Which Type of Indie Author Are You? (Or Would You Be?)

Adapted from Creative Self-Publishing by Orna Ross, featured in the May 2026 edition of ALLi's member magazine, The Indie Author.

If you find you're running around doing all the things, and some of them don't feel right, it may be because you don't know your core publishing value. Or because you're trying to operate a publishing model that goes against the grain of who you are.

As a publisher, you have one guiding value. Once you know what it is, everything becomes easier: what to publish, how to publish it, and how to promote it.

There are three guiding publishing values: productivity, connection and originality. It benefits every indie author to decide which of these three they most value.

Of course, all three matter to all of us. We all want to produce and sell more books, enjoy a closer connection to our readers, and improve our craft. But which is your number one? Connection, productivity, or originality?

Knowing your top publishing value does nothing less than give you the framework for your whole book business. Those who prioritise productivity and output should run a volume publishing model, or rapid release. Those who most value connection and reader feedback do best with an engagement model. And authors who most value originality thrive with a craft and artistry model.

Let's look a little closer at each.

Volume Publishing: Productivity

If you're a volume publisher, you write fast and sell as many books as possible to readers who are price sensitive. Your priority is rapid release, and your framework delivers best in the genres that attract whale readers. You publish often, perhaps hiring other writers as ghostwriters or collaborators.

Volume publishers analyse data and push their advertising towards online retailers, especially Amazon, taking actions that influence the algorithms. They may limit themselves to Amazon Kindle's KDP Select program. An example is romance author Deborah Bladon, a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestseller who, at time of writing, has sold more than 3.5 million books through KDP alone. On her website she apologises to readers who can't find her books on other platforms. “This was a tough decision… Ultimately, the stories come first, and the most seamless way to guide readers through this network of characters is with the Kindle Unlimited Program.”

Volume publishers tend to write commercial fiction, non-fiction (especially self-help), and certain genres of poetry, especially spiritual and romance.

Editions: commercial, economically priced editions and subscriptions.

Social media: volume publishers may not use it at all, and if they do, they tend to broadcast, automating updates across as many platforms as possible and engaging only when it suits. They build a streamlined team to keep costs as low as possible through savvy automation.

Sales and marketing: the focus is digital algorithm marketing, using pay-per-click advertising, discounts and value pricing to win advantages over other publishers on the bestseller lists.

Engagement Publishing: Connection

If you're an engagement publisher, you have a highly honed understanding of your readers' needs and wants. You trade in special editions, customised services, and tailored products. Your priority is reader relations, and you set up a structure that lets you communicate effectively with your readers.

Fantasy, science fiction and YA author Brandon Sanderson's $41m crowdfunder is an example of the power of engagement publishing. Sanderson's Kickstarter broke records, and it was built on decades of carefully managed reader engagement.

Ever since he started writing, he has answered all his fan mail, and he publicly posts his replies on his website, including listing the books and websites of his students and followers who have themselves published. He runs regular workshops and courses for writers, all posted on YouTube, and constantly updates the Brandon Sanderson “knowledge base” on his site. He invites fan fiction within carefully delineated limits, has an active Twitter/X account with almost 400k followers, runs regular giveaways and contests, and loves to get out and meet his readers.

Yes, Brandon Sanderson has published a lot of books over many decades. And yes, he now has an operation that keeps the titles coming, fast and often. But the foundation of his success is how he has prioritised reader engagement and special editions, all carefully focused to meet his different reader groups' particular needs, across adults, YA and children. He has devised strategies that involve his readers in his world in ways that don't derail his writing and publishing process, and that helped him create the most successful publishing crowdfunder of all time.

Editions: signed, customised, reader driven.

Social media: high engagement, giveaways, contests, quizzes, answering readers' questions and problems, receptive to their needs, reactive and nimble.

Sales and marketing: social media marketing and sales, online and physical events, hand selling.

Craft Publishing: Originality

As a craft publisher, you trade in unique books, or a unique approach. You offer high-end literary or design values, and highly treasured products or services. Your priority is creativity.

ALLi editor-in-chief Roz Morris began her career as a ghostwriter of commercial fiction, but when she queried her own first novel, commercial publishers rejected it as too literary while literary publishers said it was too commercial. Roz released it herself as a series of four 99c episodes on Kindle over four weeks, which persuaded a lot of people to try it, then followed up with the complete ebook and a paperback. On the one-year anniversary she made a paperback with the cover in negative, an “antimatter” limited edition that reflected the book's speculative flavour.

Now, fifteen years on, Morris has released a standalone novel or memoir every few years. “I might write one novel with a speculative twist, another with science fiction, or I might write a memoir.” But she has educated readers to expect the unexpected, through her blog, newsletter and social media, sharing the interests she's pursuing for each new project. The result is a fanbase who knows her work is created with quality and deep creative thought.

Editions: high production values, premium editions.

Social media: posts that show your work and your value proposition.

Sales and marketing: special promotions, premium offers, creative campaigns.

Why Knowing Your Values Is Essential

Core to any creative project is selection. Most creative people find they can do lots of things well, and tend to be drawn to the new. That's lovely if you're creating for yourself, but if you want to sell your books, you have to focus. Your reader needs to be crystal clear about the kind of books you're offering and what they can expect. Otherwise they'll move on to authors who don't leave them scratching their heads.

You also need to balance your writing with your publishing tasks if you're to reach enough readers to run a profitable business. Without knowing your core publishing value, that's all but impossible. You don't know your priorities. You don't know which advice to follow, and which isn't right for you. When you prioritise your kind of publishing and lean into it, everything gets easier, especially marketing and promotion.

Choosing a Model

These models apply to third-party publishers too. Large corporate publishing houses are generally volume publishers, using economies of scale to survive the cut-throat margins of bookselling. They have craft imprints, which release the books that get submitted for prizes, but generally the more lucrative volume business funds the literary offerings.

What big publishers can't do as well as indie authors is engagement publishing. For readers, the writer, not the publisher, is the brand. The indie author is both, and has a great head start as an engagement publisher.

In self-publishing, we often meet the assumption that the best way, even the only way, to publish profitably is to write fast and publish often. Yes, that's one way to succeed. But it's not the only way, and it's a model that's most effective with certain genres and book categories.

Self-publishing has brought into visibility the writers who sell the most books and earn the most money, the ones who have traditionally kept the book industry (and most “literary” authors) afloat. But problems arise for authors trying to fit into that model when it doesn't suit them or their books.

Many writers won't complete a book a year, never mind a book a month (yes, that is happening). If they try, they run themselves into the ground and feel like they've failed: failed to be productive enough, failed to fix their mindset, failed to follow the advice. If there has been a failure, it was a failure to understand that they're an engagement or craft publisher, and shouldn't be organising themselves like a volume publisher.

The sooner you understand your model and begin to work from it, the better. Deciding on it is ideally one of the first things you do as a publisher, though many of us stumble on it eventually, through trial and error.

And things change over time. Some craft publishers turn to a volume model once they work out how they do what they do. Some volume publishers switch to a long-held passion project that uses a craft model. Multi-passionate authors may run different models for different pen names. It's all good.

Where This Came From

This post is adapted from Creative Self-Publishing: ALLi's Definitive Guide to Independent Publishing for Authors by Orna Ross, which goes much deeper into the three publishing values and how to build your business around yours. The feature also appears in the May 2026 edition of The Indie Author, ALLi's member magazine. Find Creative Self-Publishing in our store. The ebook is free to ALLi members.