Entering my third year as an indie, it is my responsibility to impart sage wisdom to the world. (Don’t blink, or you might miss it.) See the series introduction post for more on my saga. But for now, lesson #3 for 2012:
You are not competing with other indies. You are competing with the big six.
Here is another mantra for you as you work. Repeat it, live it, remember it. Launching an indie career in the current Wild West of publishing is a double-edged sword.
The pluses include speed and flexibility of product to market. The distance and intermediaries between reader and writer are greatly reduced. So, as an indie novelist I can not only squirt out a new baby every four months (from outline to Kindle), but I can also incorporate reader feedback and adapt on the fly (sometimes as quickly as 24 hours).
If you’re the sort who has just opened a FaceBook account or are still resisting the thought of electronic reading, well, you aren’t going to like this. But the mode of storytelling continues to evolve.