Planning ahead
Our 2015 development plan for ALLi's self-publishing advice blog includes rebranding it as ALLi's Author Advice Centre. This neatly sidesteps the ongoing debate of what to call ourselves – self-publishers, author-publishers, indie authors, etc – a harbinger of the happy day when we all just call ourselves authors, no matter how we are published. (I'm sure that's already how the average reader thinks of us anyway.)
The first step in our plan is to revise the schedule of post topics. As before, there will be a specific strand running on each day of the week, with each post written by a different member of ALLi, but the order and categorisation of these strands will be changing slightly.
The New Blog Schedule
Here's how our blogging week will now run:
MONDAY
Opinion (always good to start the week with an invigorating discussion!)
TUESDAY
“Ask ALLi” (the opportunity for members to quiz our expert advisors, sometimes via live chats, other times in writing)
WEDNESDAY
Writing (covering all aspects of writing craft, to coincide with Twitter's popular Writers' Wednesday hashtag – #WW)
THURSDAY
Production and Publishing (following logically on after the Writing strand, posts about all aspects of turning your manuscript into a finished book, whether e, audio, print or anything else that may yet be invented in our ever-evolving industry!)
FRIDAY
News – including ALLi News, industry round-up, reports from the excellent ALLi Watchdog and tips on how to make the most of your ALLi membership
SATURDAY
Member Showcase (rescheduled to hit the internet when the potential market for our books is more likely to have leisure time to browse our latest offerings)
SUNDAY
Reaching Readers – (following logically on from the previous day's Showcase, advice on other ways to gain readers' attention for your books)
Wondering where our relatively new Twitter-inspired #Throwback Thursday feature fits in here? It's been well received since we launched it towards the end of 2014, and in future we'll be running it on the ALLi membership website.
How To Be A Guest Blogger for ALLi
As ever, guest posts are always welcome from ALLi members. If you'd like to write for us, just message the blog's Commissioning Editor Debbie Young with a brief outline of the post you'd like to write, then we'll discuss timing and other details.
We welcome posts from all types of members – associate, author, partner and professional, and we seek posts of interest to all levels of indie author, from beginner to experienced right through to advanced.
To ensure that no single member of our association dominates the group, we will be maintaining our policy that no member may contribute more frequently than once a month (other than the core ALLi team of Orna Ross, Karen Lotter, Nerys Hudson and Debbie Young).
If you'd like to be a guest blogger for us, but haven't yet joined ALLi, maybe now's the time to sign up? Writing guest posts for us is just one of many advantages of being a member of the Alliance of Independent Authors. To explore other benefits, check out our new-look website, www.allianceindependentauthors.org.
Please note: in order to keep our membership fee as low and affordable as possible, we do not pay a fee for guest posts. However, you are welcome to publish your post on your own website a week after it has appeared on ours, once you include a link back to the original post.
That’s a really good schedule, it’s good that it’s tailor made to reader’s and poster’s needs. I hope to be joining in a bit more often, since my books are almost ready to go.