When I set out to release Curveball at the Crossroads to the masses way back in 2013, when the book was 95% finished, I originally looked for a publisher. From 2013 to 2015, I emailed several dozen agents and publishers. I received a few rejection letters and a lot of ghosting.
After re-writing the ending and adding additional scenes to the novel in 2020, I perused publishing again. The less said about Gabriel Vaughn and Legacy Book Publishing the better. Not a good experience.
That led me to self-publishing. Following a few years of my own hustle, I learned I am referred to as an “Indie Author” and that this is a badge to be worn proudly. I am proud of my work regardless, but people say I should be proud to be an indie author, so here I am. I own all my own rights, negotiate all my own deals, and make all my own profit. Income is split between me and my distributor, be it Ingram or Amazon.
There are downsides to being an indie author. All of the marketing, hustle, and promotion is on me. Spreading the word is tough. Social media has not been a magic panacea as it is for other authors. I have less than 1,000 followers on tiktok and Instagram and less than 2,000 on twitter. I get it. My book is not in a tik-tok friendly genre. Despite booktok’s overwhelming legendary clout, it’s not for everyone. I’m there, but it’s not a gamechanger.
I’ve done what I can to get positive feedback. I’ve done morning television, newspaper write-ups, and given away dozens of free books to get reviews from people I think might influence my demographic. Those who have replied have liked the book, which is a good thing. Good reviews help me stand out.
Standing out is important when it comes to attracting other book reviewers. They look for what’s trending, what’s hot, and what’s popping. From what I have seen, they rarely take a chance on random indie books. There is a stereotype that indie equals less than. Indie authors have to have an even bigger buzz than traditional releases to be reviewer, which is even more difficult given indie book’s lack of marketing machine.
It’s unfortunately a battle indie authors rarely win and therein lies the problem. If a reviewer dismisses indie authors because the authors haven’t gone through the traditional publishing process, they are doing their readers a disservice. Plain and simple.
The other day, I read a substack column by Summer Brennan, a writer and book reviewer. I don’t know Summer at all. I’ve never read her books and until Substack recommended her article to me, I had never heard of her. Apparently she has 23,000 followers, but it was her content that got my attention, not her follower count. In the giant, massive, enormous slush pile that is online content, I took the time to read her post because it caught my interest. I didn’t gatekeep.
What Summer said bothered me a bit.
“The problem with trying to put self-published books on my reviewing radar is that I have no idea how to find the good ones in an expedient manner. This concern is not new. Doing so would take far too much time. The world of self-published books is, essentially, one enormous slush pile—perhaps the world’s largest and slushiest—and I don’t have interns who can take the time to look for those inevitable, rare gems—nor do I think it economical to do so.”
When it comes to indie novels, all reviewers have to do is check the ratings. If 25 ratings is enough, then my book makes the cut. If 50 or 250 is the minimum, then I don’t make the cut. But never fear, Bookweb.org, Indiebound.org, Indiebookspotlight, and Kirkus have websites dedicated to top indie books. Even Amazon has a Top Indie Books ranking. I found all that with a quick, two-minute DuckDuckGo search. DuckDuckGo is your friend. But if two minutes is far too much time, so be it. Some people are busy.
Imagine writing a list of the top movies of 2025 and not listing any indie movies. Imagine your list only consisted of the top five film studios – Disney, Warner Brothers, Sony, Universal, and Paramount. Imagine writing a list of the top rock bands of 2025 and not including any indie rock bands. Imagine writing a list of the top professional wrestlers in the world and your list was only wrestlers in WWE and AEW. Those reviewers would be laughed out of the building. They would have no credibility because they didn’t do their homework. I know reading a book takes more time than watching a movie, listening to a song, or watching a wrestling match, but I expect credible reviewers to do their homework.
There are a lot of indie musicians, indie movie makers, and indie wrestlers who make a good living. There are also a lot of indie authors who do as well. They are goals. I like being an indie author. If I want to release an unprofessional book, I can. If I want to release a book that can go toe-to-toe with anything on the New York Times Bestseller list, I can do that too. I can release a mixtape. I can release a double album. I can be like Lil Wayne and release a chapter every Monday for a year. As an indie author, I can do whatever I want. Gatekeepers be damned.
And as for the critics that might not like that, to paraphrase the Adam Sandler classic Big Daddy, “Indie authors only caught a bad rap because most critics are cynical assholes.”
