re: Publishing, anyone?

I think that's the golden question. Finding an audience is so difficult because it takes spending some money on AMS ads and Facebook Ads to get the book in front of potential readers. At least that seems to be the consensus among successful indie authors.

One of the best things you can do as an author and business person is write more books. Indie authors do better when they have more content for readers to buy. I know many writers who write three or more books before releasing them with a strategy - one a month or every few weeks - hoping to build buzz. Series books do well. I have only six books in indie. I'm putting more in because one of my publishers reverted rights back to me so I'm actively working on learning more about things like creating effective Facebook ads and marketing on AMS (which seems easy but is not). I would suggest you write more books, come up with a marketing strategy. If you're writing a series, you could consider making your first book a loss leader (free or inexpensive) in order to hook readers and sell through to the other books in your series. If you can't write full-length books, novellas and even shorts can work in your favor. Readers are greedy and love new content so many successful indie authors try to give something every 3-4 months. If they are stand alone, I would suggest choosing a price range from $3.99-$5.99. Are you thinking about going wide or doing KDP (Kindle Unlimited)?

I'm a hybrid author because I still write for a publisher while I dabble in indie. But many of my friends who wrote for smaller publishers or who were mid-listers have gone completely indie and I don't think you could talk them out of giving up their books to a publisher again.

If you're on FB, I would recommend searching for Author Support Network - a private group started by Marie Force. It's a great resource for new writers who are considering indie.