Amazon's Indie publishers?

Katie Elle said:

I'm not ashamed to be working directly with storefronts. I just believe some words are wielded as a way to demean others and that any given group of people has the right to define their own terms.

Also fwiw, I worked at a small academic press for 7 years as a typesetter. I never once heard the term "indie." We were a small press or an academic press.

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So why not just call yourself self published if that's what you are?

I'm sorry, I just don't understand why people feel the need to hide behind a misleading term.

For what it's worth, I've been self and trade published and am married to a publisher.

All I can say is, if you send your book to reviewers, be ready for them to refer to your book as self-published. Don't take offense, and don't lecture them on the problems of the publishing industry and the brave new world of self-publishing. Don't propose that they spotlight you in an article on that brave new world. Chances are, they've heard it all before.

I certainly have. I make every effort to spotlight self-published titles I really like, or that have some compelling interest to our readers, but that's a tiny fraction of the dozens I receive annually.

I've noticed an increase in writers who are willing to say up front that they've self-published and also realize that fact alone is not worthy of a story, and for this I'm grateful. If the blogger or book editor is at all receptive to self-published titles, your book will speak for itself.

Meanwhile, my boss still can't tell a self-published title apart from a trade one, but that's another story...

"Vanity publishing" does sound pejorative (and for good reason?), but "self-publishing," to me, is just factual. The more good SP books readers encounter, the less inclined they'll be to use it that way. With no gatekeepers, bad SP books will always outnumber good ones, but readers like the books they like. Generalizations like "trashy romances," "crappy self-published books" and "horrible fanfiction" (used to dismiss an entire genre) are generally used by people who don't read that genre and have no sense of the range of stuff out there.

Quick question, and possibly a derail, but are the terms 'indie-author' and 'indie-publisher' the same?

I tend to say self-publisher when referring to myself, but sometimes refer to peers as 'indie-authors' in a colloquial sense. I wouldn't use it in a professional setting though.

Publishers are independent or not-independent.

What's a writer who isn't independent?

Old Hack said:

What's a writer who isn't independent?

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Married?

sarahdalton said:

Quick question, and possibly a derail, but are the terms 'indie-author' and 'indie-publisher' the same?

I tend to say self-publisher when referring to myself, but sometimes refer to peers as 'indie-authors' in a colloquial sense. I wouldn't use it in a professional setting though.

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and indie publisher is an independent publisher - ie. not one of the big six (well, big five now I guess)

I hate the term indie-author because it doesn't actually mean anything. If used in it's proper sense it means an author who has been published by an independent publisher. But really, either an author is trade published or they aren't.

I despise the term used as a cloak to conceal self publishing. I'm self published. I'm proud to be self published and I don't feel the need to hide that with misappropriated terms and I don't feel the need to mislead readers and the general public by using a term that means something else entirely within the industry.

If nothing else, being self published and calling myself 'indie' instead only shows my own ignorance of the industry in which I am trying to forge a career. Continuing to call myself that after I've learned the truth would only show my own disregard for the industry and my fellow writers. Not cool.