Well, I missed two days… but I am writing on saturday, so that should make up for one of them. And, It’s my birthday so that should make up for the other?

Anyway, so what I am thinking about this morning, is something that came up during the online chat the other day. And that is, why don’t indie authors support each other more?

My wife is an independent musician, as are many of my many of my friends, and so I know what that scene is like. Musicians really support each other. They go out to each others shows, they always buy each others cds. A musician can sell 500 cds in the first few months, just to other musicians!

And, as an old actor, I know its the same in the theatre community too. When you put up a show, you can expect 40% of the adience during the run to be other actors, coming out to support the house, other actors, and the vitality of the theatre scene in general.

And, I am certain the same applies to the indie film scene too.

But I just don’t see that in the indie book world yet. And I think if anyone would be in a position to see it, I would. All I sell are indie books, and I am the only one who sells only indie books. I know who is buying them… and it is not other indie authors.

There are hundreds of thousands of newly published indie authors each year. If each one of them bought 3 indie books in a year, that would have a huge impact on our whole industry!

There would be residual benefits as well. If you were buying and reading 3, 4, 5 indie books a year, you would certainly (and if you didn’t, others certainly would) stumble across the really good ones… the ones that you would want to tell your friends about. That is, non-indie-published friends. And in theory, it would help begin to spread the sale of indie books universaly, and help to end this rediculous stigma.

The stigma is a conversation for another post, but for now I will point out that “self-produced” indie musicians, as well as actors, film makers, painters, dancers, in fact pretty much every other artform know to man, are celebrated for putting up their own albums, shows, films, dance programs, and are considered “edgy,” “ambitions,” and “motivated” for doing so. They do not, to anywhere near the same extent, deal with the stigma that indie authors do.

So, what do we do to get authors to support each other? I don’t know. I have been hesitant to step forward as an advocate for this… because I do have a horse in the race. I sell the books I am encouraging you to buy.

I had thought about offering members “consignment free” purchases of books at AuthorsBookshop. But that would actually cost me money. So, perhaps I can split the difference and offer members $2 off of their purchase?

I don’t know if that will make the difference in itself, but perhaps that and some words to begin to wake people up the idea can start to change the culture of the community.

Ok, its time to head out for my birthday brunch. Adieu.