Indie Author Resources



Resources for Indie Authors

Why you should go indie:
First, a caveat: A lot of “why you should go indie” books sing the praises of KDP Select because of the bounce in paid sales it used to give books after the free period ended. But Amazon changed its book ranking algorithms last spring, so the bounce is largely a thing of the past. Just keep that in mind when these authors brag about their earnings. 

Konrath, J.A., and Barry Eisler. Be the Monkey. http://www.amazon.com/Be-Monkey-Self-Publishing-Between-ebook/dp/B004SV2IPC/ If you can stand Konrath and Eisler patting one another on the back every couple of sentences, this is a good summary of the benefits of going indie.

Gaughran, David. Let’s Get Digital. http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Get-Digital-Self-Publish-ebook/dp/B005DC68NI/ Gaughran gives tons of good info, with far less male bonding than Konrath and Eisler’s book.

Tardif, Cheryl Kaye. How I Made Over $42,000 in 1 Month Selling My Kindle eBooks. http://www.amazon.com/Month-Selling-Kindle-eBooks-ebook/dp/B0080USSYW/ I’m including Tardif’s book not because she made a ton of money in KDP Select before the algorithm changed, which kind of makes her earnings irrelevant, but because much of her other advice is sound. She’s still sold on KDP Select and plans to update this book.

How to do it:
Coker, Mark. The Smashwords Style Guide. https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/52 This is a free download. Get it – you will need it. If you follow the directions in here exactly, you will never have a problem with having your book rejected from either the Smashwords Premium Catalog or Kindle Direct Publishing.


http://thewritersguidetoepublishing.com/go-to-list-for-helpful-indie-rescources Despite the typo in the URL, this is another excellent list of resources for indie authors.

Brooks, K.S., and Stephen Hise. Indies Unlimited: Tutorials and Tools for Prospering in a Digital World. http://www.amazon.com/Indies-Unlimited-Tutorials-Prospering-ebook/dp/B00ABGWDY4/ This is a compendium of many of the tips and tricks that were posted in IU’s first year of existence. But if you’d rather go to the source…. 

http://www.indiesunlimited.com We offer tutorials, tips and tricks, comradely advice, and a healthy dose of snark.

Where to do it:
Deciding where to publish your work? I've written some posts for IU that cover the topic. Here are the links:
http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2014/09/11/choices-for-publishing-ebooks-part-one/
http://www.indiesunlimited.com/2014/09/18/choices-for-publishing-ebooks-part-2/

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