Indie Publishing

Amanda Hocking’s amazing success story continues to inspire all of us who write as independents.  As everyone who keeps up with these things knows, she has just signed a multimillion dollar deal with my old publisher, St. Martin’s Press.  Lucky young woman, some might think.  But it wasn’t luck, at least not entirely.  She got there through a combination of raw talent, persistence, and hard work.  As she admits on her blog, pursuing her dream wasn’t easy and in fact promoting her work became a full-time job in itself.

I’m finding that out from my own very recent experience.  How do you promote a book when you work a regular, 40-hours-a-week job?  Well, you blog, and tweet, and interact on Facebook, at least insofar as you have time.  But when do you actually, you know . . . write?  That’s the frustration I’m experiencing right now.  I have five short stories that I need to complete and a sequel to V-Squad to outline and at some point in time put on the page.  There are only so many hours in the day in which to do it all.  Something has to fall by the wayside; something won’t get done.