INDIE WITH AN “i”? NOT ME!

Everywhere I go these days I see a conglomeration of descriptions for those of us who are independent authors–to those not in the “writing” biz, that means we do not darken the doors of Random House or other traditional publishers. We do the job(s) normally done by those hallowed halls of tradition all by ourselves.

That in itself tells you we are another breed altogether. We’re not afraid to tackle our own responsibility for the work we put out there to the reading public.

We meet marketing our work head-on–ummmm–maybe not so head-on. Sometimes it’s after a period of procrastination as fear of rejection is a terrible thing.

We cheerfully arrange our own book signing–well, okay, maybe not so very cheerfully, but we do it despite the odds!

We hawk our wares night and day–even our relatives walk the other way when they see us coming. So sad!

We creatively produce our own video trailers. By the way, have you seen my  lat…oh, I digress.

We tweet, twitter, twerp–whatever you call it–until our poor fingers can no longer type “http” and our Hoot owl starts smoking.

We make hundreds of new friends via FaceBook, Linkedin, Google+, yada yada yada. And still we feel somewhat empty–writing is a very solitary vocation.

Then, what do we get? (Only if we’re lucky, mind you.) Reviews of the rating variety where we have no idea what that person gave us a 1 when 20 gave us 5s, 4s and 3s. We cry over harsh reviews of the work we were so very proud of when we put it out there. (Here’s where those hundreds of new friends come in handy. They keep us out of the ER and back into our writing!)

We go through alllllll of this just to be called an indie writer? I say NO! I am an Indie Writer. (Note to reader, see those caps?) I’m proud of what I do. I may not always do it right, but I try–and MY mom said that was a good thing! I earned that capital “I” and “W”. I’ve sweated bullets over a story, edited until I nearly went blind, hawked my work to others for review and editing ideas. Done all those things listed above.

I am an Indie Writer and I’m proud of it and me!

Excuse me. Did you hear that faint sound of cheering? I’d swear I heard…