What is the Indie Author Lab?
The Indie Author Lab is the brainchild of the founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors, Orna Ross, who runs it through her Substack as a year-round workshop for self-publishing authors, designed to deliver the writing and publishing life you actually want.
Indie Author Lab isn't a one-off event and it isn't a conference. It's an ongoing space for reflection, focus, and forward motion–designed around your challenges, refreshed by the best thinking from the global indie author calendar, and led personally by Orna month after month.
New to Substack? Don't worry—if you can receive an email, you can join the Lab. Everything arrives in your inbox, and you can also access it through the free Substack app.
Who is Indie Author Lab for?
For indie authors who are serious about their work and ready to go deeper. This is not for someone looking for a how-to-publish checklist and resources, the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) gives you those, free, right here in the Self-Publishing Advice Center.
The workshops are led personally by Orna Ross month after month through an annual subscription on her Substack which also houses the archive, providing a workflow that evolves with you, your creative intentions and goals.
£99 per year.
What your annual membership unlocks:
The best of the indie author year, gathered in one place. Talks, sessions, and insights harvested at the London Book Fair (UK), Author Nation (US), and other leading indie author events around the world–distilled and brought to you, wherever you are.
An ebook copy of Creative Self-publishing, the definitive guide Orna wrote for the Alliance of Independent Authors, now used by creative writing and publishing teachers around the world.
A workbook built around where you are now. Not generic exercises, but a workbook designed around the processes of publishing, that help you focus on the particular challenges you're facing in your writing, publishing, and bookselling right now.
Downloadable, printable tools, based on the exercises in Creative Self-Publishing and the sequence of success for indie authors. Quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily planners are provided.
A monthly workshop with Orna Ross. Substack Live session each month in which you tackle the next part of your writing and publishing plan, using the planners and workbook to go deeper and keep your momentum plus a monthly ‘Ask (Or Tell) Me Anything' with Orna.
Join the Indie Author Lab here and access sessions harvested from self-publishing events around the world.
Your workbook and planners, the monthly online workshop, Orna's ‘Ask (or Tell) Me Anything', all arrive to your inbox each month and you can access in your browser or in the free Substack app.
Membership runs annually, so the value compounds with every new post adding to the archive and providing a workflow that evolves with you and your goals.
I'm Orna Ross — author, poet, creative catalyst, and founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi).
Indie authors are inundated with information, a flood of it that’s in danger of turning into a tsunami. Another tactic, another tool, another ten things you're apparently doing wrong. It's exhausting, and at ALLi we see many talented writers grow disheartened, even despairing, beneath the weight of it all.
I created the Indie Author Lab because I believe the answer to this challenge is not more information but the opposite: time to integrate what we already know, beyond the noise. In the age of AI, we all need to go deeper—into our work, our reasons for writing and publishing, and our own definition of a writing life worth having.
And we need to consciously plan, from a creative perspective, so we can say ‘No' to what might sound exciting but is not right for us, right now.
The clarity you're looking for is in you, waiting for you to listen and engage. Indie Author Lab is a guided process for doing that.
Yes, there is an archive of up-to-date events brought to you from the London Book Fair, Author Nation, and more but the real work happens when we you put the learnings to work on what’s most relevant, right now.
There's a workbook to focus your attention and a live monthly workshop with me.
If you're tired and unsure and wondering whether you've got it in you — you do. You just need the right support.
Built Around the Four Measures of Author Success
A Month in the Lab
The Lab moves to a gentle, repeating rhythm that you learn to lean into, month after month, until it becomes the quiet architecture of your creative life.
Week 1: Set Your Intention
In the first week, we set creative intentions under the headings: Maker, Manager, Marketeer, through a f-r-e-e-writing process that turns down the noise and allows you to listen for your own answers. You leave with workbook exercises and a plan that is yours alone — not a generic checklist, but a clear sense of where you're placing your attention and why.
Week 2-3: Do the Work
The weeks that follow are yours. No keeping up, no falling behind — just you and your work, carrying the plan into your actual days, at the pace real creative work takes. The community chat is a warm space you can step into whenever you like — to think out loud, to cheer someone on, to ask the small question, or simply to lurk among others following the same process. Some months you'll be vocal; some months you'll just want to know we're here. All good.
Week 4: Substack Live Review
This is the heart of the lab each month — the moment we hold your intention up to the light and ask, honestly and without judgement: what's working, and what isn't? And then we do one of three things. We renew — recommitting to a path that's serving you. We revise — adjusting the plan to meet where you actually are, not where you thought you'd be. Or we release — letting go whatever is not working. So much of the creative life is learning what to put down.
Throughout the Month: Ask or Tell Me Anything
Bring your questions and Orna will answer them directly and candidly—and the hive mind will also have lots to offer. In the lab, authors share the real life wins, the inevitable wobbles, and sometimes hopes and dreams they've told no one else yet…
Whatever is happening in your writing or publishing life, this planning and production process has room to hold it, so you can set, work, gather, release — and begin again. And enjoy the slow, deliberate, deeply satisfying work of becoming the author you want to be–one month at a time.
Learn from Leading Voices in Self-Publishing
Gain insights from our featured experts, including:
Melissa Addey, Historical Fiction Author & Coach
Adam Beswick, Best-Selling Fantasy Author & Publisher
Joanna Penn, The Creative Penn
Sacha Black, Best-Selling Romantasy Author & Publisher
Orna Ross, Founder of Alliance of Independent Authors
Questions you might be asking:
Do I need to be a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors to join?
Not at all. The Lab and the Alliance are separate things. The Alliance offers all the trusted information and advice an indie author needs, much of it free, and we warmly point you there. The Indie Author Lab is something different: a year-round space for the deeper, more personal work of making that knowledge your own with the founder of ALLi, yes, but also a renowned creative facilitator and indie novelist and poet herself.
Do I need a Substack account?
Yes, you register and join on Substack to receive the content and the monthly workshops.
What if I can't make a live workshop or AMA?
That's completely fine, and it's expected — we're authors with full lives, in every time zone. Every live session is recorded and kept in the Lab for members, so you can catch up whenever it suits you and still bring your questions. Nothing is lost by being elsewhere on the day.
Do I need to learn new software?
No. If you can receive an email, you can be in the Lab. Joining takes only your email address — there's no app to master and no password to remember. Everything lands in your inbox, and you can read it there, in your browser, or in the free Substack app if you'd like it all in one place. Entirely your call.
How much time does it ask of me?
As much or as little as you have. The Lab is built around a gentle monthly rhythm — a workshop, a workbook to focus you, an Ask Me Anything, and a chat that hums along in between. You set the goals and the schedule and there’s a built in process of adjustment for when life happens.
Is this for beginners?
The Lab suits authors who are past the very first steps and ready to go deeper. If you're brand new to self-publishing, the Alliance's free resources are the better place to begin, and the Lab will be here when you're ready for it.
How does payment work, and can I leave if it's not for me?
Membership is a simple subscription through Substack, who handle everything securely. There's no tie-in: you can cancel any time, in a click, and you'll keep access until your current year is up.
What's the difference between the Self-Publishing Advice Conference (SelfPubCon) and the Indie Author Lab?
New to Substack?
If you've never used Substack, don't let that hold you back — there's genuinely nothing to learn. Substack is simply a calmer, kinder way to receive writing you care about, and joining there is as easy as giving your email address and a quick registration.
Once you're in, everything that comes with your membership — the live monthly workshop, the Ask Me Anything, your workbook, the creative chat, and the sessions harvested from events around the world — simply arrives in your inbox by email. You can read it right there, open it in your browser, or download the free Substack app if you'd like it all gathered in one place. Whichever suits you.