Indie authors have many reasons for staying or becoming indie. Control is a major reason. Upon signing with a commercial publisher, authors most often hand over all control concerning how they can sell their work, what they can do with it (or with the characters), how the cover design will look, and how blurbs and cover copy is written. There is always the possibility of selling your book just to have it sit in a file somewhere unpublished, but as it's under contract, it cannot be offered elsewhere.

Another consideration is that there are only six large commercial publishers worldwide and they are in the business to make money. They accept whatever genres are selling at a certain time and only a very small percentage of that genre which they receive. Out of thousands of manuscripts sent to them on a daily basis, only a handful are looked at more than once. Even when accepted by a commercial publisher, authors rarely make anything over the initial advance paid upon purchase, if an advance is paid. Also, contrary to general belief, marketing is still on the author's shoulders.

Using POD technology, whether through a company offering services or by going through the source directly, authors can bypass the commercials and make their work available to the public, whatever the genre and however big or small the run. This also prevents books from going out of print or being remaindered (sent back to the company for discount sales or destruction).

Authors need to realize, however, that indie publishing is not the easy way out. That cannot be emphasized enough. There is much involved in the process and authors who want to succeed in indie publishing need to first make sure the book is saleable (work at the craft, improve writing skills, get critiques and editing assistance, rewrite as often as needed) and then study the market, publishing methods, companies, and process. Then comes the marketing, which most authors will say is the hardest part of writing. This needs to be done regardless of how the book is published, but it can present a special challenge for indie publishers.

It is doable. Self-published authors have often been picked up by commercial publishers after the substantial success of their books, including Richard Paul Evans [The Christmas Box] and Christopher Paolini [Eragon]. Not all indie authors, however, have an interest in being picked up by commercials. Many authors who started with commercial publishers have opted to switch to indie publishing. Some use it only to print a small number of books in order to send around to publishers. It's a choice that largely depends on each author's goals.

On Our Own is a support group for indie authors. Bimonthly newsletters (available to group members only) highlight different POD-based publishers and discuss pertinent information and issues. While the forums are available to all group members, more privileges are allowed to registered authors at Writing.com since it is hosted here. A branch of the group can be found at Myspace and is moderated to allow only writers and those offering writing opportunities.