Total undying devotion. I love losing myself in a story so much that two years ago I joined a historical re-enactment group. That’s right. I spend a large part of my summers in a field pretending to be a Viking. I even get to play with swords. My love of books and literature began at an early age. It’s a huge part of who I am. Books surround me. What made me take this route was the prospect of goi
ng back to work after my children were all in school. While I have many years of experience in administration roles, and a solid background in admin, it was no longer enough to drive me. I had considered teaching for a while but more than anything I have always wanted to work for myself and be my own boss. I saw my opportunity to turn something I love to do – reading- into a viable business model, and be in a teaching role at the same time. I teach writers how to be better writers because by helping them we all benefit. The author provides a better product and sells more copies, readers gain better enjoyment from those books, and society wins a new piece of literary heritage as a new generation of writers take the reins from the last. Speaking of stories, ‘Why indie-authors?’, I hear you ask. My answer is that indie authors aren’t new, they are a too-long forgotten part of our cultural heritage and they are making a comeback. When Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type press in c.1450 he probably had nothing like the huge publishing houses in mind. In the days when books were painstakingly written by hand by monks in dark abbeys and monasteries, he merely saw a way to reduce errors and increase production rates. This had unforeseen results as the mere availability of the printed word to the public saw literacy rates soar. Authors wrote and took their work to a printer who then charged them to print it. The work would stand or fall by its own merit and the printer claimed no ownership of the work. This is what indie authors are doing. They are taking the keys to the pressroom back from the gatekeepers and providing us with a truly free-market on the exchange of stories and ideas, and I want to help them do it.
