My Life as an Indie Author #PoweredByIndie | Renee Scattergood

Originally posted by Renee Scattergood:

Even though I’m not yet where I want to be as an author, I have to say that so far this journey has been a dream come true.

I think the main reason I feel so differently from other authors I’ve read about is that I’m not trying to rush things. I know where I want to go and I know eventually I’ll get there as long as I keep moving forward. So, I take it a day at a time and I’m allowing myself to enjoy the journey.

It wasn’t always like this for me though.

I decided early on that I wanted to self-publish my work. I had many reasons for this, but the main reason was that I just didn’t want to have to answer to anyone else as far as my work was concerned. I have an entrepreneurial spirit, and I’ve always wanted to be my own boss is whatever I did.

There was a time where I had considered traditionally publishing. I was scared. I wasn’t sure I could do it on my own because, at the time, there was a lot of negativity that went with being self-published. Even today, there are groups of people out there who use cyberbullying tactics to bring down indie authors.

Then organizations, like Amazon and Smashwords, made it easy to self-publish. While there is still some negativity, it seems to be dying down. Many readers are turning to indies because our books are cheaper, and according to many, a better value for the money.

I didn’t want to just jump into it though.

I took some time to study the industry and what I would be expected to do. A lot of the negativity was based on the belief that self-published authors put sub-par work into the world, and because of that, the whole industry was suffering.  I didn’t want to be one of those authors.

Once I started publishing, I was so determined to get my name out there. I pushed myself to write and market myself, sometimes for up to 16 hours a day. And I burned out. This thing I loved to do was suddenly more like work, and I began feeling like I didn’t want to do it anymore.

I didn’t give up though. I made myself take a break, and I decided it wasn’t worth doing if it wasn’t going to be fun for me. I stopped setting word count deadlines, and I loosened up my schedule. Now I seem to get more done in a shorter time than before. I don’t write as much as I did, but that’s more due to my health.

I’m not rich or famous, nor is that my goal, but I’m living the dream!