How many of you know that I am an indie author?

I do not have a traditional publisher, although I think I would like one very much. I write, publish, market, and publicize everything I do all by my lonesome. It is a lot of work, but I enjoy it. Or at least most of it. I really like the writing part. The rest of it is necessary so I am not effectively talking to a brick wall. An author without readers is…well, just a person mashing a keyboard. We write because we want to share a story with the world. At least that is why I do it. As an indie, however, it is the ‘sharing with the world’ part that takes some extra work.

Publishing is changing. Ebooks are outselling paperbacks now. It is both an exciting and daunting time for indies. It has never been easier to get your work out there for people to read. The challenge lies in getting people to know you exist. And that part is hard.

Super, super hard.

Harder than a three-week old donut left sitting on the counter. In the sun. With a fan set on high and trained on our honey cruller. And, just to get the thing like granite, let’s add a heat lamp to the analogy.

This struggle is the reason I am writing this post. I have something very important to ask you.

Who are you and how in the heck did you find me?

Granted, I have put a lot of work into trying to get my name out there. I reach out to book blogs and solicit reviews. I do guest blog posts whenever I can (and if you would like me to do so for you, please ask). I write my own blog posts, although much less frequently than I should.

I am a member of some great online reading groups (hello, Green Dragon-ers). I tweet, facebook, and Google+. And yes, those are verbs. Because.

I have been to a couple of conventions as a part of their author track. I was at Origins and GenCon last year, and will be back at 2012 Origins in a couple months (my schedule is here).

I ran a few promotions via Amazon’s KDP Select program where you could get some of my short stories for free, hoping to get my name out there a little. It is yet to be seen how effective that was.

That’s it, though. Nothing else. I do not have a presence in a single bookstore. I do not advertise. There are no big displays of my book cover anywhere…other than the one in my basement that I had made because I thought it would be cool. And it is.

Yet somehow, in the 15+ months that Progeny has been released, I have managed to sell a couple thousand copies. Every month, when I check the sales figures, I shake my head in quiet wonder.

So, how are you finding me? Is it word of mouth? Random clicking on the internet? Did you fall asleep at your desk, smack your head into the keyboard, and inadvertently type http://www.rtkaelin.com? What is it?

I ask for purely selfish reasons, of course. If there is something I am doing that is working, I would like to do more of it, assuming I can. If this all word of mouth, well…then I suppose I can only ask all of you to talk more.

So, dear reader, who are you?