A Heartfelt Love Letter to Itchio
Today’s newsletter is a little different. I really want to talk about itch.io, and being an indie author in current times. I tend to keep these longer discussions for Patreon, but I think this is important and I want it to reach all of you.
I believe from the deepest layer of my soul that the world is full of love and compassion. It is also undeniably full of greedy, hateful billionaires intent on making our lives worse, and they’re getting more inescapable by the day.
In our current times, for indie authors, one of the biggest of these juggernauts is Amazon. Between its strong algorithm and the exclusivity clause to have your book included in their subscription reading program (Kindle Unlimited; I don’t), they dominate many authors income.
To be clear: that was almost never my case, and it grew less-so in the last three years. I’m the exception, though. And I strongly believe the indie publishing scene would be better without KU. But those things don’t just happen. You have to build the ecosystems you want to have, even when it means scraping by for a time.
Those of us who have books that are Wide (distributing elsewhere than Amazon) have been working hard to disentangle ourselves further. One of the most successful endeavours has been migrating to itchio. It …
Let’s us choose our royalty split, meaning we can easily get 90% royalties on any sale
Gives readers file they own and can use wherever they want, whenever they want
Allows for collections and bundles with other authors, making it easy for us to collaborate and lift each other up
Allows for “tips” on any purchases, something people often take advantage of <3
There is more, but these are the highlight. In the last ~5 months, I have been pushing itchio more intently, and it is regularly my biggest source of income now. Dozens (if not hundreds) of marginalized writers have moved their work there, too.
What I’m saying is: if you are a reader who wants to support indie authors directly, seek them on itchio. Learn to send ebooks to your ereader of choice, get in the habit of not forgetting them on your computer, unread (I’ve been there), and encourage/help others. It is tremendously helpful to us.
Not sure how to find us on itchio? You can start with the handful of folks displayed here, a collection of marginalized authors on itchio. Several authors have recommendations on their itchio pages, too (mine has the other Kraken Collective books). Itchio’s search feature lets you filter for books only (since it is primarily an indie games website).
I say all of this because authors can try to build sustainable pathways away from Amazon all we want, if readers do not follow, it’s for naught. And Amazon is convenient, it’s easy to find, it’s well known. So it matters that we talk about the options out there, and that we’re open about what they do (or don’t do) for us. There are others, of course (Kobo Plus is a pretty solid replacement for KU, for example; it doesn’t demand exclusivity!), but I have a lot of hope and love for itchio in particular.
So yeah. This has been my heartfelt itchio pitch! Next time we will be back to books, promise! And I will tell you more about Painted Flock, my Baker Thief sequel (which, coincidentally, is already up on itchio with a placeholder cover).
