Indie Life

Welcome to my first post in the Indie Life blogfest. To join, go here, where The Indelibles Writers have started this second Wednesday group where indie writers can share, comfort, encourage and basically, help each other manage the sometimes lonely life of being a writer.

Though this group is small, I believe it will grow and thrive because there is a need for it. Most writers get the answers they need from other writers. Need to know how to promote, how to use social media, how to self publish, how to find an agent, how to investigate the reputation of a small press, ask another writer. If they don't know, they know how to find out or someone who does know.

This brings to my point for this first post. When you become published, you'll find yourself checking your sales numbers, your reviews, and your ranks against other books in your genre. What you find might be encouraging or quite the opposite. It might discourage your from trying again. You might feel hopeless. But ... remember you're not competing against those numbers you obsess over.

If your book isn't doing well, do a better job or promotion. If your book isn't getting good reviews, try to learn something from them. And then make your next book better. You're competing against yourself. You must try to make every book better than the last one your wrote. You must improve your voice, make it unique and memorable. Create characters who readers will care about. Challenge your characters more than you did in all your previous works. The competition is your past work.

Do you see improvement in your work from one project to the next? Do you have other indie authors who have helped you along in your career?  Am I the only one that blogger won't let upload a picture?