Nope. Of course not.
The Straight White Boys' Tech Oligarch Club does not need my money, nor do I want to hand it to any of them. Unfortunately, indie authors very much depend on Amazon and big social media to sell books and reach new readers.
Sooo... How amma gonna do this thing (aka, feeding my family) without throwing money at billionaires?
Good question!
If I cared only about money, I’d throw my mystery-writing dreams on the compost pile, crank out romantasy and erotica at a minimum of one new book a month, and hope for coins to roll in.
Maybe I’d even make enough for hubby to retire in two years. Who knows, perhaps one day I’ll have to?
But not today.
Nope, these days, I'm divesting from the huge corporations step by mini-step while scrambling to find alternatives.
- I'm still on Amazon because that's where most of you are. But I no longer run paid ads on Amazon, nor am I an affiliate (who wants to be affiliated with Bezos, anyway?). Fuck Amazon, I'm running my own tiny bookstore.
- Goodreads was bought by Amazon years ago, which didn't make the platform any better. On the contrary. If you're looking for an independent and much prettier alternative, try StoryGraph. Another is BookBub, if you're looking for cheap and free eBooks.
- I killed my Meta business account, including my Instagram and my Facebook page (good bye, 4000 followers 😢). I'll no longer pay Zuckerberg to help sell my books or reach new readers. This is probably going to lose me around 80% of my visibility, but fuck it.
- I'm on Bluesky now, stumbling along, trying to figure out how this "interaction with strangers" thing works again. So far, I suck at it.
But the most important part of this plan? YOU!
You and this community are the absolute core of my indie-author survival. Without you, I wouldn’t write. Like, at all. I’d farm. And I’d mope. But mostly mope.
Every time you open one of my emails and read one of my posts, every time you reply, every time you talk about my books in reader groups or shout them out on socials, you are the lifeblood of my writing circus.
Thank you for sticking with me as I fumble my way along this fraught road to independence.
Have suggestions and thoughts on what this little indie author should do to escape the Techdustrial Complex? Hit reply or leave a comment below – I’d love to hear your take!
In the meantime, have an insult-y illustration:
And because I very much enjoy teasing you, here's a snippet of chapter 16 of The Memory Collector:
It was a balmy May morning, the kind that made London's gutters steam. The sun-warmed cobbles intensified the stink of mule manure and fish guts until the air seemed to curdle. Grim poked half-heartedly at a brass shackle lock with his good hand, cursing under his breath as the mechanism refused to yield. He didn't even look up when a customer appeared at his stand, a shadow falling across his workbench like an unwelcome reminder of the world beyond his own.
A throat cleared. Female. 'Any work?'
His gaze met Beatrice Wren's peculiar pale eyes, now fixed on his scarred face with more intensity than was considered proper. She reached out to touch a rusted Chubb detector lock at the precise moment its shackle snapped open. Her hand jerked back as if the metal had burned her.
Seeing her, he wasn't entirely sure whether to take his foul mood another notch down. Yes, he probably should. 'You planning to ask me every day now?'
'Well...' Her fingers worried the frayed edge of her sleeve.
See ya in two weeks or so!
Annelie