IndieGen.xyz

Publishing power was decentralizing and democratizing before the current pandemic turned the world upside-down, with ViacomCBS announcing they were selling Simon & Schuster in March. In the last 2 months, the trend has only sped up, with Barnes & Noble to be the next major domino to fall.

As tradpub's slow demise sinks the book market into chaos, readers will miss the content curation legions of laid-off agents, editors, and publicists used to provide. People read what's put before them, and what's put before them is put there by a distribution and marketing network that will soon go extinct.

Long story short, we are all independents now.

Amazon could have filled readers' need for content curation, but they've dropped the ball. Into the void steps IndieGen.xyz, a "virtual convention" for indie creators. It's the brainchild of Paula Richey, who writes:

We can’t rely on big platforms to give our indie creators a level playing field. They’re all too invested in engineering the outcomes they want. Here, your work rises or falls on its own merit. How well will you serve your customers?

I’ve had my suspicions confirmed that a certain giant retail platform is turning into a pay-to-play marketplace. Just like I’ve said, sponsored ads are taking up all the best space, and the regular spaces for all the little people have been nerfed to make those ads more necessary.

IndieGen.xyz is a straightforward, customer-centered search, not a complex algorithm that hides some things and recommends others. This is why it doesn’t host the actual sales pages or handle the payments. It doesn’t take up a lot of space. It doesn’t need to sort the shoppers. All they have to do is browse the site and find what they want. I hope some of them want what I have to offer at OtherRealm Studio, and will eventually buy some IndieGen.xyz merch as well once I get that done, but I’m not about to cheat to make it happen. I create what I create and people want what they want; it doesn’t need to be complicated.

Richey is doing a public service with this site, and I'm proud to support it. This is where the rubber meets the road. Browse the booths, or if you've got something to sell, apply for one yourself. The process is easy and quick.

As always, let me know what you think in the comments. If you like hard sci-fi, check out my books Seeds of Calamity and Tendrils to the Moon. You can find extended previews for each here and here.