Chucking the Rules and Finding Ultimate Freedom in Indie Publishing

How one author with a wildly different book had to do it herself.

Welp! Things don’t often happen as one thinks they should. As I penned (for the last twenty-plus years) what I once believed to be the next great American novel, I never considered that getting my story into the hands of readers would be nearly as hard as it has been.

Hundreds of rejections- some cutting (from an early draft)- “It just wasn’t as good as I was hoping it would be,” along with the waiting and agents who simply acted as if I hadn’t sent anything at all-( referring to the “professional ghosting,” that is quite common in this industry) has made me a bit tougher than I ever hoped to be.

As a writer who hadn’t been published, except for smaller blog type articles, I would already have a harder time being seen by the right people. All of us newbies vying for any kind of publishing contract were already behind given that the execs in both the publishing industry as well as media- seem to throw their money and support at stories that fall into their comfortable, well-worn recipes- either by repackaging a trope that is alike one that already made them money, or by continuing to recycle a “character” that has shown itself to be of financial interest to the market at some point. When you add in the deluge of books written by celebrities, the chances of having one’s first book purchased and promoted, dipped substantially.

So what to do with an out of the box, multi-faceted, fiction with an autobiographical sidecar manuscript that promised to spur a global, social experiment and teased of how small the world is while purporting that humanity could and would work together to help a stranger achieve a goal?

One of my early challenges was that querying my book did not allow a full glimpse of the braid of storytelling inside. Agents- who did allow ten pages with the query, would not fully experience each of the strands of narration that fill the pages. It’s a book with a cheat code. Three different type sets throughout. Epistolary mixed with traditional prose? First person and second person mixed with third person omniscient?  Everything about this book was different- I would need someone to take a wild, crazy gamble on me and wasn’t sure anyone would. The rest of the uphill was as follows:

Comparable titles. I researched this aspect to death, asking all of my reader friends and even those bibliophiles who work and haunt the local bookstores. “You have done something completely different, there is nothing like it,” they said with a shrug. Any comparables I could find were outdated and had such a tiny wisp of similarity, it was hardly worth the point.

What kind of book was it exactly? Where would we place it on the shelves of a bookstore? More great questions. I once joked, “Maybe in the front window?” None of these answerable questions were a given for me, so in limbo- on that, I remained.

So what to do with my out of the box, multi-faceted, fiction with an autobiographical sidecar manuscript that spurred a potentially-global, social experiment and teases at how small the world is while proposing that humanity could and would work together to achieve a goal?You greenlight and publish it yourself. 

In 2023, after receiving the rejection that I told myself would be the final straw, I put on my big girl author pants and got to work figuring out how to do it myself. No more waiting for another person to tell me my story had worth. I sought out other Indie authors and learned as much as I could through the channels- online and TikTok- then figured out a cover design and launched my book.

If my story was out in the world at least there would be a chance that someone would appreciate its inherent originality? I may find readers if I promised and delivered a “weird” book. The atypical format, its literary side quest of sorts with the author’s request that readers pass the books along offers a fun and inclusive way to be a part of the story.

So to go it alone was my path. This road hasn’t been easy but the benefits have been remarkable. The online community of others who decided to chart their own course rather than wait until their book fit within the (current) market specs at any given moment has been extraordinary. I am in very good company. Wouldn’t change a thing. 😉

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H.H. Rune’s series blends fiction along with parts of her own life into a literary social experiment of a set of traveling books that are sent out to strangers with a mission of finding their way back to her. Her first two books in the Extraordinary Life Seeker series- Find Me, Book One- She believed in the Kindness of Strangers and Find Me, Book Two- She’d find out what she was made of– are available now. To further accentuate her request that her readers pass along the books as part of the story, her Limited Edition-Trackable versions have been spotted all over the U.S. as well as Canada, England, Ireland and Iceland. That is, the last time she checked. Find Me, Book Three will be out early 2025.

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, How To and Tips