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Originally Posted by gmw
And if you do call yourself an Indie Author (I don't call myself and Indie Author yet because I have yet to publish any of my work at all, so the "you" is not meant in any derogatory manner), then how does this definition fit with the various fan-fiction authors out there? Are they also Indie Authors, albeit of a particular corner of the market and using a different "publisher"? (A thread I started some time ago on the general forum made me ask this, since I was very surprised to learn just how prolific such work was.)
I think that perhaps the description of Indie Author is more encompassing than "simply" having written a novel and uploaded it somewhere. It requires (or at least implies) full independent production of an entire book (even if an ebook), not just presenting the text of the story. That is: By caring about, and taking responsibility for, the presentation and artwork and reader reception of the finished article, you really are taking on the role of publication itself, and it is that aspect that makes you a distinctly Indie Author, rather than "just" (again no denigration implied) an author.
In the case of Smashwords and Amazon, and fan-fiction sites, these are really distributors, not publishers. Responsibility for the "book", not just the text, is what makes you an independent publisher/author.
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I accept what you are saying and in fact agree with most of it, but hasn't the roll of publisher changed somewhat with the coming of the ebook? With printed books there was so much more for the publisher to do and apart from the writing and maybe editing, the publisher did everything else. Obviously with ebooks most of that work doesn't exist.
With regard to Amazon and Smashwords. Amazon now considers itself to be a publisher and I think I'm right in saying that Smashwords were the first to call themselves epublishers.