Two weeks away! I am SOOO excited to be going to the Indie Book Fest in Orlando. I am driving up from Miami, and my daughter is driving down from Tallahassee. Not only do we get to hang out together, we get to go meet some of our favorite indie authors.
It's kind of been an evolution over time for me as a reader, my indie author fandom. I have my daughter, "The Girl", to thank, although she tells me she has created a demon out of me. Hmm, demon book reader. Yes, I read about demons, ghosts, vampires, gods and goddesses, werewolves, and harpies. Just to name a few. So I am not insulted.
In 2011, we bought our first e-reader, a Nook. It's not that we were really interested in changing our book reading habits, but that was the year The Girl came back home after graduating college. We all were expecting it to be a short stay while she found her dream career. It was also the year of no jobs or job prospects in her selected field. So she joined the ranks of kids with a degree working at the local grocery store as a cashier. Ask her what code apples or bananas have. I dare you.
The Girl had always expressed the desire to be a writer since she was little. But, she thought she had to have a "real" job to support herself while she wrote. Ok, fine. Well, this didn't work out as planned. So plan B, she started to write, sent out her query letters, and waited. And waited. And... Excitement! Per agent request: send out the first three chapters! And waited, and waited... and "sorry, not at this time".
So, in between the whining, (Oh, my favorite line is "do you want some cheese with that whine?") job searching, working, moping, The Girl did her research. And with a mom's sage wisdom, I tell her to get off her ass and finish it. Yeah, Tiger mom parenting, I know. She tells me about Amanda Hocking, a self published author making substantial money from her books. She tells me about Goodreads. She writes some more, she reads, she creates a pen name, and continues to research how to be self published. So, in 2011, her first book came out. A paranormal YA book. And I would love to tell you more about that except that The Girl has told me I can't. Sigh.
Excitedly I started to "watch" her goodreads page. And I noticed that to the side where other books similar in the genre. With my new Nook, I started to download some of these books. And, wow! I was in book heaven. From there I started to follow author pages. From there I discovered more books, more authors, and book events like the Nashville UtopYA event, web sites like Ourbooksourvoice blogspot. And this in turn led me to the Indie bookfest in Orlando, almost in my back yard. WHOOT!
I love supporting Indie authors. As a group, they are also avid readers and get just excited and animated as I do about reading and book news. And, they are gathering in Orlando! I will be honest, I haven't read everyone's work, and I have about 80 books I have purchased and yet to read. I know, I shouldn't have looked. *bends head in shame* But, now I get to meet them in person! I plan to make a I Love YA pin to wear. I don't plan to embarass my daughter, but that will happen at least once. And we will be dragging her dad along. So they can roll their eyes at each other because of me.
So, if you are the rare person who has read my fledglng post and you will also be at the indie book bash, Hi! Dam glad to meet you! See you there!
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