What Being An Indie Author Taught Me

I’ve been writing and publishing books for a few years now. I still have a lot to learn when it comes to editing, proofreading, and pretty much every category in the writing world, but it is a great hobby to have, especially when you are able to earn with it. There seems to be more opportunities every day for writing. Like many things there are moments of highs and plenty of low points. I do think that you have to go through the small venues in order to get to the big ones. A lot of people feel that my writing is really kicking off, but to be honest, I still feel like I’m at the same point I was many years ago. There is improvement, but I‘m not sure if I feel like I’ve matured.

However, I do think that being an indie author has taught me a lot of things. I think many other indie authors also feel the same way. We all have a story inside us that we consider to be our book baby. I love being a writer and would still do it even if I don’t get paid for it. I do want to give my readers the best experiance they can have with my stories.

The first thing being an indie author taught me was the importance of editing. Back when I was writing exclusively fan fiction, I didn’t care much for editing. I didn’t even put much thought to grammar other than having a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence and a full stop at the end. I didn’t punctuate dialogue properly and there were hardly any commas in my work. When readers said there was lots of mistakes, I didn’t know what they meant, so I asked. By mistakes they meant my grammar, and they said there was loads to pick from. I didn’t even know what grammar was, this is an embarrassment looking back on it now. Relying on software alone is not enough, but they are still good tools.

The second thing it taught me was being prepared to fail. I learned that it was okay to embrace my mistakes and learn to love them. Between all my pen names and platforms, my writing has been read over two million times. It has taken me many years to get to this, and each day it is growing. Most of those reads come from fan fiction, but it’s a sign that I must be doing something right.

The main difference between fan fiction and book writing is that in fan fiction the reviews are for you. In other book reviews the reviews are not for you, but an expression of personal opinion and they are sharing their view with the world. Whatever you are writing, the relationship between the writer and the reader is intertwined. Many passionate readers are also writers themselves. Looking back, it’s really obvious but it’s something I’ve only just noticed recently.

I’ve written many things over the years and a lot of my stories have explored taboo subjects. I once wrote an infamous fanfic that involved incest and questionable content. I learned the hard way that not everyone will like your work. People still enjoyed it, but it got spooked and I was kicked out of groups just because I was the author. Communities can be toxic and fandoms are both a blessing and a curse because they don’t always separate the art from the person. On another fandom I also got a lot of love and praise. Some even expressed interest in my books.

Joining writing circles has improved my social life. It helped give me the confidence to do things and go to places I never thought I would do.

Writing fan fics, poems and original content taught me what works and what dose not. I have so many stories I haven’t finished which makes me wonder if a writer is ever truly finished. I have come to the conclusion that a writer is never finished.