Austin Indie Writers Redux

by Tosh McIntosh

As shown in the screenshot below, Thursday, January 12, 2012 marked inauguration of the Austin Indie Writers Blog. As I write this, it’s been six years and a day since the last post, published on 8/27/13, authored by none other than our very own Brad Whittington.

Interest in maintaining the blog waned for any number of reasons, but initially the group had a vibrant energy underlying our motivations as we began turning away from the frustrations of trying to get an agent and a contract with a major publisher. A collective excitement fueled our exploration of this new world of book production, which at the time culminated in a presentation on indie publishing by five NIPers to the fledgling Lake Travis Fiction Writers group.

Our plan to schedule the topic of indie versus legacy publishing for our alternate-format meeting on September 22 prompted me to search for my script and presentation materials this morning, and I discovered an archived folder with all my AIW blog posts. I couldn’t resist looking at a few, of course, an effort that turned into a binge-read and consumed a few hours.

Interestingly enough, even with all the changes in the world of publishing since they were written, the posts have an eerie, timeless quality that seems apropos of today and indicative of the reality facing indie authors: The nature of specific tasks may have morphed over the years, but the obstacles to publication remain effectively constant.

In the hope of generating interest in this topic, I’ve decided to re-publish a number of AIW posts on the NIP-Austin website. Without further adieu, here goes . . .


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