Matthew Iden

Having fans and building a readership is critical to an indie writer's success...but not necessarily in the way people think. While it's fantastic--and absolutely necessary for my career--to have others buy and appreciate my works, more importantly, having fans means AFFIRMATION.

It's not just an ego trip. Traditionally published writers (hopefully) have the support of their agents, editors, and publicists from a very early stage. Independent writers don't have that seal of approval until readers actually begin buying, reading, and reviewing their books.

While the wait for those reviews to roll in can be tremendously anxiety-inducing, when they do appear, there's nothing sweeter. It's a direct message from a reader to you: "I like this. This is good. Please write more!"

You can't get better encouragement than that.

I recently finished the first draft of Marty Singer #5, THE WICKED FLEE. I've taken a slightly different path with this project than in the past, writing it more as a thriller than a traditional hard-boiled mystery. The pace is faster, there are more character points of view, and I'm trying to make sure the whole thing--from start to finish--takes place in about 10 hours of "book time."

I recently published a short story with Amazon's short story imprint, StoryFront, entitled "The Kindness of Neighbors." It's a creepy, psychological suspense piece of novella length that will have you looking at your neighbors in a different light...

I'm also hard at work cleaning up a stand-alone novel I wrote several years ago, a caper entitled THE ROAD TO STURGIS, trying to tie up loose ends in my stand-alone Western THE ORPHANS, and wrapping up production on the audiobook for ONE RIGHT THING with my awesome narrator, Lloyd Sherr.

With any luck, a short story I wrote for a shared-world science fiction anthology Walk the Fire will be released later this year as well. In six words or less: Joan of Arc in the future.