Originally published July 10, 2026

Indie Authors + Indie Booksellers: An Excellent Match

It's a match made in heaven, but not one I ever thought about: independent bookstores and independently published authors. Once I self-published my first novel, though, I began to take notice.

Poor Little Indie Author

Independent authors like me have to accept some hard truths:

• We will never be reviewed in the New York Times.
• Our books will never be for sale in Barnes & Noble, or any other bookseller chain.
• It is very, very unlikely that we will ever earn more than a hundred dollars a month from writing--and even that only enters the realm of possibility after you've published, say, five books. A sale of my paperback earns me three dollars and change.

The Literary Agent Lottery

But no tears; that is a choice we make. Because the alternative—traditional publishing—means signing up for the literary agent lottery. The math goes something like this:

• The typical agent receives 1,000 manuscripts per year.
• From that immense pile—which they generally read after hours, since their day job is to peddle the books of their current clients to publishers—they will select perhaps 3 to 5 manuscripts per year to represent.
• Of those 3 to 5 manuscripts, perhaps 2 or 3 may be picked up by a publisher, if the agent is good and the author agrees to make the changes the publisher requires. This can mean anything from changing the title to adding a sex scene—whatever helps the book sell (at least in the publisher's eyes.)
• Even if the publisher accepts your manuscript, the book may not be published, or may take years to be published, for reasons beyond your control.

If you are following the math, your odds of traditional publication are at best one in 500 and probably closer to one in a thousand. Ergo, a lottery.

When you take the self-published path, you are 100% guaranteed to publish your book. Whether anyone actually reads it, of course, is another story. But there is gratification in seeing your book in print; in having a book club decide to read it; in putting it out there in the hopes that someone will actually enjoy it. It’s the certainty of getting some readers soon, rather than the vain hope of maybe, one day, having very many.

The Big Five and Big Booksellers

The big five publishing houses have sales people who offer a selection of books to the chain booksellers. Each season, Barnes & Noble, for example, will be offered a selection of cozy mysteries, young adult novels, romances, thrillers, etc. They will only accept a limited number of each. After all, they don't have unlimited shelf space. Fortunately, the publishers agree to take back a percentage of books that don't sell.

The indie author—self-published—is out in the cold. We've reaped the benefit of getting our books to market, digitally and in paperback, but we're persona non grata at Barnes & Noble. Their shelf space is for traditionally published works only. And to be fair, one can understand why. There were 3.5 million self-published titles in the U.S. last year. Having no literary or publishing gatekeeper, no doubt many of them are awful. Expecting Barnes & Noble to review them and find shelf space for the best is not realistic.

Indie Booksellers

Which brings us to indie bookstores. How do these brave souls stay in business, when even the mighty B & N needs board games and a faux Starbucks to avoid closing down? And failure is a real possibility. (Remember Borders ? Waldenbooks? Brentanos?)

I will admit to not knowing how indie bookstores survive. Are they geniuses? Crazy? Lucky? Or just plucky?

My sense, from those I have visited, is that they focus on:

• Serving the interests of their particular community in ways that large bookseller chains can't match.
• Curating their book collections carefully, and finding titles that appeal to the particular interests of their customers.
• Using their space to promote community, reading, and authors alike by convening events that serve all three.

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You can see this concept in action at a wonderful new bookstore in Bellmore, New York called The Wandering Page. The name comes from the store’s genesis as a mobile bookshop that brings books directly to the members of the community.

For indie authors, bookshops like this hold out the possibility of having our books displayed for potential readers who enjoy browsing in person. For readers, they offer atypical books that break the molds of genre fiction and self-help books that can be found at every big chain bookstore. Here, serendipity abounds—but only because owners like Denise Cruz are willing to sample and select offerings from indie authors—like me—to bring new, different stories to their customers.

Native Species made the cut at The Wandering Page and is now available for purchase.

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