Just signed a renewal on the Virtual Reality option for Debt Collector.
As it happens, the first season of my gritty, sexy future-noir/cyberpunk serial (Debt Collector) is free this week (sitting pretty at about #400 free on the kindle store) – which means the audiobook is super-cheap too.
I’m not a superstar author. I’m not a household name. Yet, I make a really solid living with my self-published works (both under SKQ and my Penname) such that I get to do extraordinary things. Like option to have one of my works push the boundaries of storytelling by rendering it into Virtual Reality. Like having audiobook companies and award-winning narrators render my works into spoken form. These things are the wages of hard work, daring to purse a dream, and a whole lot of luck… but the best part is how many of my fellow indie authors are also building fanbases, writing their stories, and making a living.
I remember five years ago thinking, “Wow, this indie thing is just getting started. It’s changing how people write and *what* they write, and I wonder in five years what it will look like to be a career indie author…”
Now I know. It looks like a constant struggle to write fast enough for your fans. It’s the extraordinary ability to write, publish, edit, and release a story entirely on your own terms – from the timing to the price to the content to the covers. It’s being able to get an agent solely to exercise your audio/foreign rights, who really gets the indie landscape (shout out to Sarah Hershman).
I may not be a rock star author, but I *am* a career indie author. And I’m as committed today as when I started out to not just make a living with my books but to shape what’s *possible* – creatively and as a business – for indie authors who pursue their dreams.
I’m 30 books into this career, and I’m just getting started.