Viva Le Revolution: we're building an indie army

Firstly, Mars Dorian reckons you need to name your fans. Lady Gaga has her Little Monsters. Rebecca Woodhead calls her fans Wordnerds (awesome name. Reminds me of Chuck. If I can't be a Nerdherder, I want to be a Wordnerder).

Here at Scathach we call our fans laochs.

It's because we're building an army.

More on that in a bit. First we want to share a link with you. It is about the Death Spiral, the fate of traditionally published midlist authors. Another good reason to be indie. Talking about being Indie, we asked Mark Coker to spread the word about the upcoming blog carnival. Here's hoping.

We want the carnival to be good.

And you want to know about our army, right?

We've said it before. We'll say it again. We'll keep saying it until you all listen. A grassroots movement is the surest way to build publicity for yourself. If you want to attract new readers, plug someone else's book.

That's right. Stop doing what you are doing. Stop commenting on people's blogs in the hope of attracting Sales. There are genuine reasons to do this. Sales is not one of them. Stop plugging your books on twitter, facebook, myspace, bebo, goodreads, blah blah (if you click the clickies you can friend us).

Instead, promote our book (out September 2010). You're not going to plug your own book saying it is shit. You will be biased and you will big it up. Of course you will. This is fine. This is natural. Don't worry.

But you can be honest about our book. We can be honest about yours. You can be honest about each others.

When you are a reader, other readers will respect your opinions more. It will seem more truthful (you will have a responsibility here; if you promote books that are shit just to have others promote your work it will be obvious).

Here's something to try. Find an indie who writes in your genre. Ask if they will put a link on their website to where your book is for a sale. An "if you like my books, you might also like..." make sure the book is one you like, is good quality. Sending your readers to look at shit will lose you readers. When you get someone to put a link up, you put one on your site for them.

When people are on your site, you've already done your marketing. We guarantee this will work.

We're building an army, an army of indie authors. We're finding ways to promote your books because we know this will promote Scathach's. We're interviewing an indie author on my blog every week. Next week, M.T. Murphy, the week after Kait Nolan. We're doing a blog carnival.

We've set up a guild, which is quiet right now. As of October 2010, there will be a massive effort to draw attention to the Guild of Independent Authors. We're making independent publishing viral. Be a part of it. Join the army. Be come a laoch.

For those who really insist on knowing, laoch is a Scottish word that perfectly fits the followers of a company named after the warrior princess Scathach (hands up if you thought about Xena). It is a difficult word to translate into English because it means Warrior, but it also means Hero and Champion.

Go on, be a champion of independent publishing. Be a laoch.

Join our army.