Mersades Bergmann - Independent Publishing

06/02/2026

05/23/2026

Types of ART that is being replaced by AI and affecting the creative industry:

•Illustration

•Book covers

•Editing/Writing

•Marketing

•Game Development

Stop. Hire a professional. Stand against the AI takeover.

Human creation will always be better.

*Daily reminder not to take anyone’s work and feed it to AI. Don’t aid in theft.*

05/20/2026

Struggling with marketing and advertising?

In a world full of AI, it's hard to stick to your human-centered guns. Here are some options without using gen AI.

•Take videos of yourself packing books, unboxing the books, or signing the books. Speed it up, zoom in, remove sound and add music or a voice over.

•Take images of people holding your book somewhere in nature: reading it at the park on a blanket, a bench, sitting in their car.

•Create videos talking about how you relate to a character, what made them the hardest or easiest to write.

You can reuse these time and time again. From static ads across social media, to engaging videos.

Authors, what is your favorite non-AI way to connect with your readers?

05/20/2026

“The fact is that brands are not maintained by advertising but by customers’ engagement with brands and customers’ brand experiences.”

-Armstrong, G., & Kotler, P. (2023) Marketing: An Introduction (15 Ed.)

Human connection is irreplaceable.

Authenticity drives thought leadership.

05/19/2026

Generative AI is ruining the book industry.

05/18/2026

I am not a typical publisher.

I am 100% myself at all times. If you come into my stream and see me joking around with my chatters, it doesn’t make me unprofessional—it makes me authentic.

I am a weird girl, a loud girl, a creative, enthusiastic, unapologetically blunt girl.

I love books, I love magic, I love the weird and obsessive, the odd and unusual.

That doesn’t make me any less knowledgeable. I encourage everyone to always be themselves. Don’t let one person take you and force you to live in a box.

“I, myself, am strange and unusual.”

05/15/2026

Self published and Indie Published are not the same.

If you shoulder all the financial burdens of publishing—you’re self published.

If you go to a small press, where they shoulder all of the financial burden—you’re an indie author.

Using them interchangeably is confusing.

05/09/2026

Stop calling yourself an indie author if you’re just self-publishing without a professional team.

I see posts from authors in “support groups” often asking if it’s better to be self published or work with a literary agent.

This post is meant to be educational, but it may come off as harsh. It’s in my brand to be blunt and honest, so here we go.

Traditional publishing is great for the name. If you can be noticed by a traditional publisher, you probably have the writing skill. Honestly, vetting is so important. It keeps the poor quality books from doing exactly what is happening right now—over saturation. Traditional is great for the name, the vetting, and the quality that goes into the book and end result.

From a marketing perspective, I do not believe self publishing to ever be the answer. Unless you are using *actual* beta readers, editors, designers, arc readers, and so on. You can’t have this ego about your writing that it is perfect and sellable the way it is. I’m sorry, but it’s true. I could list many authors I have read for that should not be published but are self published. Self published is (no offense) usually an ego trip, pushing a draft to market and bypassing all professionalism.

Indie publishing is also an option. I never see any of the posts asking about indie. Even if you do not decide to go with the publisher, it would be helpful for you to know where your book is at in readiness, to submit to indie presses and see if you get any positive feedback. A real independent publisher will vet your work like a traditional will. Indie is not self published. Indie is working with a small press and getting the same benefits you would from traditional (minus large advancement checks) and working in a partnership. Your book gets vetted, and the publisher pays all the production costs.

Please get yourself educated. If you love books the way I do, the way the readers do, then your book needs to show it. Stop writing a draft, giving AI a prompt, and then publishing a poor book. You hurt yourself, your readers, and the ecosystem of publishing.