Hi there,
To follow up from last time's why I chose indie publishing initially, here are my top reasons for why I love indie publishing after a decade in the biz.
1. The control
Remember how I said that one of my personality traits is discipline/control?
Yup, indie publishing feeds right into that.
It feels like whether a book or series succeeds or fails1 is all in my control.
Of course, that isn't 100% true. Whether a book or series resonates with a large enough audience to sustain its author has at least some amount of luck to it (i.e. the whole "right place, right time" aspect + the difference between objectively good and subjectively good, see Russell Nohelty's excellent article on this).
But it is totally within my control to give my books the best chance they can to be successful, which I love. If my books fail1, it won't be because I (or their publishing company) didn't try hard enough.
2. Writing the next book isn't my sole job
I am so not a binge writer. If you locked me in a room and said "Write for the next eight, nine, ten hours or else," we would not be friends.
In fact, my ideal writing schedule is probably something like writing for three-to-four hours a day2, five days a week, probably for something like forty-seven-ish weeks out of the year.
And then doing other publishing-related jobs with the rest of my work time!
3. The endless opportunities to learn and experiment with new things
Hey, look, it's another one of my personality traits!
I love learning new things, and indie publishing is full of new things to learn, now more than ever.
Does this sometimes result in me having way too long of a list of things to learn?
Or perhaps in me having a spreadsheet listing and categorizing all these items that has trouble loading because it's packed with too many things to learn and/or to try/experiment with?
Absolutely.
Do I love it anyway?
Absolutely.
4. The ability to decide when "good enough" is good enough
One of the things that irked me most about my former biomedical engineering career was the inability to do what I felt was a good job on my projects.
Here's an example conversation that happened to me over and over (excluding any details):
- Me: Okay, I'm just about done with this project. Just a few loose ends to tie up.
- My lead*: Looks good to me. Let's ship it!
- Me: But wait, what about this thing? And this other thing?
- My lead: We don't have time for any of that. It's good enough.
- Me: ☹️
*Manager, team lead, project lead, etc.
Now, I'm not saying that my lead was necessarily wrong, that whatever I was working on wasn't good enough to ship.
But it wasn't good enough for my scientist brain. I hadn't completely, 100% solved the problem yet!
As an independent author, I get to completely, 100% solve the problems myself!
Of course, as an Enneagram Type 1, I have to be on guard against my perfectionist nature going a little too hard on the whole "'good enough' isn't good enough" thing.
But (a) it is a battle I'm more than willing to fight and (b) it is a joy to get to have this battle with myself. At least I'm the one choosing when good enough is good enough.
And sure, some of my work may always be in the zone of diminishing returns because of who I am as a person and therefore pretty much all things may take a little longer than absolutely necessary.
But they'll also be (at least) a little better than absolutely necessary, which brings me joy.
I'm sure there are other reasons I love being an indie author too, such as being more direct with readers and fans, working hours I choose from locations I choose, being my own boss, etc, but these are the ones that came to mind first.
Happy reading as always,
Betsy
The epic list of side notes and digressions3:
- I don't really mean fail here. In general, I'm careful with how I use that word, mostly because of the point above, that a book can be objectively well-written but it still may not find its readers and/or enough of its readers may not exist. So for me, in general, I succeed whenever I finish a book that meets my internal standards. And then I succeed again when a book is launched according to my standards. And then again when it does post-launch promotions, etc. As long as I do things to the best of my ability at the time, nothing fails, regardless of the actual money it makes or does not make. (Now, whether to continue promoting or working on a book or series that's not making money is another question. But I don't consider a book or marketing activity "failed" simply because it didn't make (enough) money.)
- As a slower writer, I do try to push this to four-to-five hours a day, and sometimes even more than five hours if I can manage it. (Which I usually can earlier in the week.)
- Hey, this "epic" list is getting smaller! Maybe I'll stop digressing in the future? (Doubt it though, lol.)
2 comments
Hahaha. Well, the desire for sweet freedom and control is a blessing and a curse. 🤷♀️ But hey, we can’t control how our brains are wired, so we might as well try to work with them as much as we can.
Your like your mother when it comes to self publishing. compliment or criticism ??