For the last few posts, I’ve been laying it into the publishing industry for not supporting the independent authors that have been springing up like weeds everywhere. But to leave it at that, I feel, would be a disservice to everyone. There’s someone else that needs to have a little bit of a reality check: Indies.

Recently I’ve been proudly posting the banner “Indies and eBooks: Saviors of the Industry!” and I stand by that. I firmly believe the things I’ve said about how the sheer numbers of indies can and will make an impact if they’re allowed to. I believe that men and women like you, me and everyone in between can come together and patch this industry up like the music and film industries were in the past.

Believe it or not, at one time, the film industry was going through a rough spell where they were having issues akin to what’s going on with the publishing industry now. Costs, quality and a lack of touch with the audience were plaguing the films and caused the old studio system that once existed to pretty much collapse on itself. A new studio system has come from it since then, but no one can claim that the film industry is exactly hurting for money in the same way anymore.

 

Sure, some of the changes that happened as a result of the resurgence could be considered… ill-advised. But what you have in the end is an industry that has embraced the fact that diversity can in turn give them a gateway into a more profitable market. The fans of the form were given an opportunity to make budget movies that turned out to be blockbuster hits and they’ve taken the helm as a result of it.

Now’s your turn.

But here’s the thing, something is standing in the way of Indies taking that helm: the indies themselves. I learned of that article talking about the 250 copies sold annually by non-fiction authors from a fellow indie. I watch twitter and see newsletters to find links to articles like “self-publishing: the slow death” and “quit early”. I see blog posts by aspiring authors talking about all of the problems they have but never mentioning a solution. I was guilty of this myself… but there’s something that we all need to hear right now:

Cut the crap, this wasn’t meant to be easy.

We need to start putting on a braver face, we need to start planning, plotting and maneuvering ourselves around the obstacles instead of sobbing hysterically and pounding our heads against them. We can’t afford to condemn new formats, new ideas and new avenues. We can’t afford to blink while staring the system in the eye.

Honestly, if you’re doing that, you’re probably trying to make excuses for the fact you haven’t gotten traction yet. I know because that’s what I was doing to myself.

We can do this. It wont be easy and we wont all become millionaires. But you know what’s a surefire way to fail miserably? Quit. You’ll never become a successful writer by quitting. If you’re going to fail, fail by going out in a blaze of glory because otherwise you’ll never know for sure that you did everything you could.

And finally, let’s remember another thing: You’re still an unknown, you’re still an independent and you’re still small potatoes. On the other side of the scale from the disbelievers I’ve seen the people who believe they’re the greatest damn thing ever because they’ve written something and they think that somehow makes them unique. Reality check: I keep mentioning that “million published a year” thing for a reason. You are not a unique snowflake, you’re one in a million.

Have some damned humility.

I know that people who read this may not understand how someone could be a sobbing, quivering mess and still be arrogant and self-absorbed. It’s a difficult set of attributes to reconcile. But to those of you who are writers… you know what I’m talking about and you’ve seen someone like that or you’ve been that way yourself. When you’re a sobbing mess, it is not because you aren’t understood in your time – it’s because you’re cracking under the pressure and you’ve realized this is hard work.

And I feel that reality check is the most important thing of all because one of the worst things you could possibly do to yourself is give yourself that kind of excuse for failure. You need to have humility to take critiques, you need to have it to evolve as you go and you need it to keep you in touch with what people care about. If you believe yourself beyond others, you’ll never improve.

And if my rants for the last week could be boiled down to a single concept, let it be this: Stagnation is the enemy.

Well, that and if you’re going to crack under the pressure and go insane…

At least direct it at the system.

And since I wrote this, I published a second book as a sequel to my first. Fighting back stagnation!