This Week’s Self-publishing News

 

You may not be able to see it in my profile pic, but aside from writing one of my passions is running ultramarathons. And this last weekend witnessed one of the great events on the ultramarathon calendar, the Barkley Marathons, an event which consists of five loops of 20 miles each through steep wooded hillside on ground where the closest thing to a path is “ooh the brambles are only 6 inches here”. Entry to the race is strictly by essay submission, and “runners” get 60 hours to complete the race. Only out of 800 starters in 30 years, only 14 people have ever finished, just one this year. Unlike last week, I’m not even going to explain my dazzling use of extended metaphor. I’ll just leave you with the story. And our lives as writers.

Did we mention?

Indie Author Fair is now just a week away. This is your (possibly) last call to check out the programme and tattoo times on your hand (details here, speaker line up here). Diarise it. IN CAPS.

And tthe accompanying competition is still underway!

• Enter Our Competition:
  We're now accepting entries for our Opening Line Competition. It's FREE to enter and we have a Cash Prize lined up. Click here to visit our Submission Page.
• Vote in Our Competition:
  The 10 entries with the most votes at the close of the competition will be submitted to our competition sponsor to make the final decision. So make sure to check back often to cast your vote. Click here to visit our Voting Page.​​​​​​​
• View the Agenda for April 15/16

There's Other News? Why yes…

The media’s favourite indie, Hugh Howey, gave a really fabulous interview with Digital Book World this week, which you can read here.

Living in the real world

Bookstore news this week sees Barnes and Noble

Toronto Poetry Vendors' dispensing machine

as the latest to bring ideas to the table with a concept store coming to Westchester (details here), though despite the intriguing description of “”omni-channel” locations”, it is still not quite clear what the concept is. The concept behind London’s new store Libreria ( here – brainchild of ultramodern creatorpreneur group Second Home) is very clear. The store wants to offer customers a digital-free environment (thank you to Jane Davis for the tip).

And staying with the notion I have always found rather appealing that offline is the cutting edge in the digital age, Grenoble in France is the latest city to install story-dispensing machines. Unlike early adopters Toronto Poetry Vendors, and many of the machines you will find in Japan, these stories are printed from a digital catalogue (details here). Less an espresso machine, more an instant and dried milk machine, but intriguing possibilities to think about…

Meanwhile from Amazon

We couldn’t exactly ignore Amazon, and this week’s interesting news is the announcement of a streamlined Kindle with a rechargeable case (story here).

Looking ahead

ALLi’s attention may be firmly at London Book Fair for the coming week,

Image from Frankfurt Book Fair

but Frankfurt are offering a nice little prize of 8 square metres of stall to the business that can most innovatively answer the questions:

• Why should your company absolutely participate in the Frankfurt Book Fair 2016?
• How would you call attention to your participation at the fair?
• What would your stand at the fair look like?

As far as I can see, there is no reason why your indie imprint shouldn’t count as a company (especially as that’s exactly what it is!) for this. Full details here.

The indie life

And finally, Adam Grant’s book “Originals” is essential reading for creatives, especially for authorpreneurs, but now you can get an inspiring flavour of his sacred cow busting ideas with this great TED talk.

Upcoming Author Conferences & Events

APRIL 2016

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books: 9 – 10 Apr [Los Angeles, USA] Okanagan Valley Writers’ Festival; 8 – 10 Apr [Penticton, BC, Canada] London Book Fair: 12 – 14 Apr [London, UK] Indie Author Fringe: Apr 15 [Online, Global] – brought to you by ALLi
Pikes Peak Writers’ Conference; Apr 15 – 17 [ Colorado Springs, Colorado] Story Circle Network Women’s Writing Conference; Apr 15 – 17 [ Austin, TX] Writer’s Institute; Apr 15 – 17 [Madison, Wisconsin] Jane Austen Festival Australia: Apr 15 – 17 [Canberra, Australia] 23rd Annual Budapest International Book Festival: Apr 21 – 24 [Budapest, Hungary] Buenos Aires Book Fair: Apr 21 – May 9 [Buenos Aires, Argentina] Hawkesbury Upton Literature Festival: Apr 23 {Gloucesterhire, England}
Pow Wow Festival of Writing: Apr 24 [Birmingham, UK] Abu Dhabi International Book Fair: Apr 27 – May 1 [Abu Dhabi, UAE] Geneva Book & Press Fair: Apr 27 – May 1 [Geneva, Switzerland] Las Vegas Writers Conference; Apr 28 – 30 [ Las Vegas, Nevada]

MAY 2016

Teheran International Book Fair: May 5 – 15 [Teheran, Iran] The Self-publishing Conference: May 7 [Leicester, UK] Auckland Writers Festival: May 10 – 15 [New Zealand] Book Expo America: May 11 – 13 [Chicago, Illinois, USA] Franschhoek Literary Festival: May 13 – 15 [South Africa] Varena-Sydney Writers Festival: May 14 – 22 [New South Wales, Australia] Sydney Writers Festival: May 16 – 22 [New South Wales, Australia] Indie Author Fringe: May 14 [Online, Global] – brought to you by ALLi
Warsaw Book Fair: May 19 – 22 [Warsaw, Poland] Writecon: May 21 [Zurich, Switzerland] Kingsmead College Book Fair: May 21 [Johannesburg, SA] International Literature Festival: May 21 – 29 [Dublin, Ireland] Australian Booksellers Association Conference & Trade Exhibition: May 29 – 30 [Melbourne, Australia]

JUNE 2016

Dublin Writers Conference:  June 24 – 26 [Dublin, Ireland] Seoul International Book Fair: June 15 – 19 [Seoul, Korea]

JULY 2016

Hong Kong Book Fair: July 20 – 26 [Hong Kong, China] South African Book Fair: July 29 – 31 [Johannesburg, South Africa]

(The above list may not include all the major events; please feel free to email us with any important ones we’ve missed out, or include in comments below.)