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Sometimes, when the weather is nice, I grab my grandpa’s old reading chair out into the lawn and sit in it and… you guessed it, read. It’s Rowan’s favorite thing. She’s the only cat allowed outdoors without supervision, so she gets all her favorite things at once: outdoors, grandpa’s chair, and me!

I consider myself a mostly feral author. I like to do things my own way, no matter what the experts and gurus say.

The more time you spend in the indie author world, the more opinions you’ll come across. There are a million things we all “should” be doing—writing to market, having our books in Kindle Unlimited (or not, depending who you talk to), running Amazon ads, running Facebook ads, posting regularly on TikTok and Twitter, getting Bookbubs, writing every day, not using adverbs, releasing a book a month, having free books (also not having free books), hiring professional editors and designers, doing huge launches, having all of our books up for preorder, sending out regular newsletters, doing newsletter swaps, having a website, going to conferences, getting an MFA… I could go on, possibly forever lol.

At a certain point, the realization hits that we can’t do everything. And at least in my experience, once you have this realization, the next step for most authors is to focus on what you think will have the most impact. The right answer to this question depends on the author—some focus in on rapid release, others invest in CPC and CPM advertising, others start (or stop) doing in-person events. A lot of experimenting goes on, followed by a lot of frustration that their efforts aren’t working, or at least aren’t working as well as they’d like.

Some authors stay in this phase for a long time. Others, such as myself, go feral.

In other words, we disregard all the advice. All of it.

We instead focus our energies on being who we want, writing what we want, and building our business (or lack thereof) however we want.

I once met a lovely feral author who wrote and published books and refused to do a lick of marketing. I knew another feral author who was retired and sold paperback copies of his books at local festivals—didn’t even have ebook options available and didn’t care. I knew another feral author who forwent all suggestions to write to market or write what readers want, and instead wrote for their own pleasure only.

I personally have mostly ditched social media, write what I feel like, and have started designing most of my own covers. I write the books I want to write, publish them when I feel like, and only do marketing when and how it suits me.

At a certain point, I think we have to decide what it is about writing we love. Is it the writing itself? Is the connection with other people? Is it the storytelling? Is it the prestige? Is it the networking? Is it business development? Is it the challenge of trying to succeed in a highly volatile, constantly changing industry?

But what about making money? you might ask.

What about it?

We all find ways to make our lives work, and sometimes that means struggling to make our own businesses profitable, and sometimes that means working for a company, and sometimes that means cobbling together an eclectic combination of income and lifestyle that gives us the freedom to do what we want with our time.

Sometimes my business makes money and sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes I work for other people and sometimes I don’t. And I’ve figured out ways to make that work for me.

I’ve become truly and fully feral.