Digital publishing, e-books, independent authors: There are many tags that describe taking your book directly to the reader and they all mean the same thing — producing your own content and championing your own work.

In September of last year (2010), after nearly a decade of successful academic publishing and polite rejections of commercial fiction, I decided to take action and join the e-book movement. A movement of self published authors sharing book length content online that many were calling a revolution.

Aided by the Kindle and other e-readers, the e-book revolution had everyone from executives to sales assistants at the big 6 traditional publishers running to update their resumes.

Since September I’ve published four e-books and learned a lot about writing, editing, designing, and marketing e-books. A collateral benefit has been a greater understanding of what it means to be an independent or “indie” author and a deep appreciation of how much work indies put into not only their own work but supporting the work of others.

If you’re starting out, or thinking about taking the e-book plunge, join me this Wednesday at 2pm EST (that’s Eastern Standard Time in the U.S.) to get the insider’s look at all things indie: Live Video Chat. (And no, this video chat is not that kind of live chat invite  but a cool interactive feature authors everywhere will likely be using in the near future. A group of authors I know are early adapters and invited me to join: Just another great thing about being an indie!)

Mohana Rajakumar

Mohana has a PhD from the University of Florida with a focus on gender and postcolonial theory. She is the creator and co-editor of five books in the Qatar Narratives series, as well as the Qatari Voices anthology which features essays by Qataris on modern life in Doha (Bloomsbury Qatar Foundation Publishing, 2010). Mohana has published several ebooks and academic titles. Check out her Amazon.com author page

    

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