Indie Authors are Fighting Back ... Right?

The trad publishing door had vicious guardians, so indie authors went around them. What they discovered was the shiny vista of online digital publishing - until it wasn't. So what do we do now?

Photo by Eugenio Mazzone on Unsplash. Is that an indie side door out?

Indie authors are basically reliving the old fight with New York, just with different gatekeepers and dashboards that appear to allow exploration of new authors and titles, but really don’t. Yep. I’m talking about online platforms.

These platforms trumpet, “Anyone can publish,” but then recreate the same bottleneck: a tiny slice of books gets pushed to everyone’s home screen (guided by pay-to-play models and trad publishing clout), while the rest sink into the algorithmic swamp. We are the peasants flinging ourselves against the gates that protect a long-held writing nobility. Yes, a few indie books break through, and that excites us all. It encourages us to believe we can change our destiny through hard work, writing education, and honing our craft …

Yet instead, we end up paying for the privilege of being buried. To add insult to injury, every time a book sells—even the most indie of indies—the platform takes a cut. In a way, the entire online storefront is the indie author’s scant marketing budget, but we have no say and no control. Here’s my money. Thank you, sir. May I have another?

So indies are doing what they’ve always done best: finding side doors.

Here are some of the main ones already growing and maturing, plus a few more:

• Sell direct from their own sites.
  Using tools like WooCommerce, Shopify, Payhip, or BookFunnel, authors sell e‑books and even audiobooks directly, often at better royalty rates and with reader emails included as part of the deal. Best to have an established reader base and multiple books. Still expensive and not for the faint of heart.

  • Recommendation? Create an author “grouplet” with 2-10 trusted indie-published authors (same or different genres - there are good arguments for both) and split the costs.

• Print direct and partner with local bookstores.
  IngramSpark, BookVault, and other POD services let authors supply local stores without going through the big platforms. Authors do consignment, local‑author tables, staff‑pick pitches, and themed displays (like mysteries set in New Mexico, anyone?).

  • Caution ⚠️: Printing and shipping your books can be expensive, and quality might also be an issue. Choose wisely. While trad publishing has phased out “pocket” books, smaller paperbacks might be the future for indie authors. And yes, I know collector or special editions are all the rage right now, but I think they’re a marketing ploy. As a consumer, I’d rather buy ten different books to read than one pretty one.

• In‑person events that algorithms can’t touch.
  Library talks, bookstore signings, festivals, science cafés, museum events, conferences—anywhere you can put a human in front of other humans. A small event that sells twenty books and nets fifty new newsletter signups often beats a month of shouting into the abyssal (great word: follow the link to learn more about it) Amazon void.

  • Recommendation AND Caution ⚠️: Companies around the country are creating signing “events.” (I’m attending my first one in a couple of months) They charge a fee for an author table and snacks. The positive? Readers who attend are looking to buy books. Be sure to ask for newsletter/Substack subscribers. The (possibly) negative? This means print books are necessary, and you may not make your money back. We also have a nascent book festival in my town.

• Book clubs and reading groups.
  Both in‑person and online. Author‑led or author‑visited book clubs (Zoom chats, discussion guides, bonus Q&As) create “sticky” readers who don’t need an algorithm to remember you.

  • Recommendation: Create book club questions about your books and post them free online. Also, a lot of small local book clubs don’t advertise, so they aren’t easy to find. Ask around at local bookstores (both indie and chain) and libraries.

• Reader communities and memberships.
  Patreon, Substack, Discord groups, private Facebook communities—places where readers get early stories, behind‑the‑scenes posts, and extras in exchange for recurring support. These can become a parallel income stream and a direct communication channel.

  • I’ll throw that pitch out there right now: Substack Book clubs! I’m available if you’d like to read and discuss any of my books, fiction or nonfiction. Might I recommend Echo of Lies and Hearts of the Missing?

• Bundles, box sets, and co‑ops.
  Authors band together for multi‑author box sets (I love this idea. Anyone interested?), limited‑time bundles, shared‑world anthologies, or cross‑promos. The collective weight can punch through some of a platform’s indifference.

• Email lists as our real “platform.s”
  Newsletters remain the one asset nobody can algorithm‑throttle. Many indies treat their mailing list as their true home base, with storefronts and social media as just satellites.

  • Caution ⚠️: Like everything else, newsletters to readers are at saturation and full-to-the-breaking point inboxes mean automatic deletes before opening or ‘I’m so tired of this’ unsubscribes. Remember, every unsubscribe is probably not your true reader, and every organic subscribe makes me smile. The best recommendation is to give the reader value, but don’t undersell your book’s worth.

The irony is thick in indie publishing: platforms and big trad houses both “anoint” bestsellers and push them in front of eyeballs. The difference is that indie authors have started to realize that the most reliable way out of that funnel isn’t to win the algorithm lottery—it’s to make the platform optional by building their own small, stubborn, human network around the books.

So what have I missed? How are you selling books “around” the 1000 lb gorilla online platforms, sucking up as much oxygen as they can? I’d love to add to this list.

Thanks for reading.