Most of what my Substack has been thus far is a mirror of my traditional newsletter.
I’m not sure it’ll stay that way. In a way, my newsletter is just my newsletter. It’s for readers to catch up on my news and updates, get books deals and whatever else. If that seems like a better fit for you, https://dvewlsh.com/maillist is a great place for you to sign up for that. There will be 100% less industry talk in there.
Anyway.
I’m done for now. I’m just done. Cracked Palace is with my editor, and once it’s back to me and I’m able to get everything all ready for the pre-order (including a date lol), I’m done. What that means, I’m not entirely sure of.
The last six years I’ve hung around indie publishing spaces and the reality bought and sold as a commodity in those spaces is not the reality I have seen or experienced. It’s an aspirational place where folks with tons of disposable money to buy their way to the top, then attempt to package that success into books, classes, lectures and whatever else to sell to the poor sods at the bottom of the heap.
Most authors make shit money. Just nothing. Don’t trust me with this, trust Written Word Media, who run Freebooksy/BargainBooksy and run an annual survey of authors.
I’m in one of those upper tiers. I have been for a while. Guess what, though? It’s still exhausting.
No matter what advice gets bandied about, there are simple truths in indie publishing. Here they are.
Write a lot of books.
Write in a genre that sells indie books.
That’s it. This may feel small and “no duh,” but that’s all there is to it. Yes, you should probably try to make the books somewhat good. You should probably have nice covers made and have a decent blurb and keywords and all that jazz. But really, those are the only two constants.
Yes, I understand there will be plenty of successful authors who balk at all of this. They’ll make some sort of face and say, “this person is just bitter or jealous.” I’ve seen what it takes to be successful. Hell, I’ve done a lot of it, and when it comes down to it, continuing on this path for me would be a ruinous one.
Be an island and business unto yourself. Be a content factory churning out endless slop. Bow to the will of what people are consuming now. There’s no collective bargaining for indie authors. Instead, the top tier authors have their security and will continue to push practices that keep them topping the charts. If authors wanted to help each other, we wouldn’t be living in this weird isolation, dog-eat-dog market.
Not all authors feel this way. Some are happy to be hobbyists, while others truly love the genres that sell for indies. For those folks, I’m happy. I’m glad you’ve found a great, supportive industry.
Me? I’m tired of hearing about the “freedom” afforded by indie publishing when all I see is a reflection of what traditional publishing does. Yes, anyone can indie publish, but pushing publish on Amazon for a book to be released into the void is the reality most newer indie published authors face.
But for most people? Publishing is so very broken. At least the big merger died on the vine, right?
Surely there must be a better way forward, right?
I need a fucking break. Maybe a really long one. At least from indie publishing and the endless parade of gurus who will these spaces with hopes and dreams, but leave the reality to the fine print.
There’s so much to writing and creating art that the world needs right now, and to me, writing more straightforward genre books like I’ve been doing isn’t that right now. So, are you with me, or what?
Time to get weird and potentially make people mad.