Being an Indie Author - Why I Love it

Happy Wednesday, good people of the blogosphere! I do hope you all enjoyed N.L. Greene's author interview from Monday. If you missed it, click here and take a look. She's an awesome Indie you should all get to know! Today, I'm going to point out a few things I love about being an Indie author and a few things that drive me batty. Strap in and sit back, this may get hairy!

Things I love about being Indie:

• No sick days needed! I don't have to take sick days if I need a break
• I can write whatever I want, whenever I want
• There's no boss breathing down my neck because my deadlines are self-imposed
• My covers are exactly the way I want them because I have the freedom of choice
• Friends I've made via the Indie network (you know who you are)
• Being able to take every weekend off and have time to spend with my family or coming up with new ideas
• Dust bunnies tremble in fear of my weekdays off (I call them mental health days), and my house is clean as hell
• My office, where I can do whatever I want and post stuff on the wall at my leisure
• Changing up what I'm doing on any particular day just because I feel like it
• Having promotional freedom
• Keeping more of the money from my sales for myself

Now, with all that said...

Things that drive me batty about being Indie:

• No signings or fabulous book stores that know my name
• Not having a team of people to do things when I just don't have enough hours in a day

As you can see, my pros far outweigh my cons. Does that mean if a traditional publisher approached me about my MS I'd turn them down? I don't know. But I do know it would have to be a major press to even tempt me. I can say with 100% assurance I'd have to keep one foot in the Indie doorway no matter what. It's being able to write what I want that would keep me self-publishing.

My Mystic series has an agenda. Probably one no publisher would touch with a fifty-foot pole. I wrote it because I hoped people would read it and understand things aren't always binary. They need to walk in someone else's shoes to truly understand what those people go through. If just one person tells me someday that one of my books changed the way they looked at the world and the people in it, I'll be happy as a lark.

Riches aren't my goal with my books. Telling a great story that moves someone is what I'm after.

VIVA LA INDIE AUTHORS! I love you all so much!

Why do you love being Indie?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo