A Toast to Indies

Sometimes it takes years to finally get the last laugh. But somehow that makes it almost sweeter, knowing that you patiently waited for someone—or, in this case, an entire industry—to catch on to something you knew all along. I’m sure you’ve experienced it at least once in your own world.

For me, it’s not so much a laugh as just a satisfied smirk.

Nearly 20 years ago, I published my first book. It was the start of an action/adventure series for middle school and high school readers, although ultimately the series was enjoyed by plenty of adults, too.

But I published the first three books in that series independently. That means I not only wrote them, but I laid out the interiors, hired a cover designer, arranged for printing and distribution—pretty much slaved over every single aspect, including sales and marketing.

A few people were doing this in 2004, but not many. Why? Well, for one thing, because it was damned hard. There was nothing like the technology we use today. There were no apps or software programs designed exclusively for book publishing. You had to learn all sorts of programs yourself and manage the entire business side, too. It could be hell. Let’s just say you really had to be committed.

But that’s not the only reason there were so few of us. The harsh truth is that, at the time,“self-published” authors were scorned by the rest of the industry. And I’m not exaggerating. If you weren’t published by one of the big players in New York or London, you were considered a worthless hack.

I didn’t care. I worked hard on the books, which not only sold reasonably well, but also won multiple awards. I put up with the sneers of the publishing elite. Sometimes they were downright rude.

I’ll never forget the message I got from the book editor of a major daily newspaper. She practically laughed me off the phone when I asked if she’d please review my book that had just won the International Grand Prize from Writer’s Digest magazine. I mean, that had to be worth something.

“Oh, no, we don’t review self-published books.” And her emphasis on the term made it sound like the books came in a plastic sack filled with vomit. She dismissed me like I was an affront to the industry, and shoo’d me off the phone.

In 2007, my books were picked up by Tor/Forge, a major publisher in New York. They signed me to a six-book contract, which I guess gave me some sort of legitimacy after a few years as an indie. But when I spoke at conferences, all of the other authors on the panels still treated me differently when they found out I began on the indie side. I was the poor creature who’d been allowed to sit at the adults’ table but would never be welcomed into their inner circle.

It was both perplexing and aggravating. I enjoyed my deal with Tor, but I also kept independently publishing other books.

Well, a funny thing happened. By around 2013, the indie world began picking up steam. Several indie authors burst onto the scene and sold more than a million copies of their work. The international publishing world began to grow very uncomfortable. How could this be happening? Didn’t people know that indie writers were peddling crap?

Around the same time, that book editor at the newspaper was out of work. The world had changed and newspapers were either slashing their workforce or closing altogether. And—no lie—the last time I encountered her, she was asked to speak with me on a panel about . . . independent publishing.

I gotta be honest; I got a tiny bit of satisfaction out of that panel.

Now, in the last couple of weeks, a major superstar in the publishing world made headlines for launching a Kickstarter campaign that raised millions of dollars so he could—wait for it—INDEPENDENTLY PUBLISH a series of books.

This same superstar sat beside me at a couple of panels back in 2009 when the world grimaced at poor slobs like me who sullied the publishing world by doing things independently. Today, the movement has cachet and everybody who mocked indie writers in the early days of the century suddenly has developed amnesia about their ‘tudes back then.

It’s been 19 years since I began on my indie path. Since then I’ve published six books with the biggies in New York and I’ve published another 19 independently. I’ve walked in both worlds, but feel like I have the same independent spirit today that prompted me to roll up my sleeves and tackle all the work in the early 2000s.

Indie writers who jump in today have no idea what we went through, and I’m not just talking about the challenges with tech. Sure, today you can pop out a few thousand words on a laptop or your phone and have it on sale at major online retailers within a day. Incredible.

The technology, however, isn’t the only thing that has changed. Now everyone who shunned indie writing and publishing is suddenly embracing it, and—in a somewhat disgusting twist—is acting like they’ve always admired indies.

They didn’t. They barely spoke to us, and they wrote volumes on how wretched we were.

So allow me to say cheers to all my fellow independent writers and publishers who’ve been around for at least the last 15 years. You, too, have paid your dues and, finally, get the last laugh. Yes, now we can sit at the adults’ table.

Oh, wait, I’ve got that backwards. They’re sitting at OUR table.

If you want to support the independent spirit, buying an indie author a tea or beer is a delightful way to do it. You can buy one for Dom right here. And cheers to you.