Quoting from the website of Windblown Media, the publishers of “The Shack”:

“Books sales [sic] and reputations best grow organically, rather than through the artificial hype of press releases and interviews.”

What does that mean?  And especially, what does that mean to me?

It means that the best friend of the independently publishing author is word of mouth, the tiny little voice of a friend telling a friend  telling a friend about this thing that they’ve just read, which then gets picked up and read in a small group, which tells other small groups, and, in time, a book becomes “known.”

I’ve mentioned before some of the major works that the authors believed in, even when they couldn’t convince an agent or a publisher. The Shack is one; “A Time to Kill” by an obscure little author named John Grisham; “The Riryia Revelations,” a trilogy of SciFi/Fantasy that are bestsellers now; even “The Ultimate Gift” sold almost 2 million copies after independent publishing before being turned into one of my favorite Christmas movies. All of these started small, in the circle of influence of the author, and then, in time, sprouted into something huge.

In other words: publishers and agents don’t know everything. Sometimes, they know even less than that. Belief in your own work is an unbelievable asset in the world, and if you truly think God has you writing for a purpose, than you have to go forward, regardless.

And, oh yeah, word of mouth. And Amazon ratings. And all manner of little things like that are the new marketing lifeblood of authors.

And, yes, this was a thinly-veiled way of begging people who have read and enjoyed my book to tell others about it.