Indie Publishing: How to Get Started With Indie Publishing

Independent publishing, or indie publishing, refers to a cadre of publishing companies that exist outside the sphere of major publishing houses, which can be difficult to access without a well-connected literary agent. Indie presses, by contrast, can make publishing books feel less daunting.

Independent presses cover smaller segments of the literary market, but they still have book marketing resources that get their products into independent bookstores and online booksellers. This exposure helps their published authors sell books—sometimes at a rate that might exceed what they could manage at a major publishing conglomerate.

Indie book publishing involves authors working with small presses to get their books out into the world. This is different from the self-publishing process.

• Indie publishing: Indie publishing refers to the assortment of small publishers who release print books, audiobooks, and e-books. Books issued by indie presses have an ISBN (international standard book number), just like those from a major publishing house. They cover all sorts of genres from literary fiction to nonfiction to pulpy thrillers to short stories to children’s books. They also have either an in-house book design team or a team they share with other indie publishers. Working with a small press is less like self-publishing and more like dealing with a big publishing company.
• Self-publishing: The self-publishing process is one in which authors pay to have their books printed and disseminated. Writers who use self-publishing services are often called independent authors or indie authors—even though they are not linked to independent publishers. The leading self-publishing platform is Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing service. The Kindle service lets authors sell e-books and offers a print-on-demand service, where books are printed once they are sold. Other self-publishing services are sometimes called vanity presses because they masquerade as traditional publishing houses when in fact they charge authors to publish their own books. Indie authors who go the self-publishing route are responsible for all elements of creating and selling a book, from editing to cover design to marketing.

If you’re marketing your first book to indie publishing houses, you’ll want to keep the following tips in mind.

1. 1. Identify a target audience. Publishing companies evaluate books not only on their literary merits but also on their commercial potential. Within the publishing industry, certain genres hold more appeal than others. In the world of literary fiction, these include children’s books, young adult novels, science fiction, fantasy, various thriller genres, and romance novels. You can write a great book in any genre, but these are traditionally the genres with the most reliable audiences.
2. 2. Have a novel you can pitch. Short stories and poetry collections are difficult to market as print books. Major book publishers rarely issue deals to authors pitching poetry and short story anthologies. Those who do get such book deals are almost always previously published authors. Working with an indie publisher gives you a better chance of acceptance, but no matter who you work with, you’ll more likely be able to publish a novel than a collection of short stories or poetry.
3. 3. Get your work in front of a literary agent. The traditional publishing process runs through literary agents, and these professionals are the gatekeepers to the publishing world. The annual Writer’s Market publication compiles a list of all working agents. Once you land a meeting, you’ll want to make sure you’ve mastered your pitch.
4. 4. Prepare a submission packet. Most literary agents do not want you to send an entire novel as part of a cold call. Instead, they’ll want to see a query letter, a one-paragraph blurb, a one-page synopsis of the entire novel, and a few sample chapters. These combined elements form your book proposal. Some agents have specific submission guidelines you can follow to start a mutually respectful relationship.
5. 5. If you don’t have an agent, submit directly to a publisher. If you don’t have a literary agent, you can submit your submission packet directly to an independent publisher. As with submitting to agents, follow the submission directions listed on the indie publisher’s website.

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