by Stefanie Van Steelandt 

Self-publishing was once reserved for those writers whose books weren’t good enough to attract an agent or publisher. Writers would spend years looking for representation, or not publish at all, hoping to avoid the prejudices leveled against “the last resort” and the contempt with which their books might be regarded. These days, however, many authors empowered by new resources available to them choose to independently publish.  

Yes, the current ease of self-publishing means more second-rate books than ever. Anyone with an Amazon account can upload a book in minutes, but those without due diligence will see their lack of effort reflected in their sales. To be successful, one must be both a writer and a publisher. It is double the work, but nothing is as gratifying as holding the final product in one’s hand, faster than through a traditional publisher and for a higher royalty, all while maintaining creative control. (Note: I believe every self-published author is an independent publisher, although, for me, the distinction lies in whether one hires professionals or does everything oneself, for example, relying on AI for editing and Canva for cover design.) 

I became an indie publisher not because I needed to but because I wanted to. I knew the stigma against self-publishing in the biography category would be greater than if I were writing a sci-fi novel, but I believed in my idea and my abilities. After researching the pros and cons, I concluded that the benefits of creating an imprint and bringing this book into the world myself far outweighed what a publisher could have contributed. And while creating a formal proposal was unnecessary, it was an excellent exercise and a great tool for finding collaborators.    

Marketplaces like Reedsy and ACX allow an author to hire professionals, from cover designers to editors and marketing experts to narrators, while Vellum or Adobe InDesign makes it possible to create a book indistinguishable from traditionally published ones. Investing in an editor and cover designer is crucial at this stage, as it can transform a good book into a great one. Opt for professionals with experience in major publishing houses, request sample edits, and steer clear of platforms like fiverr.  

Self-publishing offers freedom, but it also demands discipline and responsibility. Without external deadlines, you are solely accountable for your progress and the key is to maintain daily writing habits. Moreover, your responsibility extends to your subject and readers; ensure your work is well-researched, factually accurate, and true to the craft. Self-publishing is not about disregarding rules; it’s about adhering to them, from creating an index and bibliography to obtaining an ISBN and copyright registration.  

There are several platforms to publish on, but a combination of Amazon KDP and Ingram covers the most ground. While it is possible to print and stock your books on Amazon, the ease of use and quality of print on demand suffices. Complaints abound about the process of submitting a manuscript, but this is what differentiates the hobbyist from the professional. If one submits a high-quality file that follows all the guidelines, the book will be approved within three days and put up for pre-sale immediately. Changes on the sales page can be made in real time, from A+ content to editorial reviews, enhancing the buyer’s experience.   

Marketing is essential, as it is for those who are traditionally published. Newspapers allow any author to submit a book for review consideration, provided it is submitted well in advance of publication. While having a book that looks professionally published will help, as will the right marketing materials like a press kit and sell sheet, I think it is a long shot for self-publishers without the right connections (but certainly worth the try). Without the push of a New York Times or Wall Street Journal book review, it can be an uphill climb to spread the word about your book.  However, I believe in creating my own opportunities, and you need that drive to be a successful independent publisher.  

Companies like BookFunnel and NetGalley allow authors to safely share advanced reader copies with potential readers. Through marketing efforts on Facebook and Amazon Ads, steady book sales are possible and immediate action can be taken based on numbers and reader feedback. 

Bookstores and libraries rely more on reviews than readers do, although they will use trade publications like Kirkus Reviews and Publisher’s Weekly. Those publications have review services directed explicitly at indie publishers now, but they are costly, have no selection process, and are usually nothing more than a book synopsis. The same goes for book awards; the important ones are closed to independent publishers, and the others have high fees without significant gains for the author. 

Collaborating with Ingram allows bookstores to sell your books, although authors must carefully consider whether the steep discount and strict return policy are worth the privilege of being in-store. I do not believe those terms are sustainable for independent publishers. Instead, any bookstore can order a copy of my book upon a customer’s request. I have contacted booksellers to sell directly, but I was surprised by how many independent bookstores do not support independent authors. I realized that few sales would come from bookstores, so I focused on military museums and historical societies instead. Not only are they happy to receive the recommendation, but their purchase of books usually goes hand-in-hand with an offer to lecture. 

My personal goal with Lady of the Army was to get it in the New York Public Library, which can be as challenging as getting major outlets to review your book. It took six months, but they eventually ordered five copies, as did several other libraries I contacted. Something I learned from General Patton: There are so many doors; why are we afraid to knock? As an indie author, you are left doing all the knocking, but it pays off in so many ways. 

Real independent publishing—not hybrid or vanity—is as worthy of praise as any traditional publisher when done well. Don’t skip steps; you don’t remove the saffron from the paella if you prepare it yourself. If you are willing to put in the time and effort—and research resources such as The Alliance for Independent Authors and The Independent Book Publishers Association—you have as much chance of succeeding as any other writer.     

---

An independent scholar and blogger who spent the last 20 years studying biography, Stefanie Van Steelandt published Lady of the Army: The Life of Mrs. George S. Patton in 2022, through her imprint Minnegate Press. Called “a triumph” by Joanne Holbrook Patton and hailed for its extensive research and factual reporting, Lady of the Army was the recipient of the 2023 Benjamin Franklin Silver Award for Biography. Van Steelandt is working on a follow-up biography and the story of the “five beautiful Delano sisters,” one of whom would become the mother of future president Franklin Roosevelt. She intends to publish both through Minnegate Press. Visit her website here. 

By Holly Van Leuven

While looking for digital organizing tools and systems, it’s possible you’ve come across or even started using Notion—a “freemium productivity and note-taking web application” according to the company, which offers “a single space where you can think, write, and plan.” The software has been around since 2018 and has grown in popularity to the point where some people work as full-time Notion developers and teachers. I am not one of them, but I do use the program, and as of this writing, I believe this is the only overview of Notion tailored to biographers to be found. Here are the basics.  

I am currently using Evernote, Zotero, Scrivener, Google Docs, pen, paper (or other tools). Why should I use Notion? 

Maybe you shouldn’t. Changing for the sake of changing isn’t usually the best approach to organizing. But if you are looking for a first system for a project, or you are dealing with challenges because your current system doesn’t meet your needs, then Notion is worth a look. For nonfiction writing like biography, Notion, I believe, has particular strengths in these areas:  

• Building project management-type features into your projects. With Notion, you can easily create little sections of your workspace that can be used for reminders of due dates, top priorities, reminders, etc. They can appear based on dates (you can create “All Tasks This Week” lists or “Interviews Left to Schedule,” for example), location (“Items to Look for at Such and Such Archive”), or category of your choosing (like “Tasks for Appendices,” etc.). It is a very flexible system that enables you to have features not easily achieved in Word, Excel, or elsewhere, without needing to be a computer programmer.  
• Tagging. Biographers collect data, and Notion makes it very easy to apply tags to data you want to keep track of. You can create whatever tags make sense to you: tags for decades, tags for each person you are researching, tags for a particular event. Each piece of data can have multiple tags, and you can then sort and filter based on some or all of the tags.  
• Linking data. This might be the most valuable feature of Notion. Imagine having the typing capabilities of Microsoft Word combined with the “linking” capabilities of Microsoft Excel. If you are unfamiliar with the latter, it may be because those functions are generally considered complex to use. The linking allows a user to reference data without duplicating it, making sure that only one version exists and that any updates to the source data are updated in all of the areas it is linked to as well. Notion offers this type of functionality and makes it very easy to use—no formula-writing required.  

Can I import Word documents into Notion?  

Yes. You can either replicate a Word doc into Notion so that the text becomes editable within the interface, or you can create a document repository in Notion of different Word docs, PDFs, images, and other file types. This is a great way to centralize the various files required for research alongside the writing you are completing.  

What’s the downside?  

On the free version of Notion, you can upload an unlimited number of files, but they can be no larger than 5 MB each. If you have Word docs or image files larger than that and want to import or store them, you will need to upgrade to the Plus plan for $8 per month. If you don’t want to use Notion for file storage, though, chances are you can achieve everything you want with just the free version.  

The biggest downside I have found with Notion is that, because it is so flexible, it can also be overwhelming to use. The interface is very simple and easier to use than many programs, but you can get bogged down with all the options at your disposal while building a system, which takes away time and focus from the actual work. If you are the type of person who can set up a “good enough” system and tweak it over time, this is a phenomenal program that can allow you to create a useful curio cabinet that grows with your biography. But if you are more inclined to want to build a metaphorical monument to research before you get down to work, or the type who prefers to smush everything into a junk drawer, this program will either consume you or bore you.  

There are hundreds, if not thousands, of Notion tutorials on YouTube, including many geared toward writers. Or, if you are interested in joining an instructional series on building a Notion system for biography, please reply to this email. The Online Events Committee will host one if there is sufficient interest.  

What is your current project and at what stage is it? 

My current project, a biography of Emily Fowler Ford, is in the very early research stages. I first came to Fowler Ford as many others do: through reading the poems and letters of Emily Dickinson. (The two women met one another as girls growing up in Amherst, Massachusetts.) While writing my dissertation on Dickinson’s early letters, however, I discovered contributions Fowler Ford made to 19th-century New York’s, and by extension the United States’, social and cultural world. I have spent time in the New York Public Library’s archives reading and transcribing her papers, drawn to her commitment to writing and to supporting artists. Yet Fowler Ford has been largely forgotten in the historical record or, like so many women, reduced to a footnote in someone else’s story.  

What person would you most like to write about? 

It would be redundant to say Fowler Ford. But my interest in her life is evidence of what I consider to be my larger vision. So many women whose lives we would consider ordinary have stories that deserve to be told. I’ve been able to share part of the stories of Dickinson’s childhood friends Harriet Merrill, Sarah Tracy, and Abiah Root through my dissertation. Other stories, such as that of Eliza Keig (1843–1865), are mysteries; Keig is the sole burial at De Veaux State Park in Niagara Falls, New York. These are only a few of the women who comprise my larger work exploring the accumulation of the many untold stories that I call the “extraordinary ordinary.” So many women played such crucial roles in the everyday that I believe my role to be one of recovery, not necessarily of women whose public roles have been forgotten, but whose private lives meant so much to those surrounding them. I strive to contribute to women’s cultural memory. 

Who is your favorite biographer or what is your favorite biography? 

Megan Marshall’s The Peabody Sisters changed the course of what I wanted my writing to accomplish. Though the Peabody sisters are somewhat well-known among historians and 19th-century literature enthusiasts, Marshall gave Elizabeth, Mary, and Sophia voices for a larger contemporary audience. The amount of painstaking (and I’m sure equal parts thrilling and frustrating) research Marshall completed fills me with admiration. As someone who loves to spend time in the past through archives and reading about women’s lives, I see Marshall as a role model.  

What have been your most frustrating moments? 

The most frustrating part of biographical work would be the hours spent looking for information that may not exist while so desperately hoping it does! About three years ago I traveled to Grand Rapids, Michigan, in search of any information on a young woman, Harriet Merrill, who died at age 21. The gracious staff at the Grand Rapids Public Library brought out their oldest records and I poured through them hoping for a letter, a cause of death, any scrap that might add to her story. I found nothing I hadn’t already known.  

The next summer, Mimi Dakin at Amherst College’s Frost Library suggested the Boltwood records in Detroit; the Boltwood family knew the Merrills—and potentially there would be some clues to Harriet’s life held in the Boltwood papers. When I called, I was told that there had been a flood and the papers had all been damaged! Frustratingly, it seemed my search kept hitting dead ends. 

On the other hand, that’s the very process of searching that makes archival work so invigorating. I still haven’t lost hope that somewhere out there—a library, historical society, or even someone’s home—clues remain for the women I’m searching for. For my Fowler Ford project, I could not find any evidence of her photograph or likeness in articles and books. So, I searched through photographs in Fowler Ford’s papers to no avail. I found one photograph labeled with her name, but the age and date provided suggested that this notation had been made in error. It occurred to me to search her daughter’s archived photograph collection. And there was the photograph I had thought didn’t exist. I was thrilled! 

If you weren’t a biographer, what dream profession would you be in, and why? 

This is an easy question, as biographical work is something I would consider my dream profession. I’ve worked in education for over 20 years, teaching high school English and college writing courses. I value education as a profession, but hope to pursue my passion for sharing women’s stories through written biography and as an interpreter at various historical sites. 

What genre, besides biography, do you read for pleasure and who are some of your favorite writers? 

This is a difficult question! I am devoted to creative nonfiction, which I don’t necessarily consider a separate genre, as so many biographies are beautifully crafted. I spend a fair amount of time reading memoirs and essays. And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention poetry. But, most of all, I love reading letters, a genre I don’t think is considered often though there are so many beautifully written missives out there, both those published and those waiting to be published, tucked in a folder, in the archives. Many, of course, written by women.