Deaf With Belief

There’s a story I once read, one of those email stories that get forwarded multiple times, about a group of frogs.  Each frog is doing its best to race to the top of a high tower, but one by one they drop off as they begin to hear others declaring, “What pain!!! They’ll never make it!” One little frog, though, just keeps hopping. Higher and higher he climbs, until finally he reaches the top. Later one of the frogs who had dropped off asked the little frog his secret, to which he replies…

he is deaf.

I know another story, one I think most people are familiar with, about a little train that believed he could make it over an enormous hill. Turns out he was right. He could, and did, make it up and over that hill.

If you follow the line of thought from both of these stories you’ll begin to understand what it takes to be a successful Independent Author. In a world where consensus is the norm (and if you don’t think that’s true, then just watch what you do the next time you’re caught in a “highway swarm” as  Brian Ahearn of Influence People was), doing something that’s considered different is usually warned against — strongly. To be an Independent Author you have to be deaf to the “warnings.” I’ve found in most cases it’s best to just smile and nod, then move forward with your own plan.

Being an Independent Author takes a strong belief in your book, in what you have to offer, in you. There’s a lot of helpful information available to anyone who decides to self-publish, but it won’t do you any good if you self-doubt right along with it. While you won’t have to deal with a rejection letter from a traditional publisher and you will have complete control over every aspect of your book, those are only a few boulders removed from the giant hill an Independent Author must climb. The good news is that it can be climbed.

After you’re atop the self-publishing tower, after you’ve climbed the Independent Author hill, you can shout “I knew I could!” on The Road to Writing.