Indie publishing is the greatest, and I don’t mean in a glib way. The world of books and publishing is changing before our very eyes. Now more than ever, writers have the ability to be paid for their work within mere days of publishing. Not only that, writers can write as openly and frequently as they desire, not beholden to a publishing house. But these are are all merely circumstantial. Just icing on the cake, or the peppermint creamer in our coffee. The best thing about being able to self publish is the way self-publishing re-defines what success is.
Being paid for what you do is pretty great. In the past ten/twenty years we’ve seen writers like James Patterson make a literal fortune at writing. It made the rest of us think, ‘well, if he could do it, then why can’t I?’ By the time Kindle Digital Press rolled around, Amazon might as well as declared, ‘there’s gold in them thar hills’! This was heady stuff, both then and now. Nitrous had been injected into the dreams of thousands of writers. This is the literary version of Halliday’s contest for the golden egg.
As great as all these opportunities are, I think we have forgotten what the point of writing really is. I’m not immune to all of this. I confess that it wasn’t long ago that I was drunk off the opportunities offered by platforms like Wattpad, and Kindle Direct Publishing. I wanted to write something that was successful so badly that I actually forgot why I wanted to write in the first place. In a sense of tragic irony, I never wrote anything successful, because I couldn’t write anything. Period. I couldn’t write because I was trying to be something that I wasn’t. I would break down popular movies/books, and then try to re-create them. I would lose motivation very quickly. This shouldn’t be any surprise, I wasn’t writing nothing beautiful or true. I was trying to hijack the work of others.
Looking back I shake my head in dismay. I have quite possibly the greatest opportunity ever afforded authors. Instead of taking advantage, I was squandering a valuable opportunity. I was on the verge of becoming a complete hack artist, until something happened that changed everything.
About two months ago, I came across “The Fellowship of the Ring” by J. R. R. Tolkien. I haven’t read any of the “Lord of the Rings” books in years. But coming across the book triggered a series of flashbacks. I remembered that it was reading Tolkien that originally inspired me to write in the first place. Books like “Lord of The Rings”, “The Hobbit”, “The Silmarillion, & “The Children of Hurin” were some of my favorite books. (Years later, they still are by the way) I never wanted to win awards or sell millions of copies originally. I wanted to give people the same experience I had when residing Tolkien. I wanted to give people dreams, I wanted to inspire with my words. I wanted to write something that would bring people joy, something they could read for years to come.
As I looked at the cover of Tolkien’s masterpiece, I was reminded of why I originally wanted to write. You know what I did? I scrapped the (terrible) draft I was working on and started anew. Clean slate. For the first time ever, I’m making incredible progress. I’m enjoying my work more than ever, while also working harder than ever. For the first time in years, I have clarity of visions and purpose. My whole definition of success has changed, for the better. It is this vital lesson I will carry with me into the new year. Being able to independently publish, affords me the opportunity of writing from my soul. It allows me to remember why I began writing in the first place.
