I am lucky enough to have 20-odd years of business experience behind me. My writing is a business, and I have treated it that way since I typed the first word of that rubbish first manuscript.
It’s my business background that allowed me to see the advantages indie publishing has over the old traditional publishing business model.
It’s my business background that allowed me to filter out the noise, to see past the conflicting and often detrimental advice spouted by various gurus, and dig into the actual data to find what works.
It’s these business skills I want to teach you.
My motivation in creating this book was to help writers like you see independent publishing for the incredible opportunity it is. I want to show you how to take those first few steps down the road to building a successful writing business on your terms—whether it is your goal to have a side hustle that pays a few bills or to generate a full-time income as an author.
There are no quick fixes, though.
I remember an interview with a sportswoman I watched years ago. The interviewer was touting the sportswoman as the latest overnight success. You could see the interview frustrated the athlete because it took her 12 years of hard graft and sacrifices to become an “overnight” success.
There is nothing overnight about building a successful career as an author. Treating your publishing career as a business also helps to remind you that, like all entrepreneurs, you’re in this for the long haul.
In 2018, my books were earning enough for me to quit the corporate world to write full time for a while. During this time, I was asked to teach self-publishing to a group of authors at my local writers’ center.
I was more than happy to oblige and created a simple workshop outlining the self-publishing tools and techniques I used to succeed.
The feedback from the group was amazing. My students had seen nothing like it before:
- The “gurus” were teaching marketing; I was teaching business fundamentals for authors.
- My students were posting and tweeting themselves into exhaustion; I freed myself from the treadmill with no Instagram, no Pinterest, not a single tweet, and only occasional Facebook posts.
- They felt they had no time to write; I wrote and self-published three books while still working full time.
- They were launching to crickets; I launched at #1 in my categories on Amazon.
Without intending to, I had bypassed 99% of the crap online and created a self-publishing model authors believed could work for them.
The only complaint participants had was there was no time to dig deep into the business principles and the technical how-to of my self-publishing system. What authors needed was a complete resource that helped them set up their own automated self-publishing system to free them to do what they loved—write.
So, I wrote this book—a complete resource that shows you exactly how I put together an automated self-publishing business, which also left me with plenty of time to write.
Who You Are
This book is for authors who have worked at their craft and are professional enough to have got relevant and quality feedback. You are the kind of person who knows their stuff is good, but the barriers and bureaucracy of the traditional publishing world frustrate you.
This book teaches you how to build a successful independent publishing business. It does not teach you how to write.
To get the most out of the book, you should meet most of the following criteria:
- You can write a good book, either fiction or non-fiction. I will not teach any writing craft in this book. I expect you to have mastered the craft of writing to the point where you can create a quality manuscript.
- You have at least one book ready for publication or be close. Already published is also good, but if you are traditionally published, you need a book or books where you have full publishing rights. If you have a book nearly ready and are struggling to find a good editor, cover design, formatting for print and digital and other services, that’s OK. The book has a chapter on finding and hiring professionals at competitive rates.
- You write books in a genre that sells. It is hard news for some, but it’s a truism that a successful book comes in the area where what you like to write overlaps commercial reality. In saying that, anything is possible in modern publishing because you can reach niches traditional publishing has never touched. For example, I came across an article about an author making a good living writing Amish thrillers.
- You want to make money from your writing. This doesn’t have to be a full-time income. You don’t have to want to make a career of your writing to get value from the book. You may want to pay down the mortgage faster, or take a yearly holiday, or spend more on your hobbies. It doesn’t matter what your goals are—as long as you have some financial goals. We will talk more about setting goals later in the book.
- I expect you understand there is no “get rich quick”. Independent publishing is a business, and business is hard. You understand you have to work at it, and often for years, to be successful.
- Finally, you’re willing to set aside your preconceived beliefs about what it takes to be a successful author. You may find some ideas in this book challenging. This is a good thing—change is good! You already know what you have been doing doesn’t work; otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this.
What is Indie Publishing?
Before we get started, it helps to define what independent, or indie, publishing is. At the highest level, indie publishing and self-publishing are the same. However, I want you to differentiate in your mind between indie publishing and self-publishing. I want you to think of indie publishing as self-publishing for professionals.
Indies are Professional Self-publishers
Let’s face it, self-publishing still gets a fair bit of bad press. Much of the bad press now is a last-gasp effort by traditional publishers to prop up their failing business model by disparaging the new reality of publishing.
Sadly, there are also plenty of authors willing to write self-publishing off as the domain of amateurs. None of them will ever read this book, though, so you can ignore them. I know I do.
While it is true nothing is stopping Uncle Mike from self-publishing his 600-page memoir about watching paint dry, Uncle Mike is not a professional, and his memoir will disappear along with all the other dross.
I talk a lot about mindsets in this book. What often holds writers back is not a lack of ability, but negative mindsets and assumptions that stop them from making progress. One of these negative mindsets is that self-publishing is a less legitimate way to get your books in front of readers.
So, let’s remove the negative baggage and call ourselves independent, or indie, publishers.
We’re all professionals here, after all.
There is no “Self” in Indie Publishing
There is also a practical aspect to this—there is no “self” in indie publishing. To be successful in your indie publishing business, you will, at some stage, need to hire:
- Editors
- Cover Designers
- Typesetters/eBook designers
- Web Designers
- Marketing Consultants
- An accountant and maybe a lawyer
When you first start out, you will do many of these things yourself. As your business grows, however, it’s better to outsource these tasks so you can concentrate on your core business (i.e., writing more books). Outsourcing is how small business owners in every industry build their businesses and is normal.
It’s an Online Business
Indie publishing is an online business. While this might seem obvious when you see the high number of eBooks sold each year, most print book sales are also online. Amazon dominates this space, selling more than half of all print books sold each year.
I don’t cover brick-and-mortar bookstores in this book. While they still make up a substantial part of global book sales, they are irrelevant for a successful indie publishing career.
As long as you put your books into expanded distribution (I will show you how to do this later in the book), independent bookstores will always be able to buy and stock your books.
If you want to see your books in chain stores or end caps at the airport, you get a traditional publisher to do it for you.
It’s Big Business
Indie publishing generates over a billion dollars a year for authors. Amazon alone pays out over $500 million a year in royalties. Indies also generate over a third of all eBook sales.
Indies’ market share will continue to grow. While the global publishing market is growing at roughly 1% annually, the indie publishing market is growing at 17%.
You Control Your Career
The critical characteristic of indie publishing is that you are in control:
- You choose what type of career you want, what sort of money you want, and how much or how little you promote your work.
- You can write a lot, or you can write a little.
- You choose who gets to see your work and in what format.
- You decide what you’re willing to give up and what you expect in return.
- You choose if you want to use a traditional publisher and on what terms.