The Indie Author Team Up

The life of an indie author is often filled with the juggle of trying to balance writing with finding events and locations where you can sell your book in person. Some authors have managed to find a niche with bookstores and are seeing success with that, but many others write in genres that may not result in large sales at any bookstore that’s willing to provide a signing table. On top of that, larger events that are great for exposure, like Comic-cons and reader conventions like DragonSteel Nexus and Dragon Con, have become extremely expensive.

This has led authors to begin to team up to make these events more viable and provide a team that only the booths run by larger publishers and authors have. These groups of authors come in several different formats depending on the goals they want to achieve. Let's break down why this is happening and talk about whether it’s a good fit for you.

Why are Authors Teaming Up?

As Indie authors, we’re constantly in a battle to balance our desire for exposure with the need to make a net profit year over year. Early in your indie career, you likely will lean more heavily on the exposure side of the equation, but after the first 2-3 years, priorities seem to always shift. This is when authors are forced to decide if their author’s journey will be a hobby that maybe helps pay for vacations or provide a little spending cash, or a career that could potentially take over as their primary income.

Either way, analyzing what your money is spent on and if it’s worth the expense becomes a major question. The first place I looked was my marketing, and which ads were actually working, but the next major expense that I could control was the event cost. Almost every event you attend as a vendor will cost you money, and trying to make a net profit is a very careful juggle.

For example an author based near me could attend several paid event including a farmers market that cost $50 every first Saturday of the month from May to October, a library event that had a $10 table charge, our local Comic Con (FanX) with a table charge of about $600 for three days, and DragonSteel Nexus with a booth fee of about $900. That means that just in local events here in Utah, an author would spend at least $1810 for these events. To cover booth fees alone for these events, you would need to sell at least 121 books based on normal Ingram Spark margins if you charge retail for your novels at these events.

This doesn’t account for fuel, food, parking, and other costs that come with these events and can quickly cost an additional 25-33% of the table costs. If you decide to travel to additional locations outside of your local area, there are additional costs that can likely push the cost of the event up to $5000 or more. For an up-and-coming author, this can be a heavy burden in addition to all of the publication costs of the novels.

Over the last two years, I’ve seen several authors looking at these costs and realizing that there is an easy way to cut these costs without actually cutting back on the number of events. The key to this is finding two to three other authors with whom you get along and who may not be writing the same genre as you, but are close enough to share a general audience. With this group, you then split a booth at these events and split your booth fees and sometimes other costs between all of you. 

Is This Right For You

At a base level, this seems like it might be a great option for pretty much every author, especially now that the major publishers seem to be pulling back to their cash cows more and more. When you attend author events, the number of indie authors grows exponentially. At the surface level, this is a great thing; it means that there are more people to team up with.

Despite this, the hardest part of this deal is to pick a group that will actually be worth working with. These events mean that you will be spending 14+ hours a day for several days at a time with these people. On top of that, you don’t want your books to compete with the people you share a table with, but you do want them close enough that the table isn’t awkward.

The next important thing is to actually like the books these people have written. At book events, there are always groups of authors from various genres that will work loosely together. It’s always nice to have authors you can point to when someone says that they like to read genres that you don’t write, and often those authors will do the same for you.

This tactic of guiding people to your fellow authors will be even more important when you’re sharing a table. You need to be able to pitch your partner's books, and they need to be able to pitch yours. With more people at the table, it often means that you won’t be selling your book, but one of the others will be at the larger events.

All of this probably seems like a lot, and you might be wondering where to start. The answer is easy. Start going to free or cheap events and make friends, while also watching how they sell their own books.

Once you have your team, other hurdles are unique to the group you join and the events you attend. With a good group, though, the logistics will get figured out, and you’ll be underway quickly. Also, keep in mind that you can walk away from a group if they end up not being a good fit for you. 

Good luck and happy selling.