So let’s say you’ve written a story and decide to publish it as an indie author. You have done your research, made connections, and both asked for and followed advice. Your story is of reasonable quality, it’s reasonably free of typos, and it’s got a reasonable cover, description, and all the little bits and bobs that you need to set up sales on retailers. You’re pretty sure you have it in the right genre.
Great!
You publish the book and make some sales (or don’t), publish another book, and another…and sometimes the things that you used to do work, and sometimes they don’t, and a few of the advice-givers start giving advice that seems counter to their earlier advice.
And then you start asking yourself something that didn’t occur to you earlier.
Why?
Why do the things that used to work no longer work? Why do new things work? Why is suddenly everyone chasing the next big thing? If the indie publishing process is constantly changing, how are you supposed to keep up? Should you quit? If you don’t quit, how often should you change what you’re doing?
Why does it seem like indie publishing advice always contradicts itself?
Why Indie Publishing Advice Seems Contradictory
I’ve been pondering this for a while. I’ve been in indie publishing since 2009 or so, and while I haven’t given up, sometimes I’ve quietly stepped away to do other things. I have also gleefully pursued the latest and greatest publishing opportunity. And times when I’ve coasted, trying to do the minimum necessary.
My intent has always been to be a successful long-term writer. Bit by bit, I”ve been identifying what has been holding me back.
Here’s what I got:
Indie publishing contradicts itself because different indies are using different frames of reference.
Each frame of reference has different tactics—ones that succeed in different ways and at different points in your career.
- To succeed right now, you’ll need to take one set of tactics.
- To succeed over the course of a few years, you’ll need to take another set of tactics.
- To succeed over the course of your career—a third set of tactics.
- To succeed beyond your lifetime requires a fourth set of tactics.
Understanding these frames of reference can help you sort out what areas you might be having issues in, as well as how to address them.
I’m not going to give you essentially new advice. I’m just going to talk about why people might be giving you contradictory advice and how to understand where they’re coming from—so you can decide which advice is right for you.
How Indie Publishing Evolved (And Why That Matters)
One of the reasons that indie publishing contradicts itself is that it’s a new field. Sure, some people self-published outside the large publishing houses and smaller independent publishers in the past, but those people weren’t a large swath of the publishing market. Now we are, and we’re discovering that there is no one right way to accomplish things.
(Another reason is that indie publishers are coming of age in a big wave, going from “new writers” to “seasoned professionals” in a relatively similar time frame. But I think that’s secondary.)
I’m gonna oversimplify the timeline here in order to give an overview of how the field has changed.
At first (say, 2007 or so) the large publishers weren’t making good use of ebooks or print on demand, and there was a lot of room for indies to make money doing so. Then (2020 or so) large publishers started leveraging those tools (as well as buying up ad space wherever indies were buying ads) and indie publishing opportunities really tightened up.
It took about 13 years for traditional publishers to catch up to indies (and it was way more gradual than I’m making it out to be), but they did.
In 2007 or so, it was enough to use the “right now” tactics. “Right now” people wanted ebooks to load on their Kindles (especially in the science fiction field, where “early adopters of new technology” were hungry for more books).
Then romance readers realized that satisfying their addiction was easier with ebook than print, and drove wider adoption of ereaders and ereading in general—and authors started building incomes over a few years, using a second set of tactics: get out the biggest number of romance titles over the shortest period of time.
More time passed, and traditional publishing started investing in ebooks and print-on-demand tactics, as well as buying Amazon ads, which put a squeeze on the “right now” and the “few years” authors, just as some of those authors were starting to think about how to build a sustainable, lifelong career. Authors are now starting to think in “career” terms, and using tactics that will make readers want to read them as individual writers.
In the future, I think a new set of tactics will emerge, one that will cover how to handle indie publishing after the death of the author, by building a legacy. Most of us are not quite there yet, although I do know some authors who are starting to address the problem.
None of these frames of reference were bad, especially for the times in which they emerged. But as the indie publishing market became more complex (and as emerging indie authors aged), more effective long-term strategies started to become more important.
It might look like different people in the indie publishing industry are giving self-contradictory advice.
But mostly what’s really going on is that the indie publishing market is maturing, being challenged by traditional publishing trying to knock it down, and testing different ways to sustain their careers.
The Four Frames of Indie Publishing Success
Let’s look at those frames of reference:
- Book = Event.
- Book = Product.
- Book = Personality.
- Book = Myth.
You’re probably already using all four of these frames already, you just haven’t had a way to see them as separate frames of reference, with separate tactics and goals that can come into conflict with each other.
Frame One: Book as Event (Right Now Tactics)
“Book = Event” means treating each book as an event that happens. For example, a new book release is an event. A price reduction is an event.
The “Book = Event” frame of reference is about right now. It’s about focusing on book releases, sales numbers, genre ranking, and recent trends. People who focus on book as event prioritize what will benefit them right now.
Here are some elements of Book = Event thinking:
- Finding fiction markets and/or keywords with the highest demand versus lowest supply, and writing to market.
- Searching for the latest new promotional tactic.
- Organizing the largest book launch you can.
- Setting up social media to optimize for launch-date promotion (can be a bit spammy).
- Paying for ads/promotions timed along with the launch.
- Treating an ad/promotion as successful based on immediate sales.
- Watching release-day or -week sales and sales rankings.
- Writing each book as if it were an isolated failure or success.
- Finding ways to write more faster, so you can keep success rolling from one release to the next.
- Restlessly searching for ways to make older books “fresh” again.
- Is the Book = Event frame of reference bad? No. Seeing through the Book = Event frame of reference is necessary.
If you’re not keeping up with current trends in the markets, you’re publishing books that only people your age will want to read—because you haven’t been taking in new ideas. Your covers will be so old-fashioned that new readers might not be interested.
And you’ll probably miss out on marketing and promotional tactics that could connect you to a lot of readers.
If you primarily focus on a Book = Event frame of reference, you will be tired. Keeping up with the new while also trying to get books out as quickly as possible is exhausting.
Frame Two: Book as Product (Building Over Years)
“Book = Product” means treating each book as a product in a product line. A book release is a part of the process of maintaining and increasing the product line.
The “Book = Product” frame of reference is about building sales “for a few years at least.” It focuses on consistency in covers, regularity of releases (establishing a regular publishing rhythm), building series and worlds, studying your genre market overall, and providing reliable, quality books that satisfy readers.
Here are some elements of Book = Product thinking:
- Studying your genre market(s) instead of chasing trends.
- Building a reliable, easy to navigate website that centers your marketing/promotional efforts.
- Setting up your professional social media presence as a neutral space to promote your books without being pushy, separate from your personal presence.
- Launches that focus on getting the word out widely and consistently, rather than spamming your contacts.
- Tracking sales over time and across series, as well as putting more emphasis on non-release day levels.
- Treating a promotion as successful if it raises the base number of average sales.
- Regular contact with readers so they don’t forget you exist (e.g., newsletters).
- Writing to build your presence as part of a genre niche.
- Finding ways to write more sustainably.
- Taking better care of your health!
- Working hard on improving your craft over time, seeing learning as an investment.
- Updating series as their marketing materials (cover and description) move out of the overall genre trends.
- Getting really mad when the industry changes and you have to change your routine.
Is the Book = Product frame of reference good or bad? Nope. It’s another set of tools, that’s all. If the Book = Event frame of reference is about being first, then the Book = Product frame of reference is about being reliable.
Being reliable is a longer-term strategy than being early or first.
It’s more sustainable.
The drawbacks are that it can get easy to be disconnected from what is happening now in the market and miss opportunities—and also that it can be easy to get disconnected from your love of writing. Writing can become routine and boring. You might get stuck continuing a series you’re not really interested in, because it sells well. And then not write anything you actually love writing.
If you primarily focus on a Book = Product frame of reference, you will be bored. Doing the same thing all the time is dull.
Frame Three: Book as Personality (Your Long-Term Career)
“Book = Personality” means treating each book as a part of you, as a person. A book release is a chance to connect and reconnect with readers.
The “Book = Personality” frame of reference is building your “long-term career.” It focuses on what kind of person you are as an author, and how that serves your particular fanbase. The focus is dual here: first focusing on writing what you want to write, then focusing on connecting with readers, often via social media, newsletters, and blogs as well as your books. The books can be risky or surprising at times, or they can fall into a familiar pattern or genre niche—one that includes only one person, the author themselves.
Here are some elements of Book = Personality thinking:
- Feeling disconnected from the genre market but connected to readers of that market.
- Spending a lot of time interacting with or researching your readers.
- Using your personality across all available channels to drive sales.
- Emphasizing authenticity over regularity in publishing books and/or contacting readers.
- Finding ways to write more authentically rather than faster or more sustainably.
- Assuming that readers will find your books without promoting them.
- Being frustrated that your craft isn’t good enough, while simultaneously being arrogant about how much better it is than most people’s. (And maybe not studying craft at all.)
- Building a cadre of loyal readers that follow you across genres and buy your books when they come out.
- Being bewildered by the market-driven and routine aspects of the business, and often sabotaging your own efforts to publish your books.
- Writing books not to serve the market or be reliable, but to affect people emotionally.
- Seeing their work from a perspective of their reader’s lives.
The Book = Personality frame of reference is a particularly sharp dual-edged sword. You can build a fanbase that follows you from project to project no matter what you do, or you can fire off wonderful books that nobody reads because the covers are so bad.
Focusing on being authentically and individually yourself is a great long-term career strategy…but it’s often also an ignorant short-term one. Your books won’t be tied to current trends (as with Book = Event) or markets (as with Book = Product), but without those ties, how will you find your readers?
If you primarily focus on a Book = Personality frame of reference, you will be sporadic. How will audiences know that you’re good no matter what you create if you only have three books with terrible covers?
Frame Four: Book as Myth (Your Legacy)
(This one’s harder to write. You don’t see a lot of authors writing on this level, so I’m having to extrapolate a bit, rather than rely on observation.)
“Book = Myth” means treating books as an opportunity to understand, explain, or “process” something. Not while reading books, but writing them.
A myth is a narrative that plays a fundamental role in society, helping to define how a society sees itself (not necessarily to change it). For example, The Lord of the Rings is a myth written before, during, and after WWII, published in the 1950s. Western society sees World War I and II almost the same way Tolkien defined war in his novels, even though some elements (like Churchill) are far darker and more complex than we want them to be.
Lord of the Rings wasn’t a retelling or allegory of the human world wars that Tolkien experienced, but it became a mythologized version of them, through the people who read the books.
And I’m guessing here, but I think it started with Tolkein letting himself struggle with the question of war.
We haven’t seen a lot of myths come out of the indie publishing scene yet, I think because the whole process is pretty new.
The “Book = Myth” frame of reference is about “your legacy.” It focuses on the books you leave behind you, on saving and curating the story behind the story, and on leveraging different media to tell your tale to new generations—whether you’re dead or alive.
Here are some elements of Book = Myth thinking:
- Feeling compelled to tell a particular story because of your need to struggle with some issue that the story reflects (like war).
- Focusing on how the story is told, rather than what story is told.
- Feeling manipulated by the story as a whole (rather than the characters as such).
- Feeling like you’re speaking for other people as you write, not just for yourself (often the dead or people who are otherwise unable to be heard).
- Being surprised by success or connection with readers.
- Abandoning the idea of writing the story “correctly,” but instead writing in tune with their own struggle to understand.
- May or may not have skills in marketing, promotion, or business. (The modern examples I found were all over the place, from very savvy to mostly indifferent.)
- Being aware of long-term planning. If a work is going to survive past the death of its author, then either the author has set up a solid estate plan, or their heirs have forged one after the fact.
The Book = Myth frame of reference is something that happens after the fact, yet has a common factor: the author struggling with something in life that they answer in fiction.
If you primarily focus on a Book = Myth frame of reference, you will be disappointed. You can’t force a myth. If you’re hoping that you’ve written The Great American Novel, you probably won’t. Mostly what you want to do here, I think, is allow your books to be meaningful to you personally.
Why These Frames Create Contradictory Advice
If all of these frames of reference are useful as tools, then wouldn’t that help explain why it looks like “good” advice swings all over the place?
- Book = Event advice changes all the time because it tries to keep up with the new, and what’s new changes constantly.
- Author advice changes as the author changes their focus from one frame of reference to another.
- Author advice is inconsistent as the author thinks they are focused on one frame of reference, but also do actions from the other frames of reference without really thinking about it.
- People giving advice who aren’t actually authors are trying to give advice based on observing all this from the outside, not from within.
People generally aren’t trying to be confusing and self-contradictory with their advice. It just happens.
But what should you do?
Using All Four Frames (Without Burning Out)
It’s a lot, I’ll grant you.
Your first instinct may be to throw up your hands and say that you can’t possibly do it all. Or to decide one frame is “correct” and ignore the others, then try to solve problems that frame of reference isn’t meant to handle.
But…
If you’re indie publishing, you’re already doing a lot.
I’m not talking about reducing your workload (sorry!). I’m talking about making sure the work you do leads to success over the short term and the long term—and letting go of what no longer leads to success.
How to implement this?
Start with whatever feels like your biggest problem. It could be anything, as long as you’re frustrated with it. Then start picking apart why you might be having that problem, from each frame of reference.
If you gotta journal about how unfair this whole process is and how you just want to write, do it!
And then, when you’re ready to talk about improving your business, start asking questions about the parts of your success that you can control. You don’t need to be too analytical. Sometimes the obvious answer is all there is to it.
Here’s what you’re looking for:
- Book = Event tactics involve watching for new opportunities and taking them sooner rather than later. You have to pay attention to other people in indie publishing if you want to keep up with these.
- Book = Producttactics involve making your work and publishing process more professional and reliable.
- Book = Personalitytactics involve taking chances with your own authentic voice (and building your own brand) in order to build your career.
- Book = Myth tactics involve using your own struggles to connect to something meaningful, which meaning eventually becomes your legacy.
Let’s say your problem is sales. If you’re not getting the sales you want, why?
Let’s look at the problem through the four frames of reference:
- Book = Event. Are you up to date on what works “right now”? Are you part of communities discussing what works for them sales-wise and what doesn’t? Are you in an echo chamber full of people complaining about what used to work?
- Book = Product. Are you publishing reliably? Are you on a schedule? Are your covers consistent and professional? Are you continuously learning new techniques and improving your craft? What part of your process are you skimping on?
- Book = Personality. Are you writing what you love? Are you telling anyone why you love it? Are you writing your social media posts stiffly and fearful of making people angry? Are you civil and polite even when being clear about your opinion? Are you constantly pushing your work without talking to anyone?
- Book = Myth. Are you constantly writing more of what you wanted to read growing up and expecting people who didn’t grow up with those things to like them? Are you engaged with the outside world in a meaningful way? Everyone has something worth saying—are you saying it? Are you reading new work, or just rereading your favorites?
Make a list of the things you’re pretty sure need to be changed. Then pick the thing on your list that will probably take the least amount of work for the most amount of improvement.
Do this just like you would if you were only looking at one frame of reference—only now you’re looking at all four.
You’re looking for places where a small change could lead to a big payoff. Once you make that small change, look for the next easiest change that could lead to a big payoff.
Don’t forget to let go of what’s not working.
If it’s working—it’s working.
But if (for example) your return on investment in Amazon ads has suddenly dropped out from under you, maybe stop doing ads and review other opportunities.
As long as you keep making progress, you may find that switching tactics across frames of reference can pay off by simplifying your work and choices, regardless of where you start. (You’ll still be doing a lot.)
For example, paying close attention to other authors talking about how they implement new opportunities may help you evaluate new tactics before you try them yourself. Setting up a reliable, professional, repeatable publishing system will save you a lot of time making decisions and set you up for success with new opportunities. Figuring out your personality as an author will help you make clear choices about what your publishing system should look like, setting you up for success without feeling tied down to routine. And understanding what is meaningful to you and why can help you build a sense of consistency across even the most wildly personal projects—as well as give you a clear voice that helps you sell your work when you implement new opportunities.
Each element can support the others—as long as you’re consistently identifying and solving problems, instead of doing the same thing and expecting different results.
The important thing to keep in mind is:
Don’t make other people’s advice the center of your publishing journey.
Listen respectfully and remember what you hear…but only take action on what looks like a practical solution for the problem you need to handle next.
If this framework helped clarify the confusion, I’ve got more articles on indie publishing strategy in my writer resources section.
