Indiana Jones, the movie legend brought to life by Harrison Ford is one of my favorite characters. Didn’t see that coming did you? Yes, I am talking about being an Indie Author, but I’m using a metaphor (bigger than a meta three, smaller than a meta five: it’s Friday, bear with me)
Indiana is a college professor and actually holds the title of Doctor. (PhD seems to stand for Potentially Hot and Dangerous in his case.) This puts him in the category of professional. However, fedoras and whips are not standard issue for most professors and they make Dr. Jones stand out and very, very cool.
That’s the way I see Indie Authors. We are professionals (as soon as you get paid for doing something, by definition, you are a professional) and we do the same thing that mainstream authors do; we write. But we brandish our Facebook Fedoras and our Twitter whips, post wild adventures on our blogs and are so brazen that sometimes we even design our own book covers (gasp!) Guess what? We are taking over the publishing world. Why? Because the world loves a hero and an underdog. Come on, Indie took on Nazis, natives and all sorts of villains with women and children as side kicks. Not only that, some of us are really great writers. I know because I read Indie books all the time.
Freedom of choice is what I see as the driving force behind the Indie movement, both in publishing and film. Corporate America would like nothing more than to make everyone fit into their little boxes, conform to their market surveys, follow the demands of their focus groups and keep making them rich. Too bad, the Independent Movement is here to stay. We will write the books and scripts with characters that speak to us and refuse to be silenced. We will publish and produce art that continually pushes the envelope and gives our readers and audiences more bang for their buck. Deal with it.
Time for me to don my fedora and hit the keyboard (the whip belongs to my muse, that’s a story for another blog). Maybe today I will get the golden idol and barely make it to the plane. Sometimes I get punched in the face and tied up or trapped in a tunnel full of snakes (Why is it always snakes?). Then there are the times when nothing works and I jump out of the plane in a life raft and start over, hitting The Giant Delete Button on the way out. But that’s OK, because all of these are MY decisions. When the muse is on her game and the characters are doing their part and the plot moves perfectly, I’m just the guy writing it all down. When someone reads one of my stories and tells me how much they liked it, I can stand proud on the mountain top. I think Dr. Jones would approve.
Danger: Unfiltered Content 