Spotlight: Indie Publishing
Taking the Reins: Indie Publish Your Book!
It’s hardly front page news that traditional publishing is in crisis. Internally, endless rounds of corporate consolidation and downsizing have led to shrinking advances, non-existent marketing budgets, and overwhelmed and overworked publishing professionals. Meanwhile, external pressures such as book bans, tariffs (that raise the price of printing), declining readership, and the looming threat of artificial intelligence have all conspired to make an already fragile publishing ecosystem even more unstable.
For many traditionally published authors the current publishing landscape feels at best precarious, and at worst, dire. I can’t tell you how many writers I personally know — successful, well-published authors with prestigious awards and bestsellers under their belt — who have had recent projects either die on submission or witnessed their traditionally published books kneecapped by poor promotion from publishers who don’t seem to know how to sell books anymore.
And that’s not even counting all the many talented pre-published writers out there still running the gauntlet of querying simply to land a decent agent who may never be able to sell their book anyway.
In this bleak industry environment, self-publishing has never looked more attractive. Technology has made print-on-demand and ebooks commercially viable alternatives to traditional book distribution. Countless professional editors, illustrators, and book designers have hung their own shingles, making it surprisingly affordable for self-published authors to produce polished, well-edited books featuring slick and attractive covers that rival anything being put out by traditional imprints. The Internet has also empowered tech and social media-savvy writers to reach new audiences without the support of an in-house publicist and marketing team. What was once stigmatized as vanity publishing is now a thriving, respected, and often quite profitable means for writers to reach their readers directly, without the many roadblocks, gatekeepers, disappointments, and compromises traditional publishing foists upon us.
About the only obstacle still standing in the way of most writers interested in self-publishing their books is a lack of knowledge on where and how to begin. And that’s why we at R(ev)ise and Shine! are so excited to be hosting authors Erin Dionne and Nancy Werlin this Wednesday, February 25th for Taking the Reins: Indie Publish Your Book!, a two-hour online Zoomie that will walk attendees step-by-step through the process of publishing a manuscript as an indie author.
Learn from two highly successful veterans of traditional publishing why and how they’ve made the leap to self-publishing. The possibilities are endless, and the stigma is gone. They’ll show you everything from designing interiors to researching cover designers, how to upload your books, and do basic marketing. Ebooks, paperbacks, hardcovers, audiobooks: you can do them all yourself at affordable costs and with professional looking results.
Whether you’re a brand new author planning your debut or a traditionally published veteran looking to take your career in an exciting new direction, this amazing course is for you!
When: Wednesday, February 25, 2026 from 7:00 to 9:00 pm ET
Where: Online
Cost: $75*
*For those who can’t attend live, a recording of this session will be made available for 30 days after the event for all ticket holders.
Click the image below to find out more and sign up:
Erin Dionne writes middle grade novels, picture books, chapter books and nonfiction. Her novel, Moxie and the Art of Rule Breaking, was an Edgar Award finalist. She is the co-founder of Table for 7 Press, an indie publishing collective, through which she’s released Bad Choices Make Good Stories, an essay collection about writing, as well as five cozy mysteries under the pen name Mina Allan. When not writing, she’s a professor at Montserrat College of Art in Beverly, MA.
National Book Award finalist, Edgar award winner, and New York Times bestselling author Nancy Werlin writes novels that span genres from contemporary to suspense to fantasy to historical. After publishing 12 books traditionally, Nancy has now gotten rights reverted on most of her books and is publishing her own editions. She plans to publish her future books independently.