Each month, Joanna and Orna answer Members’ self-publishing questions during our regular Ask ALLi event. This month they began the discussion by sharing their thoughts about this year's London Book Fair, then gave us an insight into what they've been doing in their “spare” time!
Destroyer of Worlds, #8 in her Arkane series, launched last week and Joanna reminded us about how the indie business model is so very different than the launch-spike-disappear model of traditional publishing. For indies it's a marathon not a sprint.
ALLi Director Orna making the news on BBC
Orna is in the midst of a redesign of her ornaross.com website, which triggered a discussion about the importance of finding balance in all that you do as an indie author. She's also knee-deep in prepping for our second Indie Author Fringe event of 2016 that will coincide with BEA, and takes place on Saturday May 14th.
April's Ask ALLi
Watch the You Tube video to find out the answers to the self-publishing questions that were raised at this month's Ask ALLi Author Q&A.
Watch the Ask ALLi Video
Ask ALLi Self-Publishing Questions
Here’s a summary of the questions in this month’s Ask ALLi with Orna and Joanna:
Q: When Amazon contacts you because of a plagiarism concern and asks for evidence of copyright, what action steps should an author do?
Q: Why did Joanna charge 99c for her first book, but then change it to a permanently free download?
Q: What is the most important thing to bear in mind when you're choosing a self-publishing service?
Q: How is a locked PDF file created?
Q: What is the best way to set my historical romance apart? My romance is set in 13th Century, and I'm considering changing the title to make it different or more catchy.
Q: Does iBooks really only offer their upload software only for Mac? If you're a Windows user what are you supposed to do?
Q: If I publish directly with a distributor and then want to switch to go direct with Kobo Writing Life or iBooks – is that possible? Will I lose reviews?
Q: How can I get my typeset print book that Matador is creating, into a format that I can upload to Amazon myself? Do I need to release my paperback and ebook at the same time?
Q: What happens when I need to make changes to my permafree book on Amazon, and I hit publish again, will my book go back to 99c?
Q: What are the ways we can share parts of our work without being penalised?
Q: How do I honour diversity in my novels with the covers and keywords, without excluding a large chunk of my audience?
Find out what questions @OrnaRoss & @TheCreativePenn answered in this month's #author Q&A Share on XMonthly Ask ALLi
Our monthly Member Q&A is part of our “Ask ALLi” Campaign: in which ALLi (Alliance of Independent Authors) commits to answering any question about self-publishing.
If you are an ALLi member, click here to submit your questions
Where can I watch or listen to more Ask ALLi?
- You can catch up on all of our videos on ALLi’s YouTube Channel
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Meet the Ask ALLi Hosts
Joanna Penn is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author, as well as writing non-fiction for authors. She is also a professional speaker and entrepreneur, voted as one of The Guardian UK Top 100 creative professionals 2013.
She spent 13 years as a business IT consultant in large corporations across the globe before becoming a full-time author-entrepreneur in September 2011.
Connect with Joanna on Twitter @thecreativepenn
ALLi Director Orna making the news on BBC
Orna Ross launched the Alliance of Independent Authors at the London Book Fair in 2012. Her work for ALLi has seen her named as one of The Bookseller’s “100 top people in publishing”.
She also publishes poetry, fiction and nonfiction, and is greatly excited by the democratising, empowering potential of author-publishing.
Connect with Orna on Twitter @OrnaRoss
