Author: K.S. Brooks

K.S. Brooks is an award-winning novelist, photographer, and photo-journalist, author of over 30 titles, and executive director and administrator of Indies Unlimited. Brooks is currently a photo-journalist and chief copy editor for two NE Washington newspapers.  She teaches self-publishing and writing topics for the Community Colleges of Spokane, and served on the Indie Author Day advisory board. For more about K.S. Brooks, visit her website and her Amazon author page.

Thankful Today and Every Day

thank-you-515514_640This Thanksgiving, we here at Indies Unlimited have a whole lot to be grateful for.

On October 31 of this year, we created a GoFundMe to help cover our web hosting expenses. Within five days, we exceeded the goal of that fundraiser. That’s not something I ever expected, and it is deeply moving that our community values us so highly. Thank you so very, very much.

We appreciate each and every one of you, and are very grateful that you appreciate us. I’d like to give a special shout-out to the minions for their continued support over the years, too. I’m grateful for their generosity. We wouldn’t be “we” without them.

I wish each and every one of you a wonderful Thanksgiving, and a holiday season full of love and happiness. Thank you again for being a part of the Indies Unlimited family.

thanksgiving-1060214_640

 

A Little Help from Our Friends

empty walletIf you’re a regular to this site, you already know that we just celebrated our eighth anniversary. If not, in October 2011, Indies Unlimited was formed by Stephen Hise to help indie authors find their way through the confusing landscape that was publishing. A month later, he brought on K. S. “Kat” Brooks (me) to assist, and together we assembled a team which paved the way for an award-winning site that would go on to help thousands of people each year.

Everything on the site is free – there is no paid advertising because I felt strongly about not taking money from authors, and both Steve and I agreed that we couldn’t guarantee that any service provider advertising with us wouldn’t take advantage of authors. Occasionally, we’ll thoroughly vet someone and allow them to get word out through IU, but usually that’s only about once a year. And, with the number of predatory publishers out there, we couldn’t use Google ads (wouldn’t it be horrible if one of the bad guys had an ad pop up on one of our articles?), so we made the conscious decision not to make money off the site. We do monetize Thrifty Thursday and other book fairs with Amazon links, but don’t usually meet the threshold for receiving payment.

Over the years, Steve and I have paid out of pocket to support the site, with the occasion holiday bleg (blogging and begging) for PayPal donations. Our PayPal account became overrun with scammers, so we had to take the donate button down.

Just over a year ago, Steve had to step away from the site, so I’ve been shouldering the financial burden on my own.

I don’t feel shutting down the site is an option. Authors in search of guidance find their way to Indies Unlimited every day, and we get dozens of emails each week asking for help. The need is there. I don’t have the heart to take that away from people.

And now, the crux of it:

I have just had to renew the site hosting along with the SSL certificate and the security package that has been needed since January when the site started being attacked by hackers. My wallet felt that hit pretty hard.

IU has over 2000 people subscribed to the email newsletter, and theoretically, if each one donated $1 per year, the expenses would be more than completely covered. But we’re not going to charge people to use this site, instead – and yes, I’ve been dreading this day forever – we’ve set up an IU GoFundMe to cover these recent expenses. Some of you have already very generously donated money (thank you so much, we love you!), and we’re hoping that those of you who have found any benefit from the site will consider donating what you can, as soon as you can, whether it’s one dollar or five or ten. It all helps.

We at Indies Unlimited hope the site will be around for a long time to come, and we couldn’t do it without our fans and readers (and the awesome IU staff who donate their time and energy to the site). We truly appreciate everyone’s support. Thank you!

Eight Years and Still Going…

Eight years ago, the Evil Mastermind launched Indies Unlimited. Since then, we’ve had well over 2.7 MILLION page views, been named as one of Six Great Blogs for Indie Authors in Publishers Weekly, and ranked as one of the top writing-related sites by Alexa.

If you want to see what other people are saying about us, you can check out our “What Others Are Saying” page here. Yeah, not super original, but hey… it gets the point across. We haven’t updated it in a while. Someone needs to get on the admin to do that.

Since our early days, we have evolved greatly, but never lost sight of providing free, high-quality content for all types of writers and readers.  We’re proud that readers and authors alike trust our content, and we’re grateful to all of you for spreading the word about us.

Indies Unlimited is run by volunteers. Kudos to all the minions past and present for donating their time and energy to provide excellent articles, advice, and tutorials for our audience.

Here at IU, we do our best to publish one article every day, but due to time and financial restraints, sometimes that’s not possible and we miss a day or two. We try to avoid that and will continue to provide helpful content as those things allow. Thanks for your patience with that.

So here’s a pile of thank yous for making Indies Unlimited a success and a community. It could not be one without the other. We look forward to another year filled with great things for all.thank you writers banner-1186625_640

Google+ is Going Bye-Bye

Google Plus LogoI don’t know about you, but frankly, I’m relieved. I’m already spread so thin between working, writing (more like not writing), life, and social media, that the fact that we are losing one of the places we should have a presence is a gift. And honestly, I haven’t found Google+ to be one of the most user-friendly platforms out there. I never could figure out circles, and I have literally never been able to find the Indies Unlimited group on Google+. Thank you to everyone who has been managing/moderating/running that group. You may now take a well-deserved vacation. Continue reading “Google+ is Going Bye-Bye”