Every Wednesday ALLi will tell the world about our members' latest book launches, news, awards, freebies, workshops and updates on the writing life and take a look at the projects and businesses of our partner members.
ALLi News
Book Expo America (BEA), one of the industry’s busiest and biggest events, is now a mere week away. Soon to be arriving in your inbox is a full rundown of all ALLi BEA activities and events — we’re really looking forward to getting our US membership together. Read more
Opening Up to Indie Authors: 1,000 signatures and rising
And our OUTIA petition reached 1,000 signatures this week.
We’ve been delighted with the response so far to our Opening Up to Indie Authors (OUTIA) campaign, with honourable mentions and honest debate left, right and centre — and some hearts and minds already changed.
At the heart of the campaign, of course, is our guidebook, expertly written by Self-Publishing Advice blog editor Debbie Young and indie author supremo, Dan Holloway.
If you’ve read it and enjoyed it, a review on Amazon or Goodreads would be most welcome. Read more
David James
David James’s latest novel reveals pages from the intimate diary of Roy Musgrave’s amorous exploits in three continents.
The Scholar's Tale is a semi-autobiographical novel, following the later years of Roy Musgrave, a time of marital and amatory strife in which he ventures from textual scholarship into writing biography and fiction. As ever with Roy the conflict between the settled life – he marries a third time – and the lure of exotic climbs challenge him as man and hero.
Copies available from Amazon in digital or paper format. Six giveaway copies on offer from Good Reads until June 14.
Samantha Warren
The Quick and Dirty Guide has been out for a couple of weeks, but I keep adding to it. It is meant for new or as-yet-unpublished authors.
The Quick & Dirty Guide series is designed to be a short nitty gritty guide to help you make your way in the self-publishing world, based on my experience as an author-publisher. The first in the series, the Ebook Formatting Guide, goes through simple eBook formatting and how to publish on the major platforms, so you can get your career as an author up and running in style.
Other guides include tips to self-edit, format for Createspace, market your new book, plot your next book, and more.
Tom Evans
I have a new ecourse for writers I think might suit the showcase – it's aimed at the more mind/body/spirit, personal development and metaphysical/science fiction end of the market
How to Channel Your Book ecourse
If you are writing a book for the spiritually aware reader or one with a metaphysical bent, this new ecourse is for you.
It doesn't matter if you channel angels, guides, fairies or just the universal consciousness (or your bed post). This course from esoteric author Tom Evans will show you how to get your conscious mind out of the way and how to tap into your Creative Muse.
It comes in 8 lessons delivered by email weekly. Each lesson contains explanatory videos and mind-opening audio visualisations.
ALLi members can use the code HERMES333 to get 25% off the introductory price of just £99.
Sandra Schwab
Sandra Schwab invites you to accompany her to 19th-century England and Scotland in her new book The Bride Prize: Allan's Miscellany 1839, which launches an exciting new series, set in the early Victorian age:
It's 1839, and Lord Eglinton's tournament in Scotland is the most anticipated event of the year: he and some of his noble friends will don medieval armor and joust like knights of old.
Does this mean a revival of true chivalry? Miss Florence Marsh thinks it might.
Or is the tournament mere tomfoolery and the greatest folly of the century? Mr. Robert Beaton thinks it is.
But when Flo and Robbie meet at Eglinton Park, they'll soon learn that a dash of romance can make the greatest differences look rather small and that true love might find you in the most unlikely place.
In addition to the plain edition, an enhanced edition with detailed information on the historical background (yes, there was indeed a tournament at Eglinton Park in 1839!) is also available.
For more information about the new series.
John Bird
A new, revised edition of my novel, Alby and Me, is now available from the publishers, Feedaread.com, and high street and online book retailers.
The book was long listed for the Waverton Good Read Award for Best Debut novel and received a string of enthusiastic media reviews.
Topically it is about a courageous boy's battle with cancer, but has plenty of humour.
Jess C Scott
My psychological thriller, Playmates (Wilde Twins), is currently available for free through Story Cartel.
As kids, Tania and Trevor's unsupervised play time offers a lifeline to sanity amidst the chaos of family dysfunction. When danger threatens Tania, Trevor isn't willing to stand by and watch his sister get hurt.
The instinct for survival is only rivaled by the killer instincts the Wilde siblings encourage in each other. Instincts that turn into a deadly game igniting their first taste for blood.
Playmates is also available from Amazon.com and Smashwords.
Rohan Quine
A quick thank you to a couple of energetic connectors of readers to writers, both of them exploring good new methods of spreading the literary love:
Mark Farrell at innovative new site Ascribe, where I’m glad to be on board in great company and the generous Debbie Young where I’m a happy bunny to find myself propped up on a delicate little cake-stand in the sunny village window of her online Independent Bookshop.
Alison Morton
SUCCESSIO book trailer
Alison Morton’s third Roma Nova thriller is due out in early June, but here’s a taster!
Alison used iMovie to put the trailer together using some of her own photographs, bought in ones from a library, plus the recently commissioned painting of her main character. The music came from a royalty free library.
http://youtu.be/B6Tr0VvKbJI
Pauline Baird Jones
Celebrating my 400th Blog post and The Write Path at Life Happens. A Lot.
Since the post is about writing and milestones, I’m giving away some copies of my first published novel, The Spy Who Kissed Me and some AnaBanana Creations gift baskets. Stop by and share your milestones.
Michael MacMahon
On free promotion 22-26 May
From 22nd through 26th May, my self-help book Back to the Black; how to become debt-free and stay that way will be on free promotion on Amazon.
It's based on my personal experience of a financial crisis and aims to help anyone worried about debt, who wants to know how to handle it and get out of debt as soon as possible. By viewing your problem as a coach or counsellor would, you’ll learn many tactics for handling stress, formulating a plan and much more. After reading this book you will feel more confident of your ability to handle your debt situation… and you’ll have a plan for doing so.
But you don't have to be already in debt to find this book helpful – it will also help you avoid getting into debt in the first place.
Here's the link on Amazon.com and here it is on Amazon.co.uk.
If you enjoy the book, I would of course be grateful for any reviews on any Amazon website, on Goodreads or on your own website. Thank you.
If you are a member of The Alliance of Independent Authors and you would like to showcase your work on our ALLi Showcase, please send it to [email protected] to reach me no later than the Friday proceeding the Wednesday you would like it published.
It was fun to make my first appearance here! Congrats to everyone!
Well, it’s great to find so many Alli members new books featured on the site. I especially recommend John Bird’s Alby and Me as a really entertaining read.
It’s great to see so many varied activities amongst the ALLi members 🙂 It’s a veritable smorgasbord of creativity!
I predict an explosion of literary prizes, foreign language translations, screenplays and movie deals in the coming years 🙂 Thanks all.
A splendid collection of book and writing news, as ever – and thank you so much, Rohan, for mentioning me! If anyone else wants to check out the virtual shop that he’s referring to, you’ll find it here: http://www.myindependentbookshop.co.uk/DebbieYoung. It’s a great new social media site for sharing books and reading recommendations and a fun way to promote indie authors too (which is how I’m using my section of it). Although the online buying function only works for UK viewers, anyone in the world can use the site and set up their own virtual independent shop, showing their favourite books. We’ll be running a post about this new facility next month.