What is the Indie Author Lab?
The Indie Author Lab is an education and self-development programme for indie authors, the brainchild of Orna Ross, founder of the Alliance of Independent Authors.
Run through Orna's Substack as a year-round workshop, the programme centres on a workbook and planners designed to deliver the writing and publishing life you actually want–as opposed to the one others tell you to live.
The lab is designed to be an ongoing space for reflection, focus, and forward motion—shaped around your needs and challenges, refreshed by the best thinking from the global indie author calendar, and led personally by Orna, month after month on Substack.
Not on Substack? Don't worry—though the Lab archive lives on Substack and can be accessed through their app, everything arrives in your inbox If you can receive an email, you can join the Lab.
Who is Indie Author Lab for?
This program is not for someone looking for a how-to-publish checklists and resources, the Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) provides those to the wider indie author community, freely, here in the Self-Publishing Advice Center.
The workshops work best for indie authors who are serious about their work and ready to go deeper but, because the workbook meets you where you are, and unfolds through a universal creative and publishing process, they are suitable for all levels, from beginner to authorpreneur.
This is not a one-off session but a workflow that evolves with your creative intentions and goals, across the months.
What your annual membership unlocks:
Indie Author Lab Workbook: Built around the seven processes of publishing—editorial, design, production, distribution, marketing, promotion and rights licensing—and harnessing the magic of creative process and practice, the workbook begins where you are, directs your focus to the particular challenges you’re facing right now, and guides you in taking the best possible next step.
Monthly online workshop with Orna: Substack Live Audio 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 focus your momentum—plus a monthly ‘Ask Me Anything’ where Orna answers any questions arising.
Online Archive: 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, online.
Downloadable, printable tools, based on the exercises in Creative Self-Publishing and a proven sequence of success that has worked for thousands of indie authors. Quarterly, monthly, weekly, and daily planners are provided in a downloadable archive.
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.
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, you set a month-sized top creative intention under one or all of three headings: Maker, Manager, Marketeer. You are offered creative practices that turn down the noise and enable you to listen for your own answers—or you bring your own. Then you make a plan to carry it into the actual days of the month to come, with supportive tools, practices and community, to keep you on track.
Week 2: Observing the Work
Using the archive for inspiration, while keeping to your practices, you write, publish, and market according to your own intention, at your own pace. The tools from Week 1 travel with you, and you observe the creative process doing what the creative process does. Not every day will go in the direction you want, or feel ‘productive'. That's not failure; that's information to note, and to bring to our monthly workshop.
Week 3: Substack Live Review
This is the heart of the lab each month: the workshop on Substack Live with Orna. The moment you hold your intention and what’s actually been happening, up to the light and ask (with attentive curiosity not critical judgement): what's working, and what isn't? Each month brings a short talk and together with others you'll work on your workbook exercises and the plan that is yours alone—not a generic checklist, but a clear sense of where you need to place your attention and why. In the Q&A Orna answers questions directly and candidly—and the hive mind also offer lots. The session doesn’t finish until every question is answered.
Week 4: Complete and Celebrate
Now you renew—recommit to the intention; revise—adjust the plan to meet where you actually are, not where you thought you’d be; or release—let go whatever is not working. So much of the creative life is learning what not to do. The focus now is on completing what you started to your satisfaction, so you can set a new top intention next month. And remembering to celebrate your win.
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.
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. Joining there is an easy and 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.
Use the chatroom to share your small accomplishments and bigger wins, the inevitable wobbles, the hopes and dreams you haven’t told anyone else yet. Some months you’ll be vocal; some months you’ll just want to know we’re here. All good.