This week, we’re celebrating more advances for indie authors. We were delighted to see last week's news from The Bookseller, the UK’s publishing trade magazine, now partnering with Nook to feature ten self-publishers monthly in their ‘Independent Author Preview’.
The intention is to roll out to other distributors in a while. For context, do take a look at the summary of the Futurebook Twitter chat last Friday, neatly summarised as ever by Porter Anderson (with an ALLi namecheck at the beginning acknowledging the role of our Opening Up To Indie Authors campaign).
The Bookseller isn’t the only one making an effort to acknowledge indies. The recent launch of Publisher’s Weekly BookLife site and The Guardian’s Self-Publishing Book of the Month venture with Legend Press are other new ideas for bridging the gap in reviews and exposure. And Frankfurt Book Fair’s upcoming International Self-Publishing Author Programme sees indie authors profile rising internationally. (If you’re going let us know, we’re arranging an ALLi get-together in Frankfurt and it would be great to meet up with you)
Each new announcement and initiative brings inevitable criticisms (why not more platforms? what about more direct contact with readers? why does the traditional industry matter?) but this rather misses the point. These developments aren’t cheering because they are neat solutions to individual issues so much as forward steps in an ongoing process that you, dear self-publishing author, are leading.
What we are seeing is more and more connection between those who actively participate in bringing books to readers. And that can only be good for us all.
Opening Up to Indie Authors – Join the Conversation.
We are thrilled with these huge (first) steps many parts of the industry are taking towards opening up to indie authors. So it’s no surprise we also want to mention our ongoing campaign, which is crucial for continuing to make these important inroads into creating an inclusive, exciting and diverse book world.
With that in mind, we’d like to invite you to keep signing and sharing our petition, and sending in your stories of libraries, organisations, associations and even individuals that you feel are making a difference. Simply drop us an email or tell us on Twitter via the tag #askalli.
Thank you for whatever support you are able to offer.
The print edition of the Opening Up to Indie Authors guidebook (co-authored by Debbie Young and Dan Holloway) will also be launching soon – but in the meantime, do keep the reviews coming in (and members, don’t forget, you can still download your free copy in the members section of the ALLi site).
Easy Tweet
Why every step matters for @indieauthoralli's OUTIA campaign #selfpub #indieauthor #publishingopenup – bit.ly/1uhQqcX
I really enjoyed this. As an indie writer myself, I think it’s an important conversation. I’m actually trying to put out my current fiction collection through Inkshares, which is sort of crowdfunding meets traditional publishing. It’s an interesting model if you want to check it out.
This is my project in case you are interested: https://www.inkshares.com/projects/conversations-a-collection-of-short-stories
Thanks again for the great piece. Very much enjoyed.