Indie and Proud discussion

I figured this was the best place to put this, but if I'm wrong, please let me know.

Where do you guys find "indie author friends"? I see so many "cliques" on Twitter (I hate using the word cliques) of authors who all write within the same genre and usually the same subgenre, like YA fantasy or NA paranormal. I have a really hard time finding other indies who write in the realm of simple YA contemporary.

Where/how do you find authors similar to yourself to discuss your subgenre with?

Well, this seems like a great place to discuss it! I'm not sure that my indie friends on Twitter are in my genre at all, I just follow indies.

However, I write fantasy and post apocalypse, and enjoy reading both. You can add me via dawnpeersauthor or arroryn on twitter (I would prefer the former!)

There are also Facebook groups. Twitter is a difficult one for people to use to connect, as the text is so short! Perhaps someone should start a forum :)

I've searched all over the internet for forums haha! Most forums I find are dedicated to writing, but they are based more so on traditional authors/publishing. They usually have one subforum for indie pubbers.

I followed you on Twitter. I may have to research some of these Facebook groups you've made mention of. :) Thanks!

Any other feedback is still welcome.

Well if enough people on Goodreads were to show an interest, I would happily build and host an indie authors forum. IT is my day job until the writing takes off ;)

Dawn wrote: "Well if enough people on Goodreads were to show an interest, I would happily build and host an indie authors forum. IT is my day job until the writing takes off ;)"

That'd be great!

I write both YA fantasy and contemporary so I'd be up for joining a forum that discusses either or both :)

That would be awesome :)

I would be interested, too. I've also built forums for a number of years. I've run SMF and IPB forums, mainly. Most indies are on kboards' Writers Cafe, but they're not aimed at YA, and honestly, I'm not a big fan of having every discussion under one board. I think a community focused on indie YA would be awesome.

Agreed. I've browsed the kboards before, but it seems hard to decipher. There's just so much going on. Even if there was an indie board that had a subforum for each genre. I think the publishing, formatting, marketing, etc., threads are all great on forums. I just wish there were individual places for YA, fantasy, paranormal, middle grade, etc.

so what about an indie forum with a board for each? so a dedicated YA forum with subgenres, fantasy, horror, sci fi, r2r and that kind of thing?

Lynn - initially it would be an SMF board to keep the costs down before switching most likely to vBulletin. You may have inadvertently volunteered to help ;)

I have run SMF forums for 6 years, and I may argue to keep it from changing... ;) I'm a huge SMF fan.

Definitely boards for different genres. There's all sorts of things you could do. Maybe a blog on the top level. I once connected my forum to post content on the blog automatically. I know some places to advertise that might get some readers.

I agree it's pretty easy to use. I can see quite a few indie-related domain names that aren't taken up. Is there somewhere with more visibility that I can *put this out* to, to see if it would actually be used?

It's hard to say because a lot of groups won't let you advertise or even ask about creating another community. Most of the YA indie things I know about are blogs run for profit whose owners basically want them to function like forums. I find blogs really awkward for chat communities.

I can host it to start, if you want. I have space, and can grab a domain name.

yaindiebeat.com is open
ya-indie.com is free
yaindieworld.com
yaindieonline.com

There are a few general indie forums, but they are organized poorly. Sort of back to the problem of putting all discussions under one board. So that could work, too, if it was done better than others. I think a lot of people are looking for an alternative to kboards.

Or they're on a Ning software, which ends up separating everyone up too much, and Ning doesn't let you mod to block out spammers. Every Ning I've joined is beset by constant spam.

A basic mod needs to be applicable in this day and age. Do we want (or need) to limit it to YA? I was going more for a general indie forum (we could have a competition :P)

Totally agree about modding. SMF has some terrific mods for this, like Aeva Media Suite and the footnoting mod. Big fan of Tapatalk, which has apps for accessing the forum via devices.

I'm fine with it being general, though I'm also a YA writer. I think most of our respondents here are YA, but I do think there's a need for a better general indie community. We can always make communities within communities on a forum.

I agree about general indie. That way we could cover all indie topics that are generic to indies (formatting, marketing, cover art, etc.) but could also break down different "sub" parts of the forum for different genres.

I've been at JordanCon all weekend, and got some really good ideas for activities we could do.

Yesterday they did a pitch panel with industry professionals. I went ahead and pitched, because 1) I need practice with the speaking more than anything, and 2) it's a good way to practice writing blurbs, which I'm seriously bad at. One of the panelists mentioned practicing writing pitches of popular books as practice. So I thought if we have a writing games forum, we could have a blurb writing game, where we write blurbs of our favorite books.

Also, we had a peer review panel. One forum I'm on has a review forum where you can post stuff, but to be able to post stuff, you have to earn points by reviewing at least 2 others to post there. They're on IPB and it must be some sort of mod that makes that work, but I'm sure there's a way to work that other via other software. There is a shop mod, so maybe just use that in that forum.

I've made friends by contacting authors that I like. If I read a book that I like, I'll contact the author via their email, facebook, or here on goodreads. Most are happy to continue the conversation.