Being an indie writer is awesome. Without a doubt, self-publishing is one of the best decisions I have ever made, and has enabled me to build exactly the kind of writing career I have always wanted.
So it frustrates me to no end when people in the publishing industry try to discourage new writers from self-publishing the way that I did. What’s worse, they often justify their advice with information that has been debunked or opinions that have been shown to be unfounded. These “zombie memes” keep coming back as if the act of repeating them is enough to make them true.
Some examples of these zombie memes include:
- Self-publishing is a bubble.
- Ebook growth is stalling and will soon decline.
- Getting visibility as a self-published author is impossible.
- Amazon is evil because _______.
- Amazon is destroying literature.
- Self-publishing is destroying literature.
- ______ is destroying literature.
- Publishers nurture writers.
- Publishers are the guardians of literature.
- Traditional publishers only publish high-quality books.
- Self-published books are flooding the market with crap.
- Only a handful of indie writers are making a living.
- Self-publishers should not be called authors.
- Ebooks shouldn’t be cheaper than print.
- Publishing a book is harder than writing one.
- Readers are reading the wrong books.
- Publishers help authors navigate the digital world.
- Agents help authors navigate the digital world.
- There is nothing unethical about agents who act like publishers.
- There is nothing unethical about standard publishing contracts.
Bullshit, all of it. Pure, unfiltered bullshit.
No matter how many times you kill these memes, they just refuse to die. Some people get a thrill at rehashing all the old arguments, but not me. I’d much rather leave the good fight to others, and quietly keep building my career while the naysayers all please themselves with the sound of their own voices.
Then again, perhaps that’s the key to slaying the zombie memes right there–successfully building your own career in spite of all the critics and naysayers. It’s a lot harder to believe all this crap when you see enough people succeeding in spite of it. The critical mass of indie writers is growing, and becoming a lot harder for the establishment to ignore.
This month, I sold over 700 books. I’m making enough on my books now that I don’t need a full-time or even a part-time job–writing is what I do full-time now. It’s still touch-and-go from month to month, but I’m living the dream, and because of the opportunities made possible by self-publishing, I have every confidence that I will continue to live that dream until the day I die.
The best way to slay a zombie meme is to create a competing meme that speaks even louder. That’s exactly what we in the indie movement are doing. And one day, when the zombie memes are finally dead for good, ours will be alive and thriving. It’s a new world of publishing, and never a better time to be a writer.
