Announcement: New Key People at The Alliance of Independent Authors

We like to bring your attention to some of the wonderful people who have recently stepped up to help make The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) the association for the world's best self-publishing writers.

YA COMMUNITY BUILDER

Shelli Johannes Wells, who writes as SR Johannes, lives in Atlanta and is going to run the new Atlanta MeetUp, as well as be ALLi's new literary ommunity builder for young adult writing. “When I first published Untraceable (a YA thriller) in the fall of 2011, it was an experiment,” Shelli says. “At the time, I obviously had no idea the book would go on to win the IndieReader Discovery Award for YA or that the series would sell as well as it has. Of course, there have been many challenges which was why I gathered a group of 25 amazing YA authors and formed The Indelibles. The group's mission is to act as a support system to each other, give back to the community, and help each other cross promote their books to readers. I am very excited to continue these goals with ALLi as the YA Community Builder.”

Watch out for Shelli's blog post about the growing appeal of YA books next time.

MEETUP CO-ORDINATOR FLORIDA

Shannon O'Neil, our new MeetUp co-ordinator in St. Augustine Florida, is one half of Duolit, which she runs with her best friend, Toni. In Duolit, Shannon is the author and Toni is the geek, and together they help indie authors publish their work and “build their crazy-dedicated fanbase”.  Further details on MeetUps in Florida are here: http://www.meetup.com/Florida-Alliance-of-Independent-Authors/, where you can join the group and register your interest. And if you've any self-pub query you'd like answered, Shannon welcomes email queries.

MEETUP CO-ORDINATOR SWITZERLAND

Jill Marsh, who writes as JJ Marsh has worked as an actor, teacher, writer, director, editor, journalist and cultural trainer all over Europe.  Now based in Switzerland, she works as a language trainer, forms part of the Nuance Words project and is a regular columnist for Words with JAM magazine. Her most recent book is Behind Closed Doors, the first novel in the Beatrice Stubbs European crime series, set in compelling locations all over the Continent. Jill will be starting Zurich's meetups early in 2013 and is currently evaluating interest, setting up the meetup group and tracking down venues. Get in touch with her if you're anywhere near Zurich.

ALLi CAMPAIGN ORGANISER (BOOK EVENTS)

Dan Holloway, who is leading our campaign to have self-publishers at all book festivals and events, is a long established Community Builder for ALLi but has just recently stepped up to front this important campaign. It's hard to believe that indies are still being excluded from so many literary festivals and events but sadly it's still happening. Dan Holloway, author of the novel The Man Who Painted Agnieszka’s Shoes and MC of spoken word show The New Libertines, is also a festival organiser himself, so the ideal person to front the campaign. You can find out more of his thoughts on the issue here and do get in touch with him if you'd like to help.

LEGAL ADVISOR

David A Vangriff, our new legal advisor, is an intellectual property attorney who works with contracts – negotiating them, writing them, analyzing them and helping clients understand them. He has experience, including litigation experience, with a wide variety of contracts, including contracts with some of the largest technology companies and financial institutions in the world. Currently, in addition to software licensing and general business contracts, David has a particular interest in the types of contracts authors have signed and may be asked to sign, including contracts with publishers and agents. David blog about book contracts and other topics of interest to authors on The Passive Voice.

AUTHOR SERVICES WATCHDOG

Ben Galley is busy putting together the definitive guide to services for self-publishing authors. We've just had a sneak peek and can tell you you're going to like it. At 24, Ben is one of the youngest self-published writers in the UK. As ALLi's author services watchdog, he is also your first port of call if you're unhappy with a service you've paid for — editor, designer, publisher, promoter  – or if you want to alert other ALLi members to behaviour that deviates from our code of ethics.

Welcome aboard to all of you — and thank you so much for being here. It is the range of expertise and freely offered advice and experience that makes our Alliance so uniquely helpful. We appreciate your skills, your time and most of all, your generosity.

You can find out more about ALLi's advisors and community builders here.