03/08/2026
It takes a particular kind of person to support an indie maker, someone who can look past the slower shipping and the lack of guarantee, and see what the work is trying to become.
Buying from someone like me is a quiet political act. In a world that automates every step of a transaction, swapping out humanness for efficiency, this is a transaction between the dreamers, the rebels, and the misfits, the ones who see the extra $10 in postage and pay it forward so this work can exist.
So hereās what I want to say: I see you. Every name that comes through on an order, I see it. Youāre putting food on our table as much as Iām helping putting it on yours.
From now on, Iāll see every order for what it is: a leap of faith you take in me. And Iāll be out here taking one too.
Love,
Catie
SLIDE 1
We talk a lot about the producer when it comes to small business.
We rarely talk about what it costs the customer.
SLIDE 2
Buy from a large company, and the risk is absorbed.
A vetted product, an industrial fulfilment system stands behind every order confirmation, tracking, guarantee.
Shop small, and you invite the risk of human error.
As an indie author, it takes 8 books a day for me to reach an annual livable wage.
Thatās four times what the average Australian author makes and just shy of what a full-time McDonaldās worker earns.
But when a Maccas shift clocks off, they leave it at the door.
Authors and creators never do. Weāre always writing, thinking, refining whether weāre at the desk or not.
Creating on an endless loop.
Itās not a 38-hour work week. Itās a work week that never ends.
Last week was my slowest ever.
One day, I didnāt make a single sale. A first since launch.
Some days itās 50, or 100. Other days, 2.
The work doesnāt change. If anything, a slow week means working harder to build the momentum to make up for it.
SLIDE 6
And even the good weeks donāt come with relief.
They come with the fear that just maybe it was the last good week.
Continued in comments
