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Henry Baum’s recent post (about foul language in self-published books) raised this issue, which has been on my mind for a while. What IS so “indie” about “indie writers.” Is it merely a fashionable term, wishful thinking? The term comes from the “indie” film and music trends of the late 20th century, but I think those artistic fields are fundamentally different in important ways from book publishing. Both music and film require much more equipment, technical expertise and money, and usually involve more people as well, whereas writers only need to type into a computer, save their files, and upload […]

I recently sent an old novel off to reviewers from the ginormous list of indie reviewers.  There are so many more reviewers than when the book was first released (in 2006) that I thought, why not?  Literally, there were 5 blogs devoted to self-publishing at that time.  Now, hundreds.  In the back of my mind I wondered if some of the reviewers would have a problem with the language, as this is an issue that I’ve seen come up frequently on review blogs.  And lo and behold, this was exactly the response the book got.  Some nice reviews, but […]

This post was originally published on my blog, 10/31/2011:

Of course, this is a gross generalization but it’s meant as such. There are always kids that love to read but why are we seeing a decline in reading levels nationwide? Why are kids turning away from books?

A huge part of this argument really revolves around culture. Think back to the days of the Dime Novels. Admittedly pulp fiction (with little cultural value), they still entranced readers of all ages. Reading was truly a way to “escape” from the harshness of reality. Unfortunately, in today’s culture, movies, video games, […]

First off, let me just say that I was a holdout for a long time for not calling self-publishing “indie publishing.”  But that was back when self-publishing was desperate to be taken seriously.  Now it is.  And it’s become as vital a force in the publishing as “true” independent publishing.  So indie publishing works now because all of independent publishing is changing.

JA Konrath talks about the “Publishing Death Spiral” in which traditional publishing is going to be assaulted by writers who can get much better terms on their own if they publish themselves. I’ll gladly dance on the grave […]