wondering if he should keep going with this indie thing or go back to submitting to agents and publishers.

To add some perspective to all this… I put my first novella on the Kindle 2 years ago when there were only 300,000 books in the Kindle store. I say “only” because there are now over 700,000 ebooks in the Kindle store and growing. It’s going to be much harder to get started and get noticed if you’re starting out now. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. Just be aware. We’re sort of in the gold rush phase here, and everybody is rushing to the indie side of the pond to try to make their fortune. Or something.

To add further perspective, I sold 6 copies in the first 5 days Kept was out. This was after I’d been pretty vocal “already” on the Internet.

This stuff takes time. And there is no way around that. If you’ve got a good and well-packaged book that has a large enough market for you to reach, it won’t always be this slow.

It takes a long time and a lot of effort to roll a snowball up a hill. But, when you get to the top and start to roll down the other side, the snowball will pick up it’s own steam. You won’t have to constantly schlepp all over the place pushing it.

Your fans will start pushing it and promoting it for you. At which point you’ll just need to stay “moderately visible and on people’s radars” until your next book release and big promo push.

It is nice to sit back and believe that a large NY publisher is going to swoop in like a knight on a white charger and make all your wildest dreams come true. But the reality is usually more along the lines of a five thousand dollar first advance, limited print run and distribution, and you still have to do most of your own marketing. If you fail in the narrow time frame they give you, it’s “not your publisher’s fault” and you get dropped. At which point you are back to square one again… or worse, since you’re damaged goods and no longer a vast ocean of uncharted possibilities.

In the very very beginning of my indie days where I thought I might still want a publisher if the deal was pretty good, I still wanted to go indie because I knew as a debut author I would have to do a lot of marketing, and it made no sense to me to waste my chance with no platform. So going indie was, in the beginning, partly a platform-building exercise.

Once I built enough platform and found I really loved being an indie, I thought “Screw this, I can just keep doing this stuff on my own!”

Your mileage may vary, but there is no perfect path here. They’re both hard. If you want to get into an easy industry, practice saying “Do you want fries with that?”

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

One area in which there tends to be a lot of behind-the-scenes debate, is formatting. Whether it’s ebook formatting or print formatting, everyone has an opinion on the right way and the wrong way to do it. On one end of the spectrum you will run into indies who just “don’t care” how anything should be done. Their formatting will be so awful it will hurt their sales because it will prevent anyone from being able to lose themselves in the story.

On the other end of the spectrum, you’ll have indies who do everything absolutely “by the books” no matter how much money they have to spend to get it done. And it may look like I’m about to take a BIG flying leap away from my intro, and I am, but trust me, we’re coming back in a minute.

Early in my indie journey I met a fellow indie who I was and am still a bit in awe of. Her name is Moriah Jovan. And even though she has a much more perfectionistic streak than I do, she’s always been nonjudgmental about how others “go indie.”

One thing I admire hugely about this woman is that, unlike me, she is doing her own thing, but she doesn’t feel the need to get into debates about it. On a recent blog post she says:

You will notice I haven’t been posting much at all, much less my thoughts on ebooks and publishing. Wanna know why? I’m too busy with my burgeoning business to put any thought into a) what’s wrong with publishing (because why do I care?); b) how to go about formatting ebooks (because that changes week to week); and c) wondering if I’m ever going to get my historical swashbuckler researched and written (because I’m a writer, dammit!).

To this I say:

“Mojo, please teach me how to be like you!”

While my loud and proud rah rah indie thing does get my name out there a lot and does sell me books, sometimes I want to be more like Mojo and get more… I don’t know… actual publishing done.

Moriah has published two books of her own: “The Proviso” and “Stay”. “The Proviso” may have been the first indie book I ever read and it was absolutely wonderful. She’s also extended her publishing business under her own imprint, B10 Mediaworx to include publishing other authors. She’s ambitious.

She’s also very professional, and someone I highly respect as a business person and fellow indie. She’s one of the people who often tells me “Calm down, Zoe. It’s not that important” when I’m being insane, as is rather frequent.

And now we’re getting back to that formatting thing. Moriah chose to do her interior layout for her books using Word. I know, I know, a thousand professional typesetters just fell over and a few of them may have been rushed to the ER. Everybody says you can’t do a truly professional layout in a word processing program.

Moriah Jovan is proof that you absolutely can. Here are samples of her interior layouts, using Word (click on the image to see it larger):

This first image is from her debut novel, The Proviso:

This second image is from her second novel, Stay:

I invite you to take a random trade paperback book off your shelf, preferably one published by a large NY publisher, what people continually consider the gold standard of publishing, whether it’s accurate or not. Now look again at Moriah’s interior layout. That’s professional. And it proves that whatever anyone says, it’s not the tool that matters, it’s the skill of the craftsman. (Or craftswoman in this case.)

She had a print book out using Lightning Source before I even had my first ebook out. This woman is truly a pioneer in the indie author landscape.

In indie world, it’s easy to look at whoever is selling the most and see them as the poster child for self-publishing. This often leads to true pioneers being left unsung. But the truth is, being a pioneer isn’t about being a bestselling author. It’s about being brave enough to do something early enough where people are still scratching their heads and going “Huh? That’ll never work.”

Moriah Jovan is truly a pioneer, and still one of my indie publishing heroes.

Her books are available for purchase through Indie Reader.

Zoe Winters is an indie author of quirky paranormal romance and a passionate advocate of the indie author movement. Visit her at: http://www.zoewinters.org to try free samples of her fiction.

The answer to the first question is fairly obvious, but the second is one we don’t always think about. It is often through a failure that we learn something that is pivotal to our later success. By not having that experience, we shut down the learning process in favor of fear and having our decisions spoon fed to us.

As an indie you will receive a lot of advice. Some of it will be solicited and therefore generally welcome. Some of it will be unsolicited. You may feel a lot of pressure as an indie because of the remaining stigma left against self-publishing. You naturally don’t want to make the wrong choices. So it can be tempting to let someone else tell you what to do and how to do it.

The important thing to remember here is… you are on a journey. That journey is just as important as whatever your destination may be. And if you really believe in something, you should never let someone else take you off course with unsolicited advice.

A couple of years ago, many people told me not to self-publish. It was career suicide they said. If I wanted to be a “real author” and make “real money”, I needed to go the traditional way. I got this advice from published authors and unpublished authors alike.

I ignored that advice. And I’m very happy that I did. I’m almost 2 years into a 10-year plan, but I’m already starting to see some progress in my goals. And while I’ve been quietly working away, many others have jumped on the same indie boat with me.

I love self-publishing. Yes, it’s a lot of hard work, and I can’t fathom the stamina and energy of those who do it while raising kids or working another full-time job, but it’s been a very rewarding experience for me.

More recently I had someone not only challenge a release-week marketing strategy I have planned, but tell me it was stupid, and that my goals were basically vanity. It was someone who I generally respect and who is overall a good guy and has had a lot of success himself with self-publishing. However, this individual experimented and tweaked many different aspects of what he’s doing before he hit on what worked for him.

To deny me that same right to experiment and tweak, isn’t what being an indie is about.

You are likely to run into similar situations. You will at some point clash with another person (indie or trad) who thinks the way you’re doing something is stupid and “won’t work.” But remember that indie means no bosses. It means making the decisions you feel are right for your own business. It means taking responsibility when you make an error in judgment, but it means having the right to test something out to make that error to begin with.

The truth is that digital publishing is still fairly new. Indie authorship as an accepted viable option is fairly new. There is no rulebook that will tell you what will absolutely work for you. There are strategies and techniques that work for me that don’t work for others. And by the same token there are strategies and techniques that work for others but don’t work for me.

You might always play it safe. And that’s okay. It’s your business. But there may be times when you choose to take risks that you believe in to further grow your business. Even if your plans fail, you will have learned something from the experience. Sometimes, whether someone else is right or wrong, you have to test and tweak something anyway. There are some things you’ll only learn through trial and error and giving yourself permission to fail.

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

Podcasts tend to be episodic and air on a regular schedule, such as weekly. They’re also generally free. While there are a few that cost money, the culture is so strongly “free” for this format, that it’s pretty hard to go against that grain and succeed. You have to have something really astoundingly amazing to charge money for it, basically.

There are two different ways in which an indie author can utilize podcasts to get their name/brand/books out there:

1. Narration of their work in episodic form (a few chapters a week.)

2. General talking/interviewing/discussion about their work, their writing and publishing journey, or their subject matter of expertise.

Often if someone stumbles upon the second type of podcast, and they like it, they’ll check out the author because it works as a form of social networking. It’s a connecting touchstone where authors can let readers “get to know them.”

The first type, though, is where my questions really come in. Scott Sigler and Tee Morris both simultaneously seem to be the first people who podcasted their novels. Sigler built a huge and rabid fan base. Tee built a fan base as well, though not nearly as giant. Sigler ended up with a major New York contract and hitting major bestseller lists (including NYT).

At one time I seriously entertained podcasting my upcoming release, Blood Lust and offering it as free audio to readers. Now I’m not sure. I waffle on the issue quite a lot.

The question poking at my mind is… how much net benefit does a podcasted novel create? Not for a rockstar like Scott Sigler, but for the average indie. I know Sigler didn’t start out a rockstar, he built his fan base one reader/listener at a time just like everyone else, but he does have a rockstar level podcasting talent. And that does, IMO, factor into the success. Is it enough to be worth all the time and effort that goes into it for the average indie?

This is a post that is for “everyone” readers and authors alike.

Indie Authors: Have you podcasted a novel? If so, what were your results? Do you think it strongly influenced your sales? Do you think it was worth the time expenditure/work, and would you do it again? If you haven’t podcasted a novel are you considering it?

Readers: Do you ever listen to audiobooks? If so, would you subscribe to a free podcast reading of a novel? If you did that and you liked it, would you be inclined to actually either

A. Buy the book in another format such as E or print or

B. Tell others about the book (and not just the podcast which they can get for free)?

From an author perspective I can see where it “could” be beneficial. I can especially see the episodic nature of the thing encouraging sales at least from readers who couldn’t wait til the podcast finished airing and want to know what happens NOW. (In which case I think it makes really good sense to have the book available for sale before the podcast starts airing.)

I can also see the benefit of keeping readers plugged in to you weekly.

From a reader perspective, while I love audiobooks, I don’t like waiting. I have an audible account, but I don’t really listen to podcasted novels because I want to listen at my own pace. (Of course once a podcasted novel is completed and fully-aired, I have that ability, but I like straight narration. I don’t care for all that intro and outro nonsense that gets tacked on. I want to listen to the story straight with no interruptions.)

The other sticking point for me is… I’m really not sure what I’m getting into. Since audiobooks where I don’t have to deal with the interruptions or wait, already exist, it’s a higher barrier for me to seek out something amateur, even if it’s free.

What do you think?

Zoe Winters is an indie author of quirky paranormal romance and a passionate advocate of the indie author movement. Visit her at: http://www.zoewinters.org to try free samples of her fiction.

I will admit that my Kindle formatting equals: “Follow the Smashwords Style Guide, keep everything simple, save as html” It’s fiction. I don’t need a linkable table of contents. I don’t need many of the splashier formatting things others might need.

My Kindle formatting is not the absolute most perfect and pristine (meaning my chapters start a few spaces down, rather than on a new page), but I’ve yet to have a single reader complain about it. And I sell well. So obviously nothing I’m doing is getting in anybody’s way. I try to follow the K.I.S.S. rule of formatting. Once you aren’t doing anything overly distracting with your layout, everything else is just obsessing.

One such issue is interior layout for a print book. I realize there is a lot of stigma against self-publishing still, and most of us feel like we have something to prove. So we work probably twice as hard in an effort to rise above that stigma.

However, in my personal opinion, (and your mileage may vary), there are some things that are just too much nitpicking.

I’ve heard even among some indies the view that you must hire a professional to lay out your interior with a page layout program like InDesign. Such programs can be great, and no doubt, utilized by a skilled professional, they produce lovely-looking books. But if you have straight text only, like a novel, or narrative-form nonfiction book, you just don’t need something super fancy.

Most NY-pubbed books are phoning it in on interior design. Many don’t even use drop caps or any fancy schmancy design features. Though most of those features, including drop caps, you can actually accomplish using Word or Open Office.

And I will say that I never once noticed the interior layout of a single book until I decided to go indie. Not one. I just read. I didn’t care. I wasn’t looking for drop caps and special chapter heading fonts.

I did the page layout for my upcoming print release myself using Open Office. And having stared and stared and stared in the anal retentive Type A way that I do, at my interior layout alongside the interior layout of several NY-pubbed books… I just can’t see a difference.

This could be a problem with me, but generally speaking I have a good eye for design. Good enough to know my novella covers that I designed LOOK like I designed them. I have no illusions about my decidedly non-mad ninja skillz in cover art design.

But if I can look at my interior and NY pub interiors and not see a difference, then what are the odds any readers will see it? Fairly slim.

I’m very sure a typesetting professional who has years of experience designing books using page layout programs like InDesign, could look at my book and tell instantly that A. I did it myself and B. I used Open Office or Word.

And good for them. But I don’t care.

Why not? Because I’m not writing for typesetters. That’s not my audience. The difference in quality and professionalism between a good page layout done in Open Office and one done in InDesign, is about the same as the difference in print quality between print-on-demand using Lightning Source, and offset printing.

I’ve known indies who absolutely insist on paying hundreds, and sometimes thousands of dollars for a professional to design an interior for them in InDesign because they’ve got “something to prove.”

I would venture to say that most small presses (not talking self-publishing here) do NOT use InDesign unless they have someone in house who both already has a copy of the expensive software, and knows how to use it. (There is a very steep learning curve to most page layout programs.)

The reason I say this is just basic math. The average small press book is said to sell between 500 and 3,000 copies. If you’re paying over a thousand dollars for page layout, and then paying for editing, and for cover art, you’re eating up your entire potential profit margin before you’re out of the gate. The numbers just don’t add up. Small presses have to think small. They have to be able to operate on a shoestring. (And if you can get a pro to do interior layout for you in InDesign for an affordable price that won’t hurt your bottom line, hey, have at it.)

So many people want to create these huge barriers to putting out a quality professional book by insisting you “must” do this and you “can’t” do that. The only thing that matters is that what you do doesn’t harm your sales, and doesn’t turn off readers. If you’re getting beyond that, trying to impress publishing industry professionals, or super-specialized groups like typesetters, you’ve lost the plot, and probably your profit margin.

I’ve also seen indies do this with offset printing. They can’t “stand” the idea of a print-on-demand book, because in their opinion the quality of offset is SO much different from the quality of print-on-demand. (We’re talking paper, ink, and binding here. Design is a whole other issue totally unrelated to printing method).

Can I tell the difference in quality when I look at it? Barely. (If you have photos, there is a much bigger quality difference, but not when we’re just talking words on paper.) Can a publishing professional tell the difference? Oh, definitely they can. Can your readers? Not unless they are publishing and printing professionals.

Who is your audience? Who are you trying to impress? And is impressing them worth spending thousands of dollars on things you don’t really need but want to have to be “professional.” In my opinion this is right up there with buying an expensive fax machine and office chair for your home office, when no one will ever see it.

Spend your money where it matters and where readers will SEE it. Cover art, definitely something where readers can generally tell if the cover sucks or not. Editing is another such area. But think carefully before you do something or pay for something “just because a big NY publisher is doing it.”

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