Support for Indie Authors discussion

As authors we are also readers. So I want to know who are some of your favorite authors. Do they influence your writing at all? Have you met or talked to any of your favorite authors before?

Some of my favorite authors are Eric Jerome Dickey, Kimberla Lawson Robey, Reshonda Tate Billingsley, Fern Michaels, V. C. Andrews, R. L. Stine, Karen Kingsbury, and so much more. I am an African American fiction writer, so the first few names I listed have definitely influenced my writing.

My favorite Indie authors would include Charles Hash, Christina McMullen and V.M. Sawh. They have all been known to hang out in this group from time to time.

Some favorite traditional authors would be Kurt Vonnegut, John Irving and Mark Twain. There are countless others, but that's been my big three forever and they have all influenced me greatly. No, I haven't met any of them, but I did leave a birthday message to John Irving on his facebook account the other day.

Tolkein, Prachett, Ursula K. Leguinn, Diana Wynn Jones, Peter S. Beagle, more recently Brandon Sanderson, and for non-fantasy, Charles Dickens. Although they've all contributed bits and pieces of influence over the years that made me the writer I am today, I think the biggest influence that they all provided - or more like the biggest lesson they taught me - was to make my stories the best that I can and to never settle for less.

And then there's Jim Butcher who taught me that urban fantasy is cool *puts on sunglasses.*

Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, Rod Serling, Elmore Leonard, R.L Stine, David Haynes, Vincent Hobbes.

The first few of my favorites are dead and the last two I'm friends with here on goodreads. I'm inspired by them each in some way.

India wrote: "Indie author wise, everyone knows I'm a complete fangirl over Lyra Shanti's sci-fi so first pick to her, followed by Dwayne Fry, and lastly Jane Jago :)

Traditionally published, Margaret Atwood, K..."

I'm with India here. I have several influences of the classic and traditional variety, but the more I read indie books, the more my favorites become indie authors. As such, I'm seeing them shape my writing more and more. I can't name them all, but several of my favorites are members of this group, including those India mentioned, along with Chess DeSalls, CB Archer, Ben Mariner, Melissa Jensen, Bea Cannon, Ashley Capes, and David M. Kelly to name a few.

I haven't read a famous trad pub in years. My favorites were Heiss and Hickman, Koontz, and Jim Butcher. As for indies, there are so many books I loved. Among those authors from whom I read more than one book, and of course,probably my favorite also, is our very own Christina. Bobby Adair is another I liked but only read one series of his. I'm so far behind reading. I know many of you have written great books,some I still have to discover.

Tony Hillerman, Clive Cussler, James Clavell, Tom Clancy

William Shakespeare, Thomas Hardy, Bernard Shaw, Christopher Marlowe, Jane Austen

I really love hard sci fi, from the early masters like Asimov, Bradbury, et.al, and many of the more recent authors like Vernon Vinge, John Scalzi, Peter F. Hamilton, Alistair Reynolds, Dan Simmons, Lois McMaster Bujold, and others. I like the teen/YA horror work of Darren Shan. As far as indie authors are concerned, I very much agree with all the names that have been mentioned, but let's don't forget the very entertaining work of G G Atcheson.

I have no scholarly depths. I prefer fun, escapist reads. I really like Chris Wooding (esp. his Ketty Jay steampunk-fantasy stuff), Alan Campbell, and Michael Scott Rohan.

Oh, and Arthur Conan Doyle. Been a fan of Sherlock Holmes since I was knee high.

Brandon Sanderson, Rachel Aaron, W.R. Gingell, Terry Pratchett, Rick Riordan, Robin McKinley, Tricia Mingerink, Jeff Wheeler, Christopher Paolini, Breeana Puttroff, Tamora Pierce, Cressida Cowell, Gail Carson Levine, Shannon Hale, Susan Kaye Quinn, and many more. These are mixed trad-published and self-published.

I have met 2 of these at book signings, and I've communicated with another 3 through letters or online.

Their works definitely influence me, but sometimes it's more conscious than others. I sometimes think, "I want to write a metaphor/plot/description/relationship as well as so-and-so." Then I stop and think about a few of the tricks/strategies that author used in writing.

Isaac Asimov, Octavia Butler, Neil Gaiman, GRR Martin, Yahtzee Crowshaw. Anna Hackett on the self-publishing side.

I'm not nearly as big a reader as I once was. And, honestly, most of my favorite writers are from visual media. TV/movie writers (Vince Gilligan, Rob Thomas, Quentin Tarantino), manga/comic authors (Eiichiro Oda, Chris Claremont), and the like.

However, there are a handful of book writers I'll always adore. Kurt Vonnegut sits chiefly among them (that man understood storytelling in a way I still have yet to fully wrap my mind around), then there are people like Stephen King and a slew of true crime writers (usually people who are crime professionals turned author like John Douglas).

My favorite author is J.R.R. Tolkien.

my two all-time favourite authors are Haruki Murakami and Mario Vargas Llosa. Being a huge hard-boiled crime fan I also dig Elmore Leonard, Jim Thompson, Raymond Chandler, James Lee Burke, Carl Hiaasen, Jeffrey Deaver, James M. Cain, Richard Stark, and many, many others ;)