You're Not Helping

The Indie Writing Community's failings

It is a tacit inevitability than when you create in a social context, you will be pressured to lie. And lie often you shall. Because for every post and article that you make within a community, it will be primarily in service of your social reputation. It won’t be the honesty of your takes; it won’t be the merits of your work; it won’t be to make waves. Otherwise the community shuns you. We all know this, happens routinely on X.

See, I don’t function socially when it comes to my creativity. You would assume that by default when it comes to writers. I don’t ask for help on matters both personal and professional. I write alone and logically, as an extension of the TRUE nature of my craft, I stand alone beside it as well. I regard this as the true ontology of writing.

Doesn’t mean I don’t have friends. But we seem to be operating on different criteria to define what those are. See, I expect my friends to be able to reciprocate on 3 things:

• Be honest with me;

• Stand by their word;

• Be present for both triumphs and failures.

As soon as you employ this set of criteria, that big crowded room gets awfully quiet, doesn’t it?

Let me explain this to you like you’re 6 and I’m your Dad:

People say they are many things, Timmy, but they don’t even do a third to prove it. Get used to it, try not to waste your time. It’s not that these people are bad… They just don’t know any better. Now go on, go play.

Now for the grown-up side of your brain, let’s get into the brass tacks of the issue. Why is it that in the wider community context, with follow counts around the 1K followers or more, you seem to have a lot of supposed supporters but nothing happens with regards to expanding your readership and reach? No, it’s not Elon’s fault. Is that you and everyone else consistently labor in things that simply do not help anyone in the Indie creative space.

FIRST PROBLEM:

You don’t read or review nearly enough of your peers’ work. In fact, you recuse yourself when you can tell that review is probably going to be negative. You’re not helping that author. By starving them of feedback, they will not improve, ever. You care about them, right? You want their books to succeed?… Why did you go quiet all of a sudden? Kinda weird.

The other side of that cowardly coin, is when you absolutely know you’re going to be jealous when reading someone’s work. You get your panties in a bunch, find like minded people in the community, get into these passive aggressive conversations with the author and get some dogpiling going, then signal to the rest of the herd “See, he’s an asshole, his books are crap, don’t read him, unfollow.”

No matter from which angle you slice this, you are weak if you do this. It spells profound insecurities - that you cannot hold your social standing by being honest, that you cannot hold your work to higher standards. In your small bubble, doing everything you can to not make waves in the group, means you get devoured by said group, in its meager aspirations. In your mediocre clique of gossipers and bullies, trying to bring other authors down, means you are desperately competing for relevance amidst the similarly unaccomplished. It’s thus very unfortunate for you, that artistry and creation are definitionally NOT competitive practices. They are cumulative. Your zero sum game bullshit only exists in your head and you look like a fool indulging in those mistaken notions. Understand this plainly: Nobody REALLY cares about your books if you do this. In the longest timeline, no one ever will.

SECOND PROBLEM:

Your idea of Indie support is signalling on social media that you’ve added your peers’ books to your TBR. You show a screenshot of the purchase, complain how big that list is growing, never touch the book again. If you’re doing this with a kindle or ebook copy on Amazon, prepare to be upset, because you’re not only harming other people, people are harming you in this game of throwaway quid pro quo. Turns out Amazon looks at every digital purchase in 108 day intervals to determine if those books are “good”. What does that mean? If you bought it and didn’t read it immediately (the faster, the better) the more the algorithm kicks that book down the listings. You bought the author a coffee. That’s what you did. That’s cool, you’re a very nice person.

If you think I’m pulling your leg here, read this article by someone who did their homework on the subject:

The Hidden Rules of Amazon ~ Joe Solari, 2025

See, you have a bunch of sales on your books, but all your Indie “friends” did was buy you a cup of coffee in royalties, at most. Surely that’s a nice gesture, but you are a published author, are you not? Do you care about the money or people enthusiastically experiencing your brain child, that you toiled over for years?

This question alone should define everything you are in this space. Anyone can open a donation channel somewhere, if that’s the actual point. Real authors want people to get their stuff and read it like they mean it. This absolute swamp of false support is great for people struggling without food stamps; not so great for serious authors, turns out.

THIRD PROBLEM:

Your book link threads don’t do jack for an author’s engagement with their work and you know it. I’m sure you’ve done enough of these by now to see that your metrics are great on the original post, the vast generality of authors who propped you up there got crickets. This one really gets stuck in my craw, because you’re seeing those metrics, aren’t you? You know this is true. Pretty self-serving if you ask me, but the way you advertise this to your circles, it seems like “wow, he really gives a shit”.

You’re not getting a pass on this and it’s about high time people avoid those posts of yours like the plague.

Hell is full of good intentions, goes the adagé. But to me, being a naturally controversial, opinionated man of strong character and even stronger words and attitudes, you can imagine the ease with which I expose these truck loads of bovine excrement, on a space which consistently spells the overarching ineffectiveness of its performative motions. I know most of you wonder why the hell Indie can’t break the bubble, with these many authors, these many posts, these big communities. Why you can’t attract audiences and business partners that would help your visions flourish.

The reason for that, is that you forgot you work alone. You mixed the waters. We’re not here to “make friends”. You are mistaken. When you come out of that creative cave, what you need is sincerity and genuineness when people interact with your work. They DO NOT have to like you. Get it through your head.

I can absolutely tell the difference between that vapid, steaming bog you navigate in those writer groups; and the rapport I establish with other authors on an individual basis: These people have been AMAZING to me and I hope to help them in any way I can. My rising tide will raise their ships, because I remember who actually cared about my work first and not who I am as a person. You will find them saying “He’s rough, but he’s a good guy.” You will also see them singing the praises of my story because they want to read good stories and you can tell they love reading. Most of you don’t, stop lying. You don’t read for shit.

They also put that cherry on top by not feeling in any way like I’m stealing away their thunder with Spectral Braver. Those will become close friends of my characters, which is what I actually hoped for. The friendship with me is a product of my immense gratitude. Because they actually helped where it mattered. Even when they reviewed my first book pointing out the issues with it. The Second Edition exists today because I took them seriously. And it paid off. I’m as proud of my work as the people reading those editions today are. It is the victory of self-reflection and hard work. I didn’t lean on clout to make my flawed work make the rounds like you did.

And I’ll never forget that valuable, REAL support. Make sure you have those stories to tell yourself in the Indie space. Ignore the communities, talk to people like you’re decent. Try that. These groups aren’t taking you to that glorious place where you start to see that your story actually matters.

These writer groups are not your readers and sure as Hell aren’t your friends.

Lie all you want. Cope until it looks like that bends your reality.

But you can’t really lie to yourself now, can you?