Becoming an Indie Author (Part 1/2)

You’ve written a book, you’re considering self publishing and you wonder what it involves. In short: a lot! This post is a concise summary from editing, through self publishing and book launching, with many links to tools and information to help you along the way. It contains almost everything I’ve learned from indie author discussions in a Self Publishing Twitter group by Cheryl Burman, and what I’ve learned while self publishing my first book.

I’m Writing/ Have Drafted My Book, What Now?

1. Craft Knowledge

If this is your First book, and or you haven’t already researched how to develop your characters and plot, or read up on story structure, now is a a good time! Make notes to help get your head around character development, story structure and how they intertwine. Then use your notes to write character and plot focused outlines or revision/ structural edit lists to address potential character/ plot holes in your draft.

Resources to Help: KM Weiland’s Blog Series’: Developing Character Arcs, Story Structure and Scene Structure. My own Character Development Checklist.

2. Start Building Your Author Platform: Social Media

Yes, I’m talking about social media before you’ve even edited your manuscript, let alone have a book seeking a publishing path. Why? Because it takes time to grow a following. And the writing and editing stages are great opportunities to get to know fellow writers, build friendships and learn from each other. This is also the time to begin describing interesting features of your book and start generating interest in your story!

Post about the contents and the experience (or process) of writing your book. Talk to other writers on a social media platform of your choice’s Writing Community (my favourite being Blue Sky.) Connect with people you share interests with on social media (local interests, genres, themes that inspired and tie in to your story etc).

To begin with —pick ONE social media you feel is a natural (or least uncomfortable) fit for you. Get comfortable calling yourself a writer there, and publicly interacting as one. (FYI: there’s no such thing as an aspiring writer. If you write —you ARE a writer!).

Experiment, and learn the ropes of your first platform. Then start on a second platform. (Unless you’re bursting with restless energy *waves* and would rather choose the chaotic path of tackling multiple things at once over the easier one *waves again*).

[2026 Update: in the end I settled on Bsky as my main social media, Mastodon as a back up, and Discord as a good place to talk indie authoring with fellow writers, join Itchio book bundles, etc.]

Resources: Social Media for Writers, Blue Sky Newby Guide.

3. Critical Readers

Aim to get a few beta readers if you can, to comment on how they find your characters, plot, pacing, story tension etc.

If all they say is, ‘this is great and I liked this bit,’ I’d be asking, do my betas have the experience and ability to critically evaluate my story?
And the willingness and time to honestly comment on things they find problematic (or less than ideal) as a reader?
The communication skills to spell out how any particular aspect of my writing confused, bored or otherwise put them off?
Or do my betas think I only want encouragement (or a positivity pass), as opposed to constructive feedback to help me grow as a writer and to ensure my story is clear and engaging to unfamiliar readers?

If you suspect any of the above is an issue with one of your beta readers, I’d get another/ an extra beta reader. For my first few books, I wasn’t satisfied readers would be satisfied with my book until I’d had that rigorous critical reader who pulls me up on every potential crease, tear or hole in the reading experience. —And I’ve repaired and ironed those things accordingly.

Having attempted that for Manipulator’s War, I’ve now got reviews complimenting things (pacing and characters) the reviews may have complained about, if not for my critical readers.

Resources to Help: Finding Critical Readers, Mentors & Editors.
Checklists to aid Critical Reader feedback: Chapter one, Act 1, Act 2, Act 3.
Self Editing advice: Scene & Line Edit Tips.

4. Editing

Consider your goals for this book/ series and your budget. If you can’t afford an editor, get a second round of critical readers to comment on your post-beta-edited draft. Then, if you’re happy with it —get other, sharp eyed people to proofread it.

If you can afford an editor, consider which type(s) of editing you can afford: developmental (structural), stylistic (line editing), copy editing (word level technical & factual edits) and proofreading.

Manuscript Critiques/ Reports can be pricy, but are a cheaper alternative to (prohibitively expensive for most people) developmental edits. Bear in mind, some freelance copy editors charge by the hour instead of by the word. So if you tend to write fairly clean 100k books for example (like me), paying by the hour is more affordable and better value for money.

Resources: Different Levels of Editing and Critical Reader Services by editor Amelia Wiens (who did my manuscript critique) and 5 Things Authors Need to Know Before Hiring an Editor.

5. Decide on Cover Art

In choosing an artist or creating your own cover, research current covers in your genre and audience age. You want a cover design that clearly says to the reader “this book is (insert your genre)”. You also want a design that appeals to readers of that genre in ways they’re used to seeing. Pay attention to current trends in your genre, by researching new releases and studying their covers. For example, dark covers are a thing with YA Fantasy at the movement, and if characters are on epic fantasy covers — they’ve got weapons. So my cover for Manipulator’s War is dark and features weapons.

Reference Images
These are increasingly difficult to source from human photography/ human produced art, as opposed to gen ai slop, online. A couple of sites with great (photographic) visual references to choose character poses for your artist to refer to are Adorkastock, which has some great genre specific poses for characters, and True Ref.

Gen AI
DO NOT use gen ai to accelerate climate change to plagiarise you a cover. And DO NOT use gen ai ‘art’ or ‘videos’ to promote your books. Telling me you don’t care whether I have a planet to live on is reason to block and boycott you, not read your book, even if you actually wrote that, which your gen ai cover makes many people doubt.

Creating Your Own Cover

Remember that you need copyright permission for the art and fonts you use.
These fonts are public domain and free on Google. You can also purchase fonts from Creative Market.

Dafont has a wide range of fonts, but be sure to check the permissions listed for each, as some are for private use only, whereas some are permitted freely for commercial use, and yet others require you to license them from the font creator.

You’ll find free public domain images on Pixaby and a range of art galleries, including; Smithsonian Open Acess and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The National Gallery of Art, and likely more if you type ‘art galleries public domain’ as a search term into your browser.

Blurbs

Traditionally published authors will have honed their pitches near to perfection. Their blurbs will have had a LOT of critical feedback, editing by a literary agent, and possibly by an editor before a back cover exists to place those blurbs on. So for your blurbs to compete at online retailers —hone your pitch craft!

Post ask for feedback on your social media, or join an author discord (like my Writers and Authors) and ask for it there. You’ll find my best advice for writing an engaging blurb in this post.

Cover Artist

If hiring a cover artist, check the contract to see if you own the art, and if you need to pay the artist fees for using the art in your merchandise, on your website and in any promotional graphics you make. If you’re unsure which of multiple pieces of concept art to use for the final cover, try posting a poll on social media and or consulting your newsletter subscribers. In considering cover artists, you may also like to ask how they work, and how much your cover design can change within the negotiated price.

For example, my cover artist GlintofMischief and I built a set of Pinterest pins as well as discussing my cover (in 2022, before Pinterest was overrun by gen ai), and I reviewed multiple concept sketches before we chose (and modified) the published cover. I also chose my fonts, and designed the glyphs on the Ruarnon Trilogy Covers.

I suggest seeking a cover artist by asking fellow indie authors, though alas the phrase ‘cover art’ on Bsky tends to attract bots/ gen ai/ scammers. Try wording it creatively to thwart bots if you post publicly, or just ask on Discord, where admins like myself work hard to boot bots the moment they enter a server.

6. Choose Your Distributer(s)

2026 Edit: Do You Sell On Amazon?

I know. Not too long ago the idea of being an indie author and not having your books on Amazon was ‘unthinkable.’ And KU gets you page reads without doing anything to market your books, and most of us struggle to find time and energy to market.

Itchio Shared Marketing Instead of KU

But you could join an Itchio book bundle, and then its you and 15-40 author authors marketing for the 2 weeks/ month that it runs. And when that bundle sells; all of you get some profit. So you’re boosting fellow indies, still getting some sales/ your book to new readers each month and NOT giving Bezos a dime.

(Discord servers like my Writers and Authors and Blue Sky Social are the best place to find and enter those bundles.)

Itchio also let authors decide how much profit we keep, and how much Itchio get. I have mine set to 10% of sales for them, 90% for me. You can’t do that on Zon.

Kobo Promos Instead of KU

Or, you could go direct with Canadian Amazon competitor Kobo, ask them to add the promo tab to your dashboard, then apply to have your books entered in in-house promos with a few mere clicks. You aren’t guaranteed to get into every promo and unlike bundles, which are virtually guaranteed to get SOME sales, you aren’t guaranteed sales either. But you aren’t also guaranteed KU reads. And Bezos cannot profit from your Kobo promos. So I encourage you to think about it!

You’ll earn 70% on your sales (same as Amazon), less below certain price points, as listed on Kobo’s author royalties FAQ page.

Library Sales

Again, you could sell your books to libraries and share profits with Bezos. Or you could use Kobo Direct to distribute to Overdrive instead. And you could sign up to the Kobo Overdrive Promo mailing list to enter those promos on the bottom of this Kobo Writing page.

If you’re in the US or Canada, you can also submit your book to the Indie Author Project, which may see it reviewed and selected by editorial boards for libraries in your state/ province.

Draft To Digital 2026 Update

The original version of this blog talked about Kindle Unlimited, or using Draft to Digital to also distribute your ebooks to other ebook stores, for a 10% fee for having one dashboard to upload to and manage sales on many stores. D2D use Ingram Spark’s global print distribution, which I prefer to the Ingram Spark (direct) dashboard.

BUT… in 2026 D2D have entered a $20 sign up fee. (Fair enough, UK company Bookvault, who print and distribute my paperbacks for direct sales have that too.) But they also decided that if you don’t earn $100 gross profits through your wide distribution annually, they’ll charge you an annual fee of $12 US. The problem with that fee applies to around 80% of (the many) indie authors I know and it includes me too. (My Bsky thread asking people about this. D2D is around 5-10% of my author income.)

So for many indie authors, D2D is no longer a way to distribute to Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Apple, Bookshop.org, Hoopla or Smashwords. Unfortunately, Smashwords is now fully merged with D2D, so you cannot go direct with Smashwords. There’s also no option to go direct with Bookshop.org or Hoopla.

Draft To Digital Alternatives

Going Direct

You can go direct with Kobo, Apple and Barnes and Noble. Though you need to give Apple a physical address -not a P.O Box. And Barnes & Noble only pay in US dollars (no great for those of us not in the US.) And for every store you go direct with, that’s another store to update front and back matter or covers with, and another store you’ll have to set sales up on. That was the advantage of D2D; ONE dashboard to update your books and run most of your sales on. (Itchio and direct sales are my only stores I can’t do that for on D2D.)

Your Own Direct Store

Why give other stores 30% profit from every ebook sale when you can claim around 90% -deductions from that being payment processor and other fees, as opposed to a store claiming a cut? Setting up my direct sales on Payhip in 2025 was fairly straight forward. As was setting up paperback printing on Bookvault and linking Bookvault to Payhip, so I can sell both ebooks and paperbacks on Payhip. Payhip emails my ebooks, and Bookvault prints my paperbacks in Australia/ US/ UK/ Canada, and arranges postage.

Yes, your own store won’t have existing customers, like other ebook stores. So link it your social media bio. Link your direct store, and then an-all stores link to every social media post about your book. Make it easy for anyone your marketing efforts reach to buy from you directly. I’m noticing people on Bsky Social are increasingly willing to do so; if you persuade them to want your book.

Other Distributors

XinXii (European, just to be confusing) seems to be the only free to play alternative to D2D. Aside from a handful of European countries (Norway being the biggest), Paypal is the only payment option for XinXii and 20 euros in earnings is the payment threshold. They claim 30% of your net price, and 60% for books priced under 3 euros.

Worth noting; XinXii is ebook only, not paperbacks.

Ingram Spark
As mentioned above, I found their dashboard a PAIN. But their have a good global distribution network for paperbacks, for which you will need to supply your own ISBN.
Bonus: in February 2026 they waived their paperback book set up fees.
(Resource: Why Ingram Spark expanded distribution for print books is preferable to Amazon’s, including ISBN advice, by Eric V. Van Der Hope.)

Non Options/ Pay to Play
Publishdrive is $100 a year.
StreetLib is $99 a year. (StreetLib used to have a free tier, but that seems to have been partially hidden on their website, then removed entirely for new authors when D2D introduced their annual fee.)

Both the above are annual prices, period, whereas D2D is $12 annually if you don’t earn $100 gross annually. So I don’t recommend Publishdrive or StreetLib for new indie authors.

Imprints: do you Need or Want One?

Some stores will display a publisher name. Discrimination against indie authors is reducing over time. Perhaps people realise that there are far more stories available than literary agents to represent them, or that just because a publisher can’t make enough $ for a book to be worth their time, doesn’t mean it isn’t a great book for a smaller and thus not so profitable audience.

You could list your own legal name as who published your book. Or you can create a press imprint.. Mine is Faraway Fiction Press. I’ve registered it as a business name with the relevant Australian body for tax purposes and it has its own website (to reserve and link the .com domain name to my books).

Resource: For info on the benefits of having your own press, see this post by David Wogan.

ISBNs: Do you Need or Want them?

Many retailers offer a free ISBN, which can only be used for your book at that retailer. If you’re going direct to multiple retailers, this means a lot of ISBN numbers on your copyright page. Buying your own and hainge a single ebook, a single print and if you do audio, a single audio book ISBN per book may be simpler. (Yes, each format requires a different ISBN.)

The good news is ISBNs are free if you’re in Canada, or New Zealand. And you can buy around 10 for $80 Australian (I fear they’re more expensive in the US and UK.) Bowker is who to buy them from if you’re in Australia or the US. Nielsen is for the UK.

National Book Deposits & Library
Re-imbursements

Adding this section in 2026, as over 5 years I’ve self published 5 books and… only deposited one of them at my (Aussie) National library, which is a requirement in Australia. So I suggest checking if your country/ state also has that requirement. (Here’s the Aussie link for that.)

It’s also worth checking, if you do distribute to libraries, if your country has a government grant to compensate authors for our books being read in libraries. (Here’s the Aussie Lending Rights link.)

7. Extend your Author Platform

Website

I suggest setting this up after social media because imposter syndrome is real, and hopefully having been on social media and presented as a writer for at least a few months (I was on social media over a year before I took this step), you will find it more natural to write an author bio and present yourself professionally as an author on your site. Blogs are optional and of course take more time, but they bring a lot more traffic to your site than an author name and book title no-one has heard of, so I recommend them.

If you decide to have a blog, I recommend drafting posts ahead of time. (I teach full time, so I write most blogs in the summer holidays, then edit and publish them once a month).

Resources: Author Website Set Up Tips, Unpublished Authors and Websites by Jane Friedman, 100 Unpublished Author Blog Ideas by Mixtus Media.

NewsLetter

Once your site and social media presence are established, its a good time to think about your newsletter. If you only have time for a blog OR a newsletter, here’s a post by Jane Friedman weighing pros and cons of having only either. If you start a newsletter, you’ll need a reader magnet. A 10-20k short story, maybe the origin or background story of a central character or a subplot you had to edit out of your novel can work nicely for this.

To build your subscriber base, Bookfunnel group promos were a good option (to me in I think 2023), but in 2026 I’m hearing the prices have increased and the number of sign ups people are getting is dropping. Story Origin is a got option for swapping newsletters directly with other authors, when you’ve hit 500+ subscribers. (They have some smaller lists, but not many.)

Resources: Not sure what to say in your newsletter or where to promote it and how? I’ve blogged ideas in Author Newsletters: the Basics. See also Unpublished Author Newsletters by @LombardEmma.
For newsletter providers and more information, see Jane Friedman’s Newsletters for Authors Getting Started Guide.

Part 2

I suspect that’s more than enough information to get you started, and possibly enough to make your head spin, so I’ll end this blog here. Part 2 is packed with ideas and resources for your book launch and initial marketing plan, author profiles, formatting and uploading your book and tips right up to launch day.

Acknowledgements

I learnt A LOT of the above from conversations with and between the following indie authors:

Further Reading

Just in case your head isn’t exploding with information already, there are more resources on many of the above topics on my Writers Resources Page. I’ll also point you towards a Self Publishing pro, David Gaughram.
If your head is exploding, I suggest bookmarking this post so you can revisit a few of its steps at a time.

Whichever of the above steps you’re at –Good Luck!