When is the last time you purchased a book from an independently published author? If you’re just buying books from the Big 5 or 7, depending on which stats you read, you could be missing out. Independently published authors are the fastest growing segment of the book industry, and they are writing stories and self help books and nonfiction about every topic you could possible think of.
1. The Variety Is Endless.
The variety of books is endless. Independently published books now make up about 30 percent of the total market, and indie authors are writing everything. If you want an LGBT book set in space, there’s an indie author that wrote it. If you want a vampire romance set in the 1800s, there’s a indie author that wrote it. If you want a space nightmare, it’s out there. If you want a fetish book about worm sex, some independently published author is or has wrote it.
2. Your Favorite Genre or Character Type Isn’t Out of Style.
Do you like science fiction, fantasy, horror, vampires or unicorns? The mainstream book industry says these are overdone, out of style and there’s nothing left to be said, but you’ve read them all, haven’t you? Well, guess what, your indie authors are still writing these. Independently published authors pay attention to the overall book industry, but they also write what they want. This means your favorite or as of yet unknown indie author is going to write this if they are in the mood to write it, and I can tell you right now, that I know more than a dozen independently published authors that are writing these genres and character archetypes right now. You can still get what you love. You just have to search for it and buy it off Amazon.
3. They Don’t Fit the Mold.
Independently published authors don’t fit the mold, and they don't like the mold. The mold is where the book is edited until it fits where it's supposed to go. This means that if it’s a thriller book and all thriller books being published today read like X and have X happen at X point, the next thriller book is going to be edited to have those same things. A good example of this is Romance movies. You know Romance movies. Hallmark plays them all day. The plot is always the same. Boy meets girl. Boy has girlfriend or fiancée, so he cannot date girl. Something goes wrong with girl 1, so he now dates girl 2, and they fall in love, but they cannot fall in love. 10 minutes prior to the end, they break it off. Two minutes till the credits, boy and new girl decide they love each other and will live happily ever after. That’s the mold. Indie authors won’t write this. That’s why they’re independently published. As a result, every book has a wider scope and typically better characters and more complex plots. You also can’t read the first sentence and predict the ending of the book.
4. You Are Supporting Small Businesses.
When you buy an independently published book, you are supporting small businesses. In many instances, you are supporting sole-proprietorships. This means the owner, operator, author, editor, marketer and graphic designer is a single person. When you buy a book, you are supporting this individual, and that may be hard to understand when you see a book posted on huge websites, like Amazon. The truth is that Amazon offers a platform for small businesses to sell their goods, and this includes indie authors.
5. You Are Helping Small Business Support Small Business
When you purchase an independently published book, you are helping the author support other trades. Once independently published authors start being able to support themselves off their book sales, they start supporting other small businesses. Authors typically just want to write, and they want to engage on social media. They don’t want to edit, create their own book covers or do their own marketing. They’d rather hire people for that so that they can focus on writing great books, and once sales reach a certain threshold, they start hiring these other professionals, which also supports other small businesses.
