What motivated you to become an indie author?
I was stuck in my writing career. I had a book traditionally published in 2002, but the press declined the next novel I offered them. I had a novel sitting in a folder on my computer that I thought would NEVER get published, but I thought it deserved to because it had gotten so much positive attention years earlier, when I was going through the Creative Writing program at San Francisco State. So I read about Mark Coker and Smashwords in 2011 on SFGate, the online news site for the SF Chronicle. I thought.... hmm.
Something about the way Mark Coker talked about the process made sense to me. So I took the leap and published my novel "The Leaving" in May of 2011. I published it on Kindle a few months later. And then things took off for me when I started publishing shorts on both platforms.
How has Smashwords contributed to your success?
Starting with Smashwords was a good choice for me. I got a bit sucked in by Amazon's platform when I started making quite a bit of money there (it didn't last, though!). I find that I have to carefully navigate through Amazon's constant changes, some of which don't seem to have indie authors' interests at heart. Smashwords is more like a fair parent, who says "this is what I will do for you" and then delivers.
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