Weekly Indie Word Slinger Project 2014

As a little girl I never had any other dreams other than to one day be an author. Reading was something I began doing fairly young and I wrote little stories that popped up here and there in grade school. There was a small story about a duck that I my mom kept from a Spring Story Collection in third grade that might have been inspired but sadly lacked coherence. Let’s say I won’t be publishing it anywhere.

I came up with the Weekly Indie Word Slinger Project after doing a good deal of research for publishing my own novels. The amount of work involved sounded daunting, but when I looked at the forum discussions of people who had literary agents shopping the big six and those who were dealing with marketing people it left a terrible taste in my mouth. It didn’t sit well with me that someone could tell me to change my story to make it more palatable. It might make me sound narcissistic or inflexible but I write my stories the way I want them read. I don’t want someone telling me to change them to suit them. Not to mention that I don’t necessarily write with the intention to rake in the bottlecaps, I do it because I love it. I dream in full plots and I wake up writing down characters names and snippets of dialogue and settings. I feel passionate about it. It’s what I love. I don’t want someone telling me how they want me to write.

Knowing how I felt and looking at all the information out there about the process of Indie publishing it struck me that while many weren’t in the same mind set, there were others out there who did feel like I did. That is when Weekly Indie Word Slinger Project began to take form in my head.

Many of the emails coming in my inbox about the Word Slinger Project are from authors who are timidly asking me if I would consider them for Word Slinger or if their book might be acceptable for a review by me. It’s a surreal feeling that comes over me to get these emails. It’s never a hardship for me to read someone’s books even though I might at times get bogged down with ARCs. Word Slinger isn’t an exclusive club, other than the fact that I’m looking for self publishing authors, this project is open to any Indie author and the invitation has no other exceptions. I don’t want anyone to ever feel that when the approach me that they risk the chance of refusal because of the genre of their book, the length, subject, style or time/date published. The concept of Word Slinger Project is along the lines of: “No one will ever be cold, lonely or hungry in my house.” It may sound as if I am being incredibly generous but this is a selfish endeavor a the very heart, I feel as if I am supporting something that I will soon be deep in the center of ; In no time at all my books will also be self-published just like the authors who are emailing me to be a Word Slinger and review books.

The Weekly Indie Word Slinger Project isn’t just my thing, at least that isn’t how I see it. I see it as a community effort and I have hopes that this will be something that will spread by word of mouth or trend in some small way through Indie Book circles. I hope to Holy Hannah that when I make a profile the author isn’t on the other side nodding their head with a thanks thinking it’s done and expecting me to do all the pushing and for me to make them some sort of Indie author star. I hit the big four-oh this past year and I grew up in the DIY punk movement twenty years ago and I did the Zine thing where I travelled the country and met bands, interviewed and photographed them and promoted myself and bands. I come from that background. I believe that we are stronger together than we are when we are standing out there all by ourselves.

My hopes are that this is the beginning of something that builds into a network or resource for not only Word Slingers but any Indie author in need after it’s found some hold. –That might be 2015. It might be 2016. I don’t think we will run out of Indie authors.

I’ve made two badges for those who are interested in supporting the Weekly Indie Word Slinger Project on their websites, blogs and social media sites. I’m providing the images and html codes below. If you plug the html code into your editor the badge or banner will show up with a link to this page. Thanks for your interest, participation and support in this years Word Slinger Project and All The Things Inbetween blog, I deeply appreciate your emails, likes, follows, and shares.

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If you are an Indie author and you would like to be part of the All The Things Inbetween Weekly Indie Word Slinger Project 2014. I’d love to hear from you! Contact me via email after reading the details in my Just The Facts, Ma’am post and we will get you scheduled for your own Word Slinger profile.

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