How Not to React to a Review

As an Indie author, reviews are the key to your success.  Since none of us have the marketing budget of the large publishing firms (neither do they anymore), we rely on book bloggers to help spread the word about our books.  What we have to remember is that these bloggers are not obligated to give us glowing reviews.


We slave for months, sometimes years, crafting the perfect story into the perfect novel.  We want the world to fall in love with the characters that we have spent so much time creating.  This novel is an expression in some way of how we see the world.  This makes it art.

The hard part for some of us to remember is that while we see our novel as art, the truth is, our novel is a product.  It is a product to be sold and we ourselves are a brand to represent that product.  Nothing will destroy a career faster than you, the brand, behaving unprofessional to those that have done you the kindness of reviewing your work.

For an example of how not to react, check out Big Al's Books and Pals.  The reviewer was fair and professional in his review, but the author....Well judge for yourself....

An Interesting Note About NYT

I was just reading one of my favorite publishing blogs, A Newbie's Guide to Publishing.  This is a great blog from author JA Konrath and it should be required reading for every writer.  Anyway, he notes that one of his books is outselling the New York Times, but yet he never hits the New York Bestseller List.  You won't find Amanda Hocking on there either.  Why?  The New York Times doesn't list Indie authors on their bestseller list.

Now if that is their policy, fine, but it is still amusing that Indie authors are outselling the paper itself.  Take a few moments to read the blog.

10 Reasons It's Great To Be An Indie Author

Being an author is great, but being an indie author is a whole different ball game.  Here are 10 reasons why it's great to be an indie author.


10.  You can tap into hot markets while they are still hot!  Being an indie author means that you can release your book faster and take advantages of the ever changing popularity of different genres.


9.  Indie authors have more creative control over cover design.  As an indie author, your book can be presented exactly as you pictured it.  Do yourself a favor and study other covers in your selected category.

8.  Indie authors have control over the pricing of their novels.  As e-readers and POD books become the industry standard, indie authors are ahead of the game by pricing their work competitively against traditionally published books.

7.  You can make money from unpublished novels wasting away in your desk drawer.  Put those stories to work for you by uploading them to your favorite e-reader distributer!

6.  There are no deadlines!  You can work as fast or as slow as you want!

5.  You can be as creative as you want with marketing!  As an indie author, you can host your own contests and giveaways to promote your work!

4.  Indie authors are being recognized with the same artistic admiration that in the past was saved for indie film makers.  Enjoy the artistic title and show your unique personality no and then to keep people on their toes.

3.  As an indie author, you don't have to wait for a good book to come out, you can write one yourself.

2.  If you weren't a writer, then those characters making all that noise in your head would just be voices.  How creepy would that be?

1.  Being an indie author gives you the ability to enjoy creative freedom at its best.  Be proud of your indie status!


I'd love to hear your ideas on your favorite part of being an indie author!

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.