Indie Bites was created by indie authors to promote the work of indie authors like us. We are not a traditional literary magazine. Instead, we are built on the principles of collaborative indie marketing that underpin newsletter swaps and group promotions (e.g. through sites like Prolific Works and Story Origin). If we all band together and put our short fiction in a single publication, then promote that publication to our individual audiences, we can introduce our existing fans to new writers they'll love, and find new readers in the fans of our peers. And if we showcase our best short fiction in a free publication, we can find readers for our paid novels who might otherwise be reluctant to take a chance on an indie author. Those are the driving forces behind Indie Bites.

 

Our mission is to get the work of indie authors into the hands of as many readers as possible and, in such a saturated market, that means giving it away for free. By making our digital anthology free to download, we hope to reach a larger readership than traditional paid-for anthologies. Our audience can sample the various stories in the anthology, pick out the ones they like and (we hope) be convinced by that sample to buy the full-length books of the authors we feature. For that reason, we give each author space to advertise one of their books/series immediately after their short fiction, including a purchase link. Since the majority of our audience will be reading on Kindle, this makes it as easy as possible for them to click straight through to buy our authors' books straight from their device.

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Remuneration

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We're a not-for-profit anthology. We run at a loss. Not only do we not make a profit, we never expect to, because we have no income at all (except via donations, all of which we pass on to our contributors). We have no income from our digital editions, which we give away for free for the reasons discussed above. Our print editions are priced to cover the print costs and nothing else, so there's no income there, either (we recognise that print copies are often purchased by contributors, so we price them at cost). And we don't take money for advertisements, because we only want to advertise the work of the authors we feature, and not just anyone who can pay. Our editors work for free (even as authors when their stories appear in Indie Bites; they don't take a cut of the donations Indie Bites receives).

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This means that we can't pay our authors or illustrators market rate, but we do pay a small honorarium of £5 for each piece we publish, plus an equal share of any donations we receive in the quarter prior to publication of the issue in which their work appears (if any). Although you won't make any other direct income from being featured, we hope you'll see an increase in the sales of your books when readers like your work.

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Collaboration

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Since Indie Bites is founded on the principles of collaborative marketing, we ask our contributors to help us with the marketing by publicising it widely. This isn't a requirement, but the more we share to our newsletter lists and on our social media, the more readers will read our work and the work of our fellow contributors.