From the Productive Indie Fiction Writer:

Indie Publishing in 2026

Money, Control, AI, and the Business You Actually Run

This is a series:

• Part 1: Trad vs Indie in 2026: The Brutal, Unsentimental Guide
• Part 2: Indie Publishing in 2026: Money, Control, AI, and the Business You Actually Run
• Part 3: Trad, “Hybrid,” and Choosing Wisely in 2026: The Reality No One Says Out Loud

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Why This Part Exists

Part I was the brutal, unsentimental comparison of trad vs indie; advantages, disadvantages, and the cold math of each. Part II shifts gears completely.

Part I looked at the big-picture differences between the two publishing paths.

Part II goes deep on one side only: what modern indie publishing actually looks like in 2026. Why? Because most writers think they understand indie. They don’t.

They’re still imagining 2013 indie:

• KU gold rush
• cheap Facebook ads
• write-to-market trend-chasing
• rapid release hamster wheels
• hoping Amazon would love them if they just hand-fed the algorithm correctly

That world is dead.

Indie publishing in 2026 is a completely different beast. It is a business model that relies on direct sales, diversified income, durable backlists, reader ownership, platform resilience, and strategic independence.

And if you don’t understand this version of indie, you cannot make a meaningful choice between trad and indie in 2026. That’s why Part II exists. It’s not a repeat. It’s the deep-dive into the only publishing model that can actually survive enshittification, AI disruption, and unstable retailer ecosystems.

Part III, next, will tackle:

• the reality of trad contracts,
• why hybrid is radioactive,
• the two exceptions that still work, and
• how to decide which publishing path matches the career you actually want.

But first:

Here’s what the modern indie career actually is. The version no one explains because they’re too busy selling courses about the 2016 strategy that no longer works.

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What Indie Publishing Actually Is in 2026

(Hint: It’s not the fantasy your cousin heard on TikTok.)

Modern indie publishing is not:

• a creative lifestyle
• a hobby
• “freedom” without work
• an alternative to trad for special snowflakes
• a shortcut
• a mystical algorithmic summoning ritual

It is a business model. A real business model, with assets, revenue streams, overhead, production cycles, inventory, customer acquisition pipelines, long-tail monetization, and the need for you to be the CEO, marketing department, and R&D division.

If this sounds intimidating, congratulations. Now you understand why Part II exists.

The Indie Cost Structure. (Reality, Not Rumors)

Let’s rip off this bandage cleanly:

Indie is not inherently expensive.

Indies can, and many do (including me), publish at extremely low cost, especially if they:

• learn essential skills
• build production templates
• streamline processes
• reuse tools
• know when to spend and when to DIY

Most working indies learn a lot of skills for themselves. The only things I don’t do personally are:

• cover design
• editing

And that’s purely because I’ve decided I would rather pay someone else. (Not because I can’t. I’ve done both in the past.)

Costs: Two Kinds, Only One Matters

Indie expenses fall into two buckets:

1. Production costs

Editing, cover design, proofing, formatting. These can be DIY or outsourced. The range from cheapest to most expensive is enormous, and price does not reflect quality.

2. Overhead costs

Software, hosting, ISBNs, websites, equipment, etc.

US authors…deep breath…yes, you really do have to pay for ISBNs. That alone raises your base cost significantly. Those of us in countries with free ISBNs just quietly drink our tea and avoid eye contact.

But here’s the important thing: Even trad authors have overhead. They just pretend they don’t. Laptops, Scrivener, office space, accountants, printer paper, printer ink (don’t get me started!), travel, signing stock, business cards.

Time.

Indie authors factor their time as a cost. Trad authors treat their time as exposure therapy.

How Cheap Can Indie Be?

If you’ve learned basic skills? You can get a new release out for almost nothing. And despite what some gurus claim:

• no, $3,000 per book is not “the baseline”
• no, $10k is not “industry standard for quality”
• no, spending more does not magically make the book sell.

Spending money well matters. Spending money automatically does not.

The Indie Business Model. (The Part That Terrifies Trad Authors)

Indie authors have multiple revenue streams:

• Retailer ebook
• Retailer print
• Direct digital (highest margin, up to ~98%)
• Direct print
• Audiobooks (Pro narration, self-narrated, AI-assisted, or royalty-share)
• Translations (direct deals or licensing, or AI assisted + edited)
• Foreign rights (direct deals or agented licensing)
• Special editions (Lux editions, exclusive editions…this category is virtually infinite and limited only by imagination)
• Bundles (can only be sold direct, but once you’re selling direct, bundling can be a major income stream)
• Author co-op projects (magazines, anthologies, boxed sets & omnibuses, uncollected anthologies and more)
• Kickstarter
• Patreon / memberships
• Merch
• Live events and pop-up “faux storefronts”

Traditional publishing gives you one revenue stream: royalties (whenever they feel like reporting them).

Direct Sales (The Heart of 2026 Indie)

Direct sales are the bulletproof vest against Amazon algorithm changes, disappearing visibility, Facebook ad inflation, shifting platform rules, AI clutter and the general enshittification of the Internet. Direct sales let you:

• own your customer data
• control the buying experience
• form repeat relationships with your readers
• launch without begging an algorithm
• profit disproportionately (up to 98%)
• keep selling the same books for decades

It’s the closest thing publishing has to future-proofing.

Live Markets: The Secret Weapon No One Talks About

Live markets and pop-ups (“faux storefronts”) are exploding for indies:

• you build local reader communities
• readers follow you from event to event
• your email list grows
• sales spike for weeks afterward
• repeat buyers appear in your direct store.

It also gives you something trad authors will never experience: readers handing you money directly and thanking you for writing books. (Signing it for them is just the icing.)

AI, KU, and Why the Old Indie Strategies Are Dead

Indie authors have never really competed with each other, but until recently, there were only indie authors out there. Now there is AI, and we are competing with AI:

• AI-generated books
• AI plagiarism
• AI spam parading as “marketing offers” that steal our attention.
• AI “series factories”
• AI-driven trope templates
• AI-generated author ID theft.

KU authors, especially, are feeling it because AI cranks out “rapid release” faster than any human. KU is flooded, payouts are shrinking, and visibility (which used to be guaranteed when you were a KU author) is collapsing. Trying to “write to market” in this ecosystem is like trying to outrun a truck.

AI should push indies away from trend-chasing and toward distinctive, human storytelling. What works now is a strong, unmistakably human voice, originality, specific details, character depth, writing that AI can’t replicate and career-long reader loyalty over transactional page reads.

2026 indie publishing rewards craft, not template-chasing.

Enshittification — And Why Indie Survives It Best

Enshittification (thank you, Cory Doctorow) is the process by which:

1. A platform treats users well,
2. Then shifts to extracting profit,
3. Then collapses because it has destroyed the ecosystem it depended on.

Sound familiar?

• Amazon organic visibility.
• Facebook organic reach.
• Twitter/X implosion.
• Instagram algorithm shifts.
• TikTok monetization.
• Patreon fees.
• YouTube policy changes.

Indies survive enshittification because they diversify, go direct, own their funnel, build community, create redundancy and treat reader contact as an asset.

Trad authors? They’re locked into whatever their publisher decides. They can’t move, adapt, change strategy, experiment, find a way around the infrastructure. Most importantly, they can’t see the real shifts shaping their publisher’s trajectory. Enshittification hits them like a brick.

Why Indie Provides Actual Career Stability

Indie is the only publishing path where:

• you keep your rights
• your books stay in print forever
• your income compounds
• your business is under your control
• you can reinvent yourself at will
• you build on backlist, not fleeting frontlist slots
• you can shift with technology
• you are not disposable to a corporation.

Your indie career continues as long as you want it to. There is no gatekeeper, no “right place, right time,” no editor who ghosts you, no imprint merger that obliterates your entire future, no 30-day window of relevance. No printing to net, and killing your sales right out of the gate.

It’s the closest thing to publishing immortality we have.

Wrapping Up — and the Road to Part III

Part II wasn’t about comparing trad and indie. You already have that from Part I. Part II was about showing you what modern, viable, future-proof indie publishing really looks like, because you can’t make a meaningful choice without knowing it.

In Part III, we’ll tackle:

• what traditional publishing really looks like in 2026
• the real contractual traps
• the illusion of hybrid
• the two rare exceptions that still work
• and how to choose your publishing path with eyes open, wallet intact, and career stable.

See you soon for the finale.

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