Behind the scenes at Alliance of Independent Authors, lots of work happens that we don't always talk about publicly. Starting today, we're going to bring you regular updates from the ALLi team about some of the projects and campaigns we're running for indie authors right now.
Why Share the Updates?
The AskALLi team is always growing and changing. There's so much work that goes on behind the scenes that we often forget to share all the incredible things that are happening. That's why we decided to start sharing updates with you. We've recorded the updates as audio and the transcript is below.
Listen or read along and find out what the team has been up to.
ALLi Team Members
ALLi Team Transcript
Sacha Black: Hello, my name is Sacha Black, and I am the ALLi blog manager. We have decided to bring you ALLi updates from the team. We do an awful lot of work in the background, and we don't actually always share the things that we have been up to. So, we thought it would be a great opportunity for all of our members to find out what we are doing in the background.
So, you are going to hear from different team members and hear what they do, what they've been up to and what's coming up.
ALLi Team Update from Sacha Black
So, from me, as I've said, I am the Alliance of Independent Authors blog manager. I am continuing to work on the Ultimate Guide articles, which you'll have seen on the blog over the past couple of years. These are our in-depth articles on a particular topic.
But we are also working on a range of new items right now. The first one is: We need to talk About…. These posts potentially they could be in video format or audio, depending on what the contributors would like to do, and they're going to be on topics where people have strong opinions, shall we say. I think it's time that we give you guys an opportunity to share and air your strong opinions.
We are also having a series of ALLi Out and About posts. So, if you are going to a larger book fair or event and you would like to write it up for ALLi, then please do reach out to me as we would love to have some member contributions for that, and you can see some of them in particular over the last few weeks on the blog.
Last, but by no means least we have introduced Member Milestones, where we share three members recent successes. These can be at any level. So, it could be associate, it could be author, or authorpreneur level, but we wanted to share and celebrate your success milestones.
So, that's it from me. I'm going to hand over to the rest of the team.
ALLi Team Update from Howard Lovy
Hello, I'm Howard Lovy, news and podcast producer at the Alliance of Independent Authors. At ALLi, I produce the Ask ALLi podcasts and send them out onto your favourite streaming services, along with posting them on our blog. I also co-host the Self-Publishing News podcast every month with my colleague Dan Holloway, the bi-weekly Creative Self-Publishing podcast with Orna Ross and the Inspirational Indie Authors podcast, where I feature an ALLi member who tells me their backstory. So, that's what I do at ALLi.
When I'm not doing that, I'm a book editor who specializes primarily in memoir, but I also edit books in genres ranging from business to technology, in addition to fiction. I have a reputation for putting in the time to really get to know an author's voice and help them improve their manuscripts, and when I'm not doing that, I'm a journalist who specializes in Jewish issues and write for various Jewish and mainstream publications, including interviewing Jewish authors for Publishers Weekly's religion section. So, that's what I do now.
As for the future, I'm working on my debut novel. It's going through beta readers right now, and I expect the final draft to be finished by June. I'm very excited about this because this is the first piece of fiction I've written after a career spent writing non-fiction. If you're curious about everything I do, you can always go to my website, howardlovy.com. Thanks for listening.
ALLi Team Update from Dan Holloway
Hi, I'm Dan Holloway, I'm the ALLi News editor. Following the news means I'm able to keep up to date with all kinds of issues that feed into ALLi's wider work. This quarter, I've been looking in particular at issues around copyright and artificial intelligence, and that has fed into work I've been doing with Orna for ALLi's campaigns on those areas.
I've just finished writing a three-book series on creative thinking, which will be coming out this summer, covering all aspects of creativity from generating new ideas to how to communicate those ideas, and then how to lead a more creative lifestyle, and to lead a more rounded and fulfilling life.
I'm going to be moving on to write a book about accessibility. So, everything from the open access movement to accessibility in its narrower sense of equality and inclusion, and that comes on the back of finishing a project to create an open source platform for accessibility needs called whatweneed.support, which I'm hoping is going to help among other things to make the publishing industry more accessible for writers and the other professionals involved in it, and I look forward to sharing the news with you on a weekly basis over the coming year.
ALLi Team Update from Michael La Ronn
Hello, my name is Michael La Ronn and I am ALLi's Outreach Manager. My role contains two major parts. The first part is going out there in the community and making sure that all of the awesome authors and author service providers that aren't members of ALLi become members of ALLi. So, being one of ALLi's big ambassadors and making media appearances, and doing podcast interviews, and all that good stuff to spread the good word about ALLi.
The second part of my role is working closely with Philip and John to ensure that we have a robust group of author services that are ethical and meet the wide range and various interests of our members. We do this by ensuring that any new partner members that come aboard meet ALLi's code of ethics.
I just finished a new book in my Indie Author Confidential. That is a series where it's a quarterly journal where I write down all the things that I'm learning on my career and quest to be a successful author. I am also working on the Ray Bradbury Challenge, writing 52 short stories in a year, and I'm failing miserably at it, but I'm really enjoying it. It's allowing me to write short stories again, something I haven't done in a long time, and it's been really energizing.
What's next for me is that I am all in on AI, learning all things AI, learning how self-publish authors can survive in this new digital age of AI that's coming, figuring out what the skillset is that I need to learn to be able to do that, and just playing around with AI tools, while also paying attention to how the technology is evolving. That's what I'm working on.
It's a pleasure to serve ALLi, and I really enjoy the part that I play in deepening and expanding our wonderful community.
ALLi Team Update from Melissa Addey
I'm Melissa Addey, I'm ALLi's Campaigns Manager. Our campaigns fit into four areas, which are broad over-reaching topics.
We have ethics, so for example, things like AI, which is being widely talked about at the moment, and author safety, which was a recent issue we looked into. Things like accessibility, both for readers to enjoy our writing and for writers to make sure that they can access everything that we offer. So, for example, recently we put together a leaflet on how to self-publish for (almost!) free so that there would be no financial barriers, and now we're looking into further accessibility areas, like how to make our work more accessible to all different kinds of authors, whatever those barriers might be.
We also have Self-Publishing 3.0, which is primarily focused on how authors can make a living, and what we call OUTIA, which is Open Up to Indie Authors, which is where we look into anywhere where indie authors are not welcomed or allowed in. For example, if there was an award where indie authors were not allowed to apply, we would go to those awards and ask them to consider opening up to indie authors.
The biggest thing I've been working on recently is our data, so our Indie Author Income Survey, which has been a fascinating insight, and we have come out from that realizing that self-published authors do earn more than traditionally published authors, and that their income is growing, which is fantastic news.
So, really going forward in the campaign's front, that allows us to make all of those campaigns much stronger messages. So for example, with Self-Publishing 3.0, we can say, yes, you can make a living and here's how to go about running your author business. With OUTIA, we are able to say, if this is the most valid route for an author who's willing to make a business out of their writing journey, then we suggest that it would be good for all avenues and opportunities to be opened up to those authors. And of course, with our ethics and our accessibility, again, that's really important that, if self-publishing is a strong route for authors to go down, then it's important that we make that accessible to everybody and that it should always be an ethical route to take.
So, that gives you a very quick overview and going forward, really taking that message of ALLi's mission of ethics and excellence out to as many authors as we can possibly reach, often via other writing organizations, of which they may be also a part.
ALLi Team Update from Kayleigh Brindley:
Hi, I'm Kayleigh. I run the Self-Publishing Advice Conference and ALLi's social media channels. I'm currently working on our upcoming Self-Publishing Advice Conference, SelfPubCon, which will take place on the 21st and 22nd of October, with the theme of “Success Mindset for Indie Authors.” We'll be dispelling myths of all the things indies think that they can't do.
Personally, I'm also working on edits for my book, which I hope to release later this year. I just celebrated the 10-year anniversary of my virtual assistant business, Admin Angels UK.
With ALLi, we recently made updates to the member profile area to include fields where members can now link to their TikTok, Instagram and Wattpad profiles. We also added new genres to the, What Do You Write section.
In addition, I recently went to the London Book Fair and the ALLi drinks party, both of which were lots of fun.
ALLi Team Update from Sarah Begley:
Hi, it's Sarah here, ALLi's Member Care Manager and Publications Co-ordinator. On the member care side of my role, we are finishing up the second edition of the 2023 Partner Directory. The partner directory is the showcase of all our valued partner members, and this will be available to members via the member site, and to non-members via our self-publishing advice website over the coming days.
On the publication side of my role, we have just released the second edition of Creative Self-Publishing. So, ALLi members can log into their ALLi accounts to download the latest edition, and non-members can purchase it from our shop or their preferred online retailer.
Then, I am now moving on to our much-awaited guidebook, Reach More Readers, Sell More Books, which is due for release later this year. Stay tuned.
ALLi Team Update from Shanaya Wagh:
Hello, I'm Shanaya. I'm a volunteer publishing assistant at ALLi. I have been busy editing the Self-Publishing 3.0 book with Orna. It's been an interesting process so far. I stumbled upon a few topics that I didn't know much about, so it's been a good learning experience. Orna and I recently completed the second edition of Creative Self-Publishing, it was the first ALLi book I worked on and really enjoyed the process. Next up for me is editing the Reach More Readers, Sell More Books guide; I can't wait to get started on it.
