The Midlist Indie Author Mindset – T. Thorn Coyle

I started in traditional publishing twenty years ago, with three non-fiction
contracts, after writing for most of my life: poetry, articles, essays, half-finished
novels… Finally, fiction came knocking again around ten years ago, and I dove
headlong into studying the craft of writing. I began seriously indie publishing in
the summer of 2017.

After a few years of grappling with advice from expensive “experts” that just was
not working for me, I threw that all out and doubled down on my weird, both in
writing and in business. Amazingly, I started having some success! I began
connecting directly with my readers instead of random people, and began making
money. Over the course of a few years, my writing revenue increased until I was
firmly in middle class, midlist author territory!

I did this during the eight most challenging years of my adult life, which led me to believe a lot of other people could do this, too.

You see, my author business turned itself around when I decided to invoke as
much curiosity about business and marketing as I did about my characters and their
worlds. I learned how to cultivate multiple streams of writing income, taking the
pressure off book production. I explored marketing as connection instead of just
advertising, sowing good will, support, and excitement about my projects.

I wrote what I wanted to write, even though it was off trend, or didn’t follow genre rules.Readers loved it, responding to the joy I felt when writing. They liked my voice.
They embraced my weird.

Another thing that helped? Moving away from complaining, toxic outside voices
while slowly quieting my own inner critics. In the Midlist Indie Author I ask,
“What supports your desires?” And “How are you backing up your dreams with
solid action?”

The joy of being an independently published author is the autonomy. Is it a lot of
work? Sure. But for me, the benefit far outweighs the cost.

Despite what the industry experts tell us, I have found that we can build a
successful author business in ways that bring us joy. We can reach readers our
way. We can get off the hustle train and embrace a slow, sustainable build.

The Midlist Indie Author Mindset is filled with ideas to help us shift into a
possibility mindset and includes practical action items to facilitate the changes we
need to grow the career we want. Writing this book was my way to give back to
the indie author community that has given me so much support. We are all in this
together! We can help each other toward success.

The world needs more creativity, desperately. And writers are just the ones to offer that. I believe in us.

The Midlist Indie Author Mindset: