Ideal Companion on Road to Indie Authorship

Being an independent author is not an easy feat. You have to juggle many tasks and often work with freelancers to get things like your cover and editing done. You put your book out there, and you may or may not see the sales that you’d hoped for. This book, written by a successful independent author, is meant to support you in your indie journey by giving you the inside scoop on a variety of topics, from self-care to productivity to marketing. Most importantly, the author wants you to help you have the correct mindset so you don’t stress out about the process or lose the desire to keep writing.

To this end, she shares information and insights in this book on a wide range of topics. She first looks at understanding your writing personality, time constraints, and other issues that have strictly to do with you. She’s a firm believer in self-care, and she encourages you to be realistic about what is achievable, both professionally and personally. Chapters in the middle section of the book range from organizing your time to the minimum viable needs of your book to the use of social media (or not). It’s not really meant as a how-to; you’re not going to get specific Instructions about how to do most of what she talks about. Instead, she brings up what she believes is essential to know about each topic. You learn not only from her; she quotes several other independent authors directly as well as linking to websites and suggesting books to read. Each chapter ends with a set of questions to get you thinking about how the chapter topic relates to you and your writing.

The book has one major drawback that I found frustrating. There is no written or clickable table of contents. I did receive a review copy, so I double-checked at Amazon to see if that version had one. It did not. There is so much useful information here that I would like to be able to get back quickly to a particular topic when I have a question or want advice. Too, as a reader, I always go over the table of contents of a nonfiction book before I start to read it so I know what to look forward to. I feel like it helps me organize my mind so that I am better able to assimilate the knowledge in the book.

This book is chock-full of information and support that will help you if you choose to become an independent author.