Why Indie?

I’m asked a lot which is the best way to publish. Indie? Or traditional? Also, why did I choose indie after experiencing some success with traditional?

To answer that question we need to go back a few years. I’ll sum up the beginning of my career quickly. My goal has always been to sign with an agent and publish with one of the Big Five. Big Five, meaning the big publishing houses. My next goal after that was to hit a best seller list, then after that, have my books stocked in Barnes & Noble, Walmart, and Target.

I signed with my agent a few years after I started writing and she secured me a deal with Random House (at the time it was just Random House. Now it’s Penguin Random House). I had some success with Random House’s ebook imprint. I hit the USA Today bestseller list with The Reluctant Duchess. Two goals achieved. I have yet to achieve the Barnes & Noble/Walmart/Target goal. Yet. It’s still very much a goal.

After years of writing for Random House, they closed their ebook imprint line and I moved to Entangled Publishing. I had some success there was well but at that point I was beyond burnt out. I was writing three books at a time. One book was in final editing stages, another was in the actual writing stage, and another was in the plotting stage. Plus the marketing that went along with all the books.

I crashed and burned bad and told my agent I needed to take a year off. A year turned into three years.

When I started writing again, I switched genres into women’s fiction/suspense/mystery/with a touch of romance. Yeah, I kinda created my own genre. When I pitched it to my agent she kindly turned it down and said there was no market for books set in 1920s Prohibition.

Not gonna lie. I took a week and cried that whole week. I thought I was coming back with something amazing, only to be told it wasn’t amazing. This business is not for the faint of heart. Believe me.

But my dreams won’t go away and if you know me, you know I’m determined. I allowed myself a week, then dusted my a&& off and started looking into indie publishing. I decided that was the route I was going to take. It was a huge learning curve but within a year I published all three books under my own name and my own steam.

This is what I learned:

Indie publishing is way harder than traditional. Yes, you have to query agents, then publishers, and it can take years for your book to get published but when it does happen you have a team behind you. Your agent goes to bat for you. The editor steers your story in the right direction and toward market. You have an entire marketing team promoting your book. Also, the entire cost of publishing is on the publisher. The author doesn’t pay a cent. You just wait for the money to roll in.

So why indie, you might ask?

Let’s break the cost down for a traditionally published book. Say an ebook sells for $5.00. An author gets 25% of that, so $1.25 per book. You have to pay your agent 15%, so now you’re down to $1.06 per book. Then comes Uncle Sam with his hand out. He takes a mighty 30% out of that. You have now made $.75 per book.

Now for an indie book. Let’s use the same ebook at $5.00 per book. If you’re selling through Amazon, you get 70% of the cost, so $3.50. Uncle Same still gets his 30% so now we’re at $2.45 per book.

However, as an indie author the entire cost of publication falls on you. Editing isn’t cheap. Each of my Promise books cost $1500.00 to edit. Formatting and cover design was $650 each book. If you don’t have a backlist to provide the income for this cost, you’re in the hole by thousands before you even hit publish on your first book. I just barely managed to make a profit by the skin of my teeth and only because I have a backlist that’s helping fund this endeavor.

I learned a lot self publishing those three books. Enough that I purchased editing, formatting, and cover design software so I could cut out the cost of the middleman. 2000 Promises was 100% produced by me so there were no up front costs. However, if you’re new to this and especially a new author, I recommend hiring professionals until you feel comfortable doing it on your own.

Will I go back to traditionally published?

I’m not ruling it out. Never say never, as the saying goes. But it would take a lot for me to go back because as a traditionally published author you have very little say in the production of your book once you sign that contract. You can recommend, but you can also be overruled.

I like having complete autonomy.

So that’s it. That’s my journey to indie publishing. If you have questions, leave them in the comments and I’ll answer.