This month is Indie April, the month when we celebrate independently-published authors. This includes both self-published and small press authors, who account for over a million books published annually, including almost half of the e-book market.
To celebrate Indie April, the Kindle edition of both my books will be available for a reduced price on Amazon worldwide until the end of this month!
Self-published books include some well-known successes like The Martian and 50 Shades of Grey, (both of which have since been snatched up by traditional publishers), along with a huge number of brilliant books that aren’t getting as much attention as they deserve.
Because if you look at the books that newspapers and magazines are reviewing, you might well think all books are still published through traditional publishers. Print publications tend to only review books that are available in high street bookstore chains, even though the world’s largest book retailer is actually Amazon.
There are plenty of indie books to be found on Amazon, and the many other large book retailers you can find online, too. But it is easy to miss the indie books in the ocean of traditionally-published books. If you filter by top sellers, a lot of the books in that list will be from well-known authors and publishers with big marketing budgets.
Changing the way you search can reveal books you may not otherwise have seen. You can filter by what’s new or by price. If you have an idea of the sort of book you are looking for, you can search for specific words or phrases instead.
Once you’ve found some new books, how do you know which ones are any good? There are usually some reviews from other readers, along with an average star rating, on the retailer’s website. If there aren’t many, you can check on Goodreads, too.
For a next level review, there are influencers. Bookbloggers, booktubers and bookstagrammers are the indies of the reviewer world – the alternatives to newspaper and magazine reviewers. For the uninitiated, here’s a quick rundown.
- Bookbloggers provide written reviews on their websites. You can subscribe to get updates from them by email.
- Booktubers make videos in which they talk about books. You can subscribe to their channel on YouTube.
- Bookstagrammers post images of books they’ve read, with hashtags categorising them. You can follow them on instagram to see their reviews in your feed.
Most online reviewers read a wide variety of books, including both indie and traditionally-published. So whichever type of reviewer you prefer, you know you won’t be missing out on everything that independently-published authors have to offer.
If that isn’t enough Indie April for you, head over to Twitter and search #indieapril.
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Deborah Grant-Dudley 