Chris and I joined a international writing organization because it was where the publishing industry gathered, the experts, those who have the experience behind them. As novices in the industry, we came looking for knowledge to educate ourselves, to understand the machine, to network with more seasoned authors, grow as writers.
We received all that and more from the chapter we joined. An amazing group of writers of all genres and personal experiences within the industry and also willing to share their knowledge. We did our due diligence we dotted our Is and crossed our Ts. We did everything we learned through sharing, workshops and discussions. We used critique groups to polish our manuscript, query letter and synopsis. We submitted to many, many publishing houses and agents only to be told that our story "was not a right fit." To this day, we still have yet to hear from at least three of them even though it has been almost 8 months since our last query was submitted.
We knew we had a good story. ARC readers, beta readers and even other authors agreed but we could not get one single agent or publishing house to request a full. Call me impatient but I refuse to sit on a story for years waiting for the market to change (and it always does) to accommodate our genre. So we looked into Independent Publishing. It took a lot of research into the subject, information other traditionally and independent published authors shared, to make us go from doubting the validity of independent publishing and considering it last resort to believing it to be the only logical option. We had the same concerns about the stigma of self-publishing but we researched, we debated, and in the end we were confident enough in our story to publish it ourselves. We found a fantastic editor, copy editor, a typesetter, and Chris's years of web and graphic design came in handy to develop a fantastic cover and branding concept.
We did not invest tons of money in promotion, quite frankly we suck at it, but we never gave up. We put our marketing platform in place—web sites, blogs, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, networking. We put ourselves out there and, no matter how dismal sales were, we were happy to put our books in the hands of readers and reviewers. Reviewers, mind you, who were surprised to find out—after receiving our book whether in print or ebook format—that it was "indie published". We were thrilled that they could not even tell the difference.
My point is, times have changed. The responsibility of making sure works are released without errors falls on the writer's shoulders but the rewards are instant and fair. We have seen shoddy work coming from the said big publishing houses. For example, one of my favorite multi-published authors with several books/series to her credit and a strong publishing house behind her, had over 60 grammatical errors and typos within her last novel. As far as quality control, we have not received one complaint about errors, grammar, typos.
It was the information we found through our organization chapter and through networking with other authors that gave us the resources and KNOWLEDGE to go about it the right way. That is how standards are created through sharing of information. My personal opinion is that writing organizations should be the mother for all romance writers independent of how they decide to publish. These organizations should set an example and help independent writers create a set of standards so good/amazing stories that don't fit the norm have a fighting chance to reach readers' hands.
We refuse to believe our work is not to par just because it doesn't fit the cookie cutter mold that the publishing houses have created. We refuse to believe that we are not credible authors or that our stories are not worthy of reading solely because we do not have the name of a well know publishing house behind us.
We are proud of our work. We are proud of the reviews we have received. We are proud that we are dictating the direction of our writing careers. We are proud to be called "indie." We are proud to be in the category of independent publishers.
