When David Gaughran exposed clickfarming scams that were manipulating the sales rank of books on Amazon, authors expressed a wide range of reactions. Some — a substantial majority by my reckoning — were furious that scammers were reaping the rewards of a “best-selling” title. Some felt it was a victimless crime, and not a big […]
During the first quarter of 2017, ALLi’s Watchdog Desk received several complaints about a company known as ProofProfessor. The complaints were not about the proofreading services offered by the company. Rather, they described a troubling and consistent pattern of behavior by ProofProfessor’s founder, Matt Rance. In each case, Mr. Rance approached an author or publisher […]
With hundreds of contests and awards open to indie authors, it’s hard to know which contests and awards can be trusted. To help separate the bad actors from the legitimate contests, the ALLi Watchdog Desk is pleased to introduce our new feature, Award and Contest Ratings. The Award and Contest Ratings offer a convenient at-a-glance […]
Are you getting value for money for any add-on services from a self-publishing services provider? Do you even need them? ALLi Watchdog John Doppler provides a handy checklist to help you sidestep potential pitfalls.
Our Watchdog John Doppler explains ALLi’s Code of Standards by which it assesses service providers and partner members. Familiarity with the code will also help you draw your own conclusions about companies, to supplement ALLi’s invaluable guidebook on the topic.
Last month, I reviewed Pronoun, an intriguing, free, assisted self-publishing platform. I’m updating that review today with a significant new development: Macmillan has acquired Pronoun. Uncertainty, but optimism too The incursion of Big 5 publishers into the realm of self-publishing has rarely benefited indie authors. The long, ugly history of traditional publishers partnering with predatory […]
This week, we’re taking a closer look at Pronoun, a relatively new digital distributor that’s attracting a lot of interest among indie authors. Background Pronoun is the result of a merger between the publisher Vook, the imprint Byliner, and the analytics platform Booklr. The company publishes ebooks to the five major online retailers: Amazon, Apple, […]
In recent months, many authors have received email solicitations from Motivational Press inviting them to submit a manuscript for publication. Does the company live up to its own hype? Our Watchdog reporter John Doppler has been investigating and shares his findings here. Background Founded in 2007, Motivational Press is an assisted publisher targeting authors of business, […]
Another year, another update to our guide to author services, How To Choose A Self-Publishing Service. And so another email to Author Solutions (ASI) Director, Andrew Philips. If you haven’t been following this story, you can catch up on last year’s post here. And the year before’s, here. When Penguin first took over ASI, I didn’t […]
From somewhere over the Atlantic, ALLi’s founder Orna Ross takes for ALLi’s Going Global campaign from the NINC 2015 Publishing Conference in Florida, USA. As this post goes live, I am on my way back to London from the NINC conference in Florida. For those who don’t know, NINC (Novelists Inc) is the only writers organization […]