Snobbery against Indie Writers

Let me get this out of the way right now.  I'm an Indie Writer.  I don't have a massive publishing company behind me.  But let's put that into perspective.

The majority of people with a major publishing company behind them - traditionally published writers - get a £2,000 advance, and that's it.  They still have to promote their own work because the major publishing company is too busy promoting Katie Price's latest piece of shit.  Their books sell for £9.99 in Waterstones.  That sounds great, doesn't it?  But they get 10% of the sales from those books, less after their agent has dug their greedy mitts into the royalties.  Less than 99p for each book sold.  And how many books do they sell?  The average first time writer sells between 400 and 1,000 copies of their book, most of those in their local bookshops, where people are intrigued by the notion that somebody who lives in their town has a book for sale in a bricks and mortar bookshop.  Many of them don't get a second book published by their mainstream publisher.

Compare that to an Indie writer.  I get 70% of the royalties from any Kindle sales.  Essentially, from my best seller, "die Stunde X", I get about £1.20 per copy sold.  I have to do my own promotions, sure, but I'm not really a great marketing person.  Have I sold between 400 and 1,000 copies of that book?  Well, yes, of course I have.  Lots of people have read "die Stunde X", which is a fantastic feeling for a writer.  My readers don't just live in my home town.  They live all over the UK, in the US, in Australia, even a handful in the wastelands of Europe, where they speak in foreign tongues.

Recently, I've had people who have denigrated me (and a host of other Indie writers) by implying that we're not published writers.  I.e., anybody can self-publish.  Yes, of course they can.  Anybody can write a pile of shit and put it on Amazon, but the chances are it's never going to sell particularly well.  But in any case, by definition, we're all published writers.  And I'm not giving 20% of my royalties to an agent, and having countless other people profit from my hard work.  And trust me, writing a novel is hard work.  "die Stunde X" was 120,000 words.  My current book, "Besotted", soon to be published, is also 120,000 words.  It's hard work to write something that long.  It's bold and daring to put something so personal as a novel you've written out for public inspection.  But it's downright insulting when people are such snobs that they won't read anything written by an Indie writer.  Typos in Indie books?  Of course there are.  Beta readers don't spot them all.  But conversely, I've spotted countless typos in books by Stephen King, by other mainstream writers, and you know what, I'm not so anal as to point them out in a book review.  Who cares about the odd typo?  Read the fucking book, for Christ's sake.  You're a member of the public who's probably never written a book.  You're supposed to be reading, not proof-reading.  I've even read books by mainstream writers which have read like books written by Indie writers.  Slightly unpolished.

But here's the thing.

Indie writers are the future.  I think it's something like 20% of books sold on the Kindle are written by Indie writers.  That's a big statistic.  So next time you fork out £14.99 for the latest J.K. Rowling overhyped and overly expensive book, spare a thought for the Indie writer, the person who writes from the heart, and who sells their work for a fraction of the price.  They don't have massive resources behind them, so you must forgive their typos, their occasionally flowery sentences.  You must realize that these writers are so enthusiastic about their work that sometimes when they've finished it, they just want people to read it.

That's what writing is all about - getting somebody to read your stuff.  As the reader, you should read it, enjoy it, and then when you've finished it, find another book to read.

So stop being a snob.  Instead of forking out £9.99 for Grisham's latest Kindle book, fork out £1.99 for five books by Indie writers.   You might discover something special.