Since I don’t have an author spotlight lined up for today, you are stuck listening to my rant about publishing.
I’ve run into some interesting hurdles while trying to market my book. My book is through an independent publishing company, which means I’m an indie author. However, a lot of self-published authors have also started calling themselves indie authors. (For the record, I love self-published books but didn’t feel it was the right path for me.)
A lot of review and book sites don’t want anything to do with self-published authors or independent ones. I’m finding because my book isn’t published through a big-six publisher, I’m getting a cold shoulder from some book sites. They don’t bother to respond to me e-mails even though I follow their directions carefully when I try and set up guest spots. I’m not really surprised by it, because I’ve always known about the bias in publishing. Independent authors don’t get to sign their books in the same room as the ‘real’ authors at conventions and certainly don’t get the same respect by anyone in the legacy publishing business.
There are also a lot of sites for self-published authors but they usually don’t consider books published by small, independent publishers. They want stories from authors who shrugged off the publishing world and went it alone to become a best-seller. Everyone loves those kind of stories.
I’m also limited on how I can promote my book because a lot of what I do has to go through my publisher first. They aren’t going to loose hundreds of potential sales by offering my book for free on kindle (and they shouldn’t have to.) So how do I get the word out about my book?
I feel like I’m sort of stuck on some weird middle ground. There just aren’t many sites focused on books by small publishers. Maybe they are out there, and I just haven’t found them yet.
How do you feel about the whole Big Six vs. Indie vs. Self-published debate? Do you think there are equal opportunities on all sides?
On a side note- I'm being interviewd over at Dawn's Reading Nook. You can see the interview here. :)
On a side note- I'm being interviewd over at Dawn's Reading Nook. You can see the interview here. :)
