Authors are passionate, creative individuals who have stories to tell. These authors have labored countless hours over their characters, have lost precious sleep going over the finer points of their stories’ plot development, have missed important family events in order to agonize over their stories before, finally and ever-so-reluctantly, they realize that “the end” has come. For the author with a publishing house behind them, they submit their manuscript to their agent who, in turn, submits it to the publishing house where it will begin the complicated vetting process that will transform the manuscript into a published book, eagerly anticipated by hungry readers everywhere.

For the indie author, that process is somewhat simpler, thanks to the likes of Amazon and Smashwords, but the journey to the reader is much more complex for the simple fact that the marketing strategies of the pioneer “Kindle Millionaires” are no longer a “sure thing”. Back in 2009, when Amazon e-publishing was in its infancy and ebooks were needed to fill those new Kindles, readers eagerly awaited ebooks and snatched them up as quickly as they became published. Those indie authors who jumped on the bandwagon from the get-go really didn’t have to go to extraordinary measures to have readers buy their books nor did it take very long for Amazon to produce its first crop of “Kindle Millionaires”.

Now fast-forward to today. With literally thousands upon thousands of ebooks being published on Amazon every month, there are very few Kindle Millionaires anymore. The KDP Select program was and still remains helpful in raising an indie author’s Amazon profile – but only temporarily. Before, if an indie author had a three or five-day freebie book promotion running through KDP Select, that author could count on a nice sales bump for several days immediately after its free book promotion ended. However, with Amazon constantly changing its algorithms, this isn’t necessarily the case anymore.

This is why almost all indie authors turn to other forms of advertising. Some of it works and some of it doesn’t but almost all of the time, it’s very expensive. Given the challenges facing indie authors in getting their books noticed today, some are beginning to think outside the box. For example, there was an article in The Huffington Post about Warby Parker, the American sunglass company, becoming the first ebook advertiser when it undertook to sponsor the ebook single, Coronado High. Coronado High is the true saga of a group of surfer high school students in San Diego who became one of the most profitable U.S. pot smugglers in the seventies, led by their former gym teacher. While there were no disclosures as to the financial specifics of the deal or any readership targets, it stands to reason that was a win-win situation for both parties.

As can be seen, reaching “The End” is just the beginning of the indie publishing process. Survival and success for indie authors in today’s competitive publishing world requires ingenuity in the way they market themselves and their books, no two ways about it.