Nobody Is Coming to Ask You to Dance

Why indie authors need to stop waiting for permission, think like small business owners, and build real paths to readers.

For years, authors were told the room was shrinking. Bookstores were dying. Barnes & Noble was finished. Amazon had eaten the world. The only serious path was through an agent, then a publisher, then a sales team, then maybe — if everyone nodded in the right order — a shot at the shelf.

But the room did not disappear. It changed.

Barnes & Noble, the company plenty of people had already written off, has been opening stores again. It opened 57 new stores in 2024 and planned at least 60 more in 2025. Independent bookstores have also been growing: U.S. independent bookstores are up about 70% since 2020, from 1,916 to more than 3,200 locations.

That does not mean the market is easy. Easy is still not on the menu. But it does mean the old story — that books are only moving through a few narrow gates — is not the whole story anymore.

And yet, a lot of authors are still standing in the same line.

They are sending query letters to publishers who may take two or four authors a year. They are paying for courses on how to get an agent to open an email. They are studying subject lines like scripture. They are waiting for someone with institutional authority to say yes before they let themselves move.

Sometimes that yes comes. Wonderful. But while you are waiting, the room is moving around you.

Readers are walking into bookstores again. Local stores are building communities. BookTok and Bookstagram are turning backlist titles into front-table conversations. Libraries are programming author events. Newsletters are making niche audiences powerful. Small presses are building loyal readerships. Readers are not all sitting in one place waiting for the industry to deliver the next approved book to them.

So why should you sit in one place waiting to be chosen?

This is not an argument against agents or publishers. It is an argument against paralysis. If you want to query, query. But do not confuse querying with building.

A query letter is a door you knock on. A readership is a room you build.

And yes, I still believe everyone is in charge of their own orgasm.

No agent, publisher, bookstore, algorithm, or benevolent stranger is coming to hand you momentum fully formed. They may help. They may open doors. They may matter a great deal.

But they are not the plan. You are.