The Dangers of Indie Author Advice

As Indie Authors, we are all looking for the nuggets of truth that will drive our writing and sales into the stratosphere. And there is no end to author advice out there. Most of these tips come from the well-intentioned. Authors are known for being a helpful community, after all. And a lot of providers of author services are well-meaning too.

But the extreme passion that creators share sometimes leads to ill-advised recommendations. Would you take stock trading advice from a broker that, up until then, had only operated in the red, reporting losses and no gains? Would you build a house on the technical advice of a builder where the last five houses they constructed collapsed? Probably not.

And I provide advice too. Many of you read it on Indie Authors Social. I mostly channel the knowledge of much wiser, more experienced, and more successful authors than I. That said, there is one area in that I am expertly qualified to provide indie author advice: how to keep going in the face of setbacks. So, you can follow me over there for the “how to keep driving on” tips. But all my publishing efforts so far have been a house of cards, and I can’t fathom trying to come off like an authority on successful indie author publishing tactics. So, I will continue to relay the proven tactics I hear from the true sages.

I’d love to get a stat on this, but it’s safe to say that the author services market is a big chunk of revenue compared to indie-published books' sales. There are numbers floating around that it costs from $1,500 to $10,000 to self-publish a book. Those are for the core services like editing, cover design, and modest marketing.

How many of us have bought services, consulting, or self-help books resulting from “author advice”? You’ll see it like this: 25% real, valuable tips and content; 75% pitching a product, service, event, or their latest self-help book.

To be clear, I get it. The typical self-published author must have multiple income streams to keep the lights on. So why not offer services they are passionate about—writing and publishing books? I think where the practice of providing advice starts going south is when the majority of the author’s income comes from the self-help business and not from selling the books they initially started their authorly passion with.

So, in these cases, authors are making a living providing indie author advice, while they never actually succeeded in making a living at it themselves. Of course, many of these types of others eventually fail too, when their customers realize the truth of the matter, but there are many eager authors ready to fill their place. Remember, we are a bunch of passionate creators.

There are a handful of successful authors that write to their passion and provide services. I try and focus on those authors.

And then there are the ones that fully went to the Darkside and prey on the longing of indie authors to get their works in front of readers’ eyes. Many of these people were burned by trad-publishing, never made it in indie publishing, or were never writers themselves. I’ll save that topic for another day.