At first I was like, I don’t—I really don’t love Indie!

*yanks off Indie badge*

Hold the phone and listen. I’m saying not especially more than the other. For me. Each book has a journey.

The reasons I don’t fully bunnies and rainbows love it are many and easy to detect by the bags under my eyes. So much self-promotion and so much work. I’m not saying other traditional authors don’t work but this is my less-than-green grass side to complain about so there you have it.

However, for this post I’ve decided to count my blessings and water my Indie grass so to speak!

#1 The Visual Arts

Oh yes. This is spot NUMBER ONE! My covers are hugely-hugely-HUGELY important to me and (cough cough) (plug The Book-Design Guy) has made it incredibly enjoyable.

Let me break it down just a tad:

We do a color scheme that mentally meshes with my “world.”

We pull our hair out a bit at ideas that won’t work.

Usually ending up with a terrible and cluttered mock up (because of me).

He forces me to decide what is MOST important to convey while I basically cry a lot and eat cookies and hand it over to the expert like I should have all along.

And then I get to watch this baby be born.

*(And just an FYI Gods of Anthem has a cover I love so much I want to sleep with it at night. THIS is the type of inspiration that keeps me going. It’s gas in the tank.)

(cough cough) Join the party to see it released on January 3^rd (PARTY HERE)

#2 The Blurbage

Oh yes. This is spot NUMBER TWO! My blurbs. They are the lifeblood of my story and I want them so unbelievable people ask me, “This is for YOUR BOOK? YOURS?????” They can’t believe it.

Logan’s blurb is…majestic…

I’ve seen my poor traditional’s stuck with some weirdly patched together blurbs. (shudder) I stay awake at night with a knife under my pillow just imagining this scenario.

I worked on my current blurb for about…a year. So yeah. It’s mine and I don’t want any suit touching it. (pulls knife)

#3 The Other Indies

What? “Don’t get soft on me, Logan.” SHhhhhhh. Indies have their own culture. A lot of time ( I won’t lie ) It’s annoying! The “buy my book” chants are a dull roar in indie town and yes, that can be somewhat irritating, BUT you also hear the call of the wild, independence, the Bravehearts of writing, the raw novelists who don’t have anything holding them, they won’t be PC or even Disney, the warriors that bear the scars of indebtedness, the starving artists with their own tale of woe. And who am I to discourage that type of muse? It makes for great things. As for me and my house, we know to have a dream realized you must first lose a few….so GO INDIE!

#4 You. Did. It.

You had lots and lots of help if you are smart. You rely on a village if you are wise. But the truth is, at the end of the day, YOU were in charge. YOU CONQUERED that mountain thrusting your pointy ended pen into it again and again, forcing it into submission and you were a mini-god for a day. You killed it and then rose it back from the grave just to kill it again. And BY all that IS HOLY YOU ARE KING!

#5 It’s Your Money (mostly)

This is important too. You have to support yourself in this game somehow. They don’t give away laptops at Best Buy in an effort to help with the flooding and saturation of Young Adult markets or offer you free kindles so you can read and stay sharp. No. You have to pay the bills like the rest of us poor shlubs writing their entry level novels. You really aren’t making bank right off bat. BUT going Indie you get a bigger piece of the pie when you DO sell. When you do “make it” the cash is in hand more quickly. So there. In your face big FIVE OR FOUR or whatever number they are at in this sad economy.

My slice is bigger with Indie. That’s good for me. Very good.

I like pie.

_____

So there you have it! Part one of the #indiebooksbeseen Blog hop! Check out Ten Things that Suck (and Rock!) about being Indie (part one)

Part two drops on Monday Dec 15th!

XOXO

L