All About Indie Author Tools

Indie Authors are a Fiercely Loyal Tribe

This site was founded by a group of Indie Authors who first met online and then became friends in real life at the Smarter Artist Summit, 20Booksto50K Edinburgh, 20Booksto50K (VEGAS, BABY) and at Mark Dawson’s SPF Live in London.

We started meeting virtually to write together after London in March 2020 – nearly every day. From there, we started a Facebook chat to stay connected.
Sometimes between sprints and in our FB chat, we would discuss projects, our businesses, craft books, and some of the tools and conferences that we found helpful. We tried to keep track of all the good information and who recommended what – but like all things in the era of Coronavirus, it got out of hand.

What Makes Someone an Indie Author?

The increased availability of books in all forms – print, e-book and audio – coupled with the options to self-publish has given authors a new opportunity to control their own careers. Self-publishing doesn’t carry the stigma of “not good enough for a publisher” as it once did. Before, authors competed for the very limited attention of what we refer to as “Legacy Publishers” or “Traditional Publishing Houses.” It was difficult for any author to become successful. Royalties were low and authors were subject to the rules and budgets of departments who often didn’t understand how to market an author’s work.

Changes in The Last Ten Years

Increased use of Kindle Unlimited and the easy one-click access on e-readers and other devices created a market of voracious readers, hungry for books in every genre. Authors could now find and satisfy these readers with their books and connect with them on social media and in newsletters.

And they could take control of their careers as authors.

They can now choose their own support team to help them launch their book and get it in the hands of readers. Some of their team include:

Developmental Editors
Line/Copy Editors
Cover Artists
Proofreaders
Newsletter & Blog Post Admins
Website Designers
Social Media Marketers
Beta and ARC Teams

All the Tools Needed a Home

So we spun up a quick little website and created a searchable database of tools, podcasts, software, courses, and other resources for authors. We invite everyone to submit their favorite tools to help other authors.

This is a labor of love, so bear with us. We’re doing this between writing and managing our careers.

You’re welcome to join us, no matter what stage of your indie author career you’re in. We do require you to register for the site and confirm your email address. We do this for security reasons. The site is free to use. You can join with a pen name if you wish.

We aren’t affiliated with the group known as 20Booksto50K®, but we do hold with a lot of their philosophies.

A rising tide lifts all boats

When one of us succeeds, we all succeed. We aren’t each other’s competition in the strictest sense. You’ll find that you will learn best from other authors doing the work. Readers are loyal creatures if you treat them well and feed them often, and that includes others in your genre. Newsletter swaps and social media recommendations of other authors is one of the best ways to build reader loyalty.

There are many paths up the mountain

The best part of being an indie author is the freedom to create your own business and do what works for you. Because of that, there is no one way to be an indie author. Some will rapidly release books in quick succession. Some will publish one book per year. When you climb the mountain of success every person’s path will be different.

A Word of Warning

We ask that you refrain from prescriptive language like, “you need to do…” or “you didn’t do this right…” We respect and welcome advice from authors endeavoring to help other authors. Just please don’t communicate as if yours is the only or right way to do things.

We’re Sherpas

In the spirit of helping other authors up the mountain of success, we call our admin team Sherpas, much like the famous Tibetian Mountain Guides of the Himalayas.

We’re here to point you to the information that’s helped other authors – not to tell you what to do or how to do it.

The Rules of Engagement

We’ve adopted rules similar to the 20Booksto50K® group as well.

Don’t be a jerk
Don’t bash vendors
Don’t be prescriptive
No self-promotion
Do your own work

We reserve the right to remove and ban you from this website and/or our Facebook Group for any reason, although we’ll usually try and give fair warning if you break a rule first. This is a labor of love for the sherpas. This is a way for us to give back and work together to achieve success. No one has time to answer questions repeatedly, so use the search feature.

If we think of more rules we’ll let you know, but we’d like to keep it simple, so please just be a good human.