Indie Pride Day

Have you read an indie book lately? If you haven’t, why not?

You’ll probably give me one of the of the following reasons why you haven’t delved into the world of indies:

“I can’t find a book/author that I like enough to buy.”

What?! There are over 4 million titles on Amazon. 45% of those are indie books. (Thanks, Author Earnings Report.)

Recently, I’ve read a story about a girl who gets trapped in a world of giants, one about a town’s women getting kidnapped and left to die in a pool of ice, a historical romance about two people who raised to hate each other but fell in love anyway, and several non-fiction that range from people’s perspective on the world, to nutrition, to writing and marketing. Once (before I was an author) I read an indie book and didn’t even know it!

If the “buying” is your problem, then search for free books. Hundreds of indie authors give away ebooks for free throughout the year. In fact, I’m giving away Beasts and Savages to anyone who signs up for my mailing list. (Which you can do here.)

 

“I only read print books.”

And? I read indie print books. There are thousands out there and I also publish my books in print. Here’s a suitcase full of my first book in paperback:

“Indie books are nothing more than terribly written stories full of typos.”

I think this one is the most uninformed and unintelligent “status quo” statements I’ve ever heard.Sure, there are self-pubbed authors who really have no idea and hit the publish button a little too soon. And ones with thin skin probably never publish another book. The remaining indie authors learn from their mistakes, and fix them, too. I’m one of the latter. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve updated my first book, and my second is on its third go-round with an editor. I’ve even gone so far as to list the editors on my Amazon page and in the copyright info. Why? Because one typo in my story means someone, somewhere will scream, “This is why I don’t read indie!”

But aren’t there terrible books from trad-publishing? These photos say there are:

 

James Patterson’s book has a 2.3-star rating on Amazon, and that last photo is making fun of Fifty Shades, just in case you didn’t know.

As for typos and formatting errors, they can happen in any book. I think it’s all about perception. Take this picture from Ally Condie’s Matched:

Is that space and lack of indentation supposed to be there? I’m sure someone will say, “It’s only the style of content break the publisher chose to use.” Okay, maybe it is. I really don’t know. BUT, what would happen if I chose to use the same style in my self-published work? At least three someones would be crying, “Poor formatting! This is why I don’t read indies!”

Now that I’ve proven that “reasons” are really “excuses” for not reading indie, are you going to give an indie book a chance? Or are you going to continue to let “The Man” tell you what to read?