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Indie Author Project Expert Session

Traditional-to-Indie Publishing

Award-winning author Cynthia Swanson discusses the pros and cons of independent publishing.

While many indie authors dream of “being discovered”—i.e., taking an indie-to-traditional publishing path—for some authors, it goes in the other direction. What does it take for a traditionally published author to go indie? Whether you’ve been published traditionally, indie, or you’re not yet published, in this session, 2025 Indie Author of the Year, Cynthia Swanson, will explore what goes into the indie decision, the pros and cons of this publishing method, and the must-have attributes of a successful independently published book.

Cynthia Swanson is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the psychological suspense novels The Bookseller, The Glass Forest, and Anyone But Her. In addition to being named 2025 Indie Author of the Year by the Indie Author Project, Cynthia has won the Indie Author Project contest in Mystery/Thriller, received the Colorado Book Award, the WILLA Literary Award, and been a finalist for the High Plains Book Award and the Colorado Authors League Award. She is also the editor of the Colorado Book Award-winning anthology Denver Noir. She lives with her family in Denver. Find Cynthia online at cynthiaswansonauthor.com.

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