Moonlight & Magnolias Conference

Moonlight & Magnolias is an amazing writers conference. Held in Atlanta every year, M&M is thrown by Georgia Romance Writers, a chapter of Romance Writers of America. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to attend the last three M&M’s.

This year’s M&M opened with a surprise. Two friends I hadn’t seen in forever were there. But that’s not the big surprise was when they told me how well they were doing as indie authors. And that set the theme for the rest of the conference.

For those who don’t know, “Indie” is short for independent. Indie authors don’t depend on publishers. They self publish via Amazon, Barnes &Noble, Smashwords, etc. They , and they alone, are responsible for doing or having someone do the editing, formatting, cover art, and all the other tasks that publishers have traditionally provided for authors.

The first workshop I attended was with Nina Bruhns (AKA Nikita Black), who told us all about Indie publishing and how she is doing better with indie than with a traditional New York publisher. From there on, the talk was all about income streams and how having several titles available—regardless of the path to publication—was the way to making money in this business. Discoverability is the key–how to get readers to notice your book in the vast ocean of books out there.

It was a lot to take in. And a lot to think about. But you, the readers will be the winners in the end. More choices, books that might never have been published will be out there. And let me tell you, some of them are amazing.

Would you buy a book that you knew was indie published? Would you publish one? Are there types of books you’d like to read, but can’t find—or can’t find enough of?

Have a great week!
Cheryel