Sarah Jules Writing

FIVE THINGS INDIE AUTHORS WANT YOU TO KNOW!

1. Every review, good or bad, makes a huge difference to our visibility. The best places to post reviews are usually on Goodreads and Amazon. Although, my favourite thing ever is to see reviews of my books on your social media! Even a simple star rating goes a long way. Other than buying books, this is the best and easiest way to support indie authors.

2. Most of us have full-time jobs. Many of us write and publish books around full-time jobs, or being full-time caregivers. At least at the start of our careers, it’s pretty difficult to make a living from indie publishing. This is often why it takes indie authors a while to publish new books.

3. We hate marketing our own books, and it makes us feel super icky talking about them on social media. We do it out of necessity. Please forgive us if it makes you cringe when we recommend our own books, know we’re cringing as we do it.

4. It isn’t as simple as writing a book and pressing ‘publish’. There’s LOADS of behind the scenes work that goes into publishing a book. Indie authors are Jack-of-all-trades. We source editors, proof-readers, cover designers, we do our own marketing, format our books, upload onto platforms, send out ARCs, and a load of other stuff. Writing a book doesn’t finish after we write ‘the end’. And, often, once we write those two little words, we end up re-writing most of the book anyway!

5. We appreciate (and notice) every single sale, page read, and review. It’s such a gratifying feeling knowing that readers are finding your books. As somebody who spent the first year of their career praying for sales and page reads, please know that now they’re coming, I still notice and appreciate every single one of them.

BONUS:
Writing books is a passion project for most of us. We wouldn’t do it if we didn’t love it and believe in our stories. There’s still a stigma around indie published authors, although that is dissipating somewhat. Our priority is getting out stories out there, to the right readers, and hopefully entertaining you and allowing you to escape real-life for a little while.

IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR, SHOUT OUT YOUR FAVOURITE AUTHORS!