Dana Michelle Burnett's Books on Amazon.com

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Welcome to the Indie Author Guide!

I've started this blog to share my experiences as an indie author. I'm not one of the overnight success stories, but I haven't done bad.  I'm just starting my journey into life as a published author and decided to write about my experiences on this blog.  It will be much more casual than my professional blog http://www.danamichelleburnett.com/blog.html

So, how did I come up with the blog name?  Well, I like the term "indie author".  I'm not against "indie publisher" or even "Kindle author", but I guess it's just me, but I like to avoid the term "self published author".  There is a whole image that goes with that term that doesn't even fit into the modern world of publishing, but it's still there.

I released my first Kindle book in November 2010.  I had no previous book deals.  The most work I had done was in a few literary magazines.  Though I am extremely proud of that work, it wasn't going to pay any bills.  I wrote and published a few short stories up until I took over the family home decor business NanasAtticStore.com.  At that point, I pretty much kissed writing good-bye.

I distracted myself with learning about decorating for a few years, then the nuts and bolts of running a business, and finally internet promotion.  That's when writing came back into my life.  To promote the home decor site, I submitted articles to article directories.  Bit by bit, my business (and me), gained a following based on my home decorating articles.  One customer sent me an e-mail stating that she wished there was a book with all of my articles.  The light bulb went off.

After a little bit of research, I discovered the Kindle platform and Createspace.  After some small success with Home Decorating for the Real World, I decided to dust off some of those stories gathering dust in the back of my filing cabinet.  It was fun to revisit characters and fine tune the stories after so much time.

That pretty much brings us up to date.  I released my first fiction novel Ghost Country in December.  I'm still in the trial and error process of book promotion while still working on developing more stories.  It struck me one day that this is the life of the modern writer.  Gone are standard publishing contracts and the old way of thinking.  A writer today has to be not only the creator of excellent stories, but a cut throat editor, cover designer, marketer, and business person.  Ahh, the life of the indie author.

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