On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Joe Solari sits down with ALLi Director Orna Ross for a candid debrief from Author Nation, where they talk about the energy of the conference, what it means for indie authors, and where the industry is headed. They cover everything from the value of in-person community to the rise of AI, new advertising opportunities, and the growing range of publishing paths available to authors. Orna reflects on meeting members face to face, the professionalism of the event, and what she sees as the key trends shaping author careers in the coming year.
Listen to the Podcast: What Author Nation Reveals About the Future of Indie Publishing
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About the Host
Joe Solari assists authors in developing successful businesses as the managing partner of Author Ventures LLC. In his role as a business manager, he supports his private clients, who collectively achieved gross royalties of twenty-two million in 2023, with an average pre-tax profit of 44%. This remarkable success results from implementing disciplined business strategies and maintaining an unwavering dedication to enhancing the customer experience.
Read the Transcript
Joe Solari: Welcome to the Special edition ALLi/Author Nation conversation by two people that are really tired.
It's myself, Joe Solari and Orna Ross from ALLi. How are you doing, Orna?
Orna Ross: I'm doing very well, considering. I have an excuse for being tired.
Joe Solari: Yeah, you have jet lag.
Orna Ross: Yeah, I have jet lag. I think you have an excuse as well though.
Joe Solari: I've just been burning the candle at both ends.
Orna Ross: For sure, absolutely. I can imagine. Well, it's been worth it.
Joe Solari: People always come up to me at the show and they're like, oh, are you okay? And it's not that it's gruelling because there's a lot of hard work, it's just long days, right? You have this intense FOMO that if I go to bed, then I'm missing out on a conversation or meeting with a person.
Orna Ross: Of course, and then all the weeks and months of prep. It's a lot to put together a big event like this.
First Impressions of Author Nation for Indie Authors
Joe Solari: First off, while we've talked a lot, probably a couple years now, this is the first time we got to meet without Zoom in between us.
Orna Ross: Absolutely, and that's been probably the biggest pleasure of the whole experience for me, has been coming here to the US, meeting yourself, meeting so many other people that I've only met online, and of course lots of ALLi members who are here and they'll be going, after this, going into the ALLi meetup, which is lovely.
Joe Solari: We'll wrap up quick so you can ride on there.
Orna Ross: You get your steps in, don't you?
Joe Solari: Have you looked yet?
Orna Ross: No.
Joe Solari: Okay, don't look till you're going to bed.
Orna Ross: Yeah, exactly.
Joe Solari: It makes the next steps a lot harder.
You've been surrounded by a thousand authors for three days now? What's your impression and what's going on? What's your thoughts?
Orna Ross: My main thought is how lucky we are in the author community to have a conference like this, and we haven't had it up to now, and just to have a professional conference that's done in a really professional way, lots and lots of different options, so many sessions each day. We're just really fortunate that you guys are doing this. So, it's a big thank you from the community, I think, first of all.
Orna Ross: It's vendor day, which is the day that you set aside for the various services to present to their wares and talk about what they do. That was incredibly interesting to me, because I didn't have big expectations actually of that day. I knew I would love the days with the education and talking to the authors and meeting our members. Obviously, that was all going to be wonderful, but I was really impressed with how it was put together and authors really attended it, because often they skip, and you must have done a lot of work to make that happen.
Joe Solari: We look at all those things, and sponsorship is so important. I think probably the biggest thing is getting a big mix and getting the right mix.
It's understanding that we need a lot of the stuff like BookFunnel, but you also need to be bringing in new names of things that, maybe they are going to work in the industry, maybe they're not, but we need to know what's coming up. Something like ElevenLabs, those kinds of things.
Authors, knowing they come here they're going to get a lot of exposure. And for companies now, with their budgets, they need to know when they come there that there's going to be a lot of eyeballs on their stuff.
Orna Ross: Absolutely, yeah. For me, again, we have a partner membership facility at ALLi, and we vet services and so on. So again, meeting the people behind those services, because we have that role and the watchdog desk and all of that, you have certain kinds of conversations. But then in the room and meeting the people, hearing their origin stories about why they set up, and so many of them are authors themselves. Whatever they've invented, whatever service they've decided to present to authors is because they needed it and wanted it and made it for themselves first, and then grew a business out of it. I found all of that really fascinating.
Joe Solari: Yeah. What's a necessity is the mother invention.
Orna Ross: Definitely in the author community.
Joe Solari: For sure.
Joe Solari: So, you were saying, that's vendor day. How was it for you, because you're not really a vendor, you're an association, but you have a presence. So, how was it for you as far as people stopping by?
Orna Ross: Yeah, it was great. It was really great. The level of engagement was just fantastic. As I say, a number of people were members, and it was just lovely to meet them face to face. But lots of people weren't members and it was great to be able to talk to them about what we do.
They were so engaged; they were so interested. Also, the way it was set out, with the sofas and everything, it was a very chill vibe to it. So, even though these are people all with services to offer, there was no sense of hustle or anything like that. It was just a really nice atmosphere in the room and people talking to each other.
Joe Solari: Actually, I think on Monday you don't even have time to hustle. You're hustling to just kind of talk to people and get to meet them and then you see, okay, do I have time later in the week to connect?
Orna Ross: Exactly. Have lots of meetings and things.
Joe Solari: it was funny this year, one guy came up to me even before he registered, and that morning he had a meeting with a company. He's like, I just did a hundred-thousand-dollar deal. So, I've already got my value and I haven't checked in.
But then I also had somebody come to me today and say, yeah, I was sitting on the couch and had three audio companies trying to figure out how we could do this project together.
That collaboration, it isn't just, oh, get pitches and do that kind of stuff. We're trying to create an environment where people come together and figure out how to take those things you imagine and materialize them into something that other people can experience.
Orna Ross: Yeah, I think so. The way it's set up, those kinds of meetings that you haven't planned, those serendipitous kinds of conversations are happening all over the place. So, it's really nice to be part of that.
Author Nation Highlights and Trends
Orna Ross: Then of course all the sessions, there's a lot of programming.
Joe Solari: Shell spent a lot of time putting together some really good stuff.
Orna Ross: Yeah, there've been some really interesting speakers, some new people that I wasn't aware of, and lots of talk about what's really happening now, what's happening at the edge and what we can expect.
I think the timing of the conference is interesting because it comes at the end of the year. You're beginning to think about next year and what you're going to do and how you're going. I mean, maybe, some people are more organized than us, but that's what we're doing.
You think three or four years ahead, but yeah, I think it's a good end of year for authors to look at, okay, that was this year, that's what I did; now what's coming?
Some of the trends and things that people were talking about and some of the tools and services are really interesting in that regard as well. So, I think the programming was really interesting and three days of it packed.
Joe Solari: Yeah, we've had some people come up, and they're not complaints, they're just like, I hated that I have to make a choice between this person and that person. We've got really high-level people and yeah, sorry.
I think that makes it hard, but the cool thing is we do record everything so you can go back and watch it.
Orna Ross: That's fantastic, actually. I wanted to ask you about how that works. That was a conversation I wanted to have with you. When will those emerge? Do you know yet?
Joe Solari: What happens is, in December, they come in and they edit the videos. We do transcripts. We make audio files that you can download if you want to. A lot of people like to digest it as a podcast. It's a little weird listening to a session as a podcast, but it does work.
Orna Ross: Yeah, it can work.
Joe Solari: And there's notes. Then we start dripping those out in December, they'll drip out through January, and then in January we have what's called our after party, and it lasts almost a full quarter into of March, where every one of those sessions has an associated live Zoom meeting where you can Q&A with the speaker or the panel.
So, the idea is, even if you're at the show and you didn't see that session, or you did the digital ticket and you're watching it for the first time, you watch the session, think through things, and then you have a chance where the presenter is there wholly for answering questions.
And I would encourage people to do that. Last year our opener, Drew Davis, he then followed up, doing that Q&A thing, and I learned so much just on his Q&A.
He didn't come in just like, okay, what questions do you have? He was so prepared. It's like he knew what we were going to ask even before we asked it.
How do you do this curiosity gap thing? How do you do it? How did you make that presentation so compelling, and he's drawing it out on a whiteboard that he's got on camera and he's showing, and as the moderator of that session, I was taking notes.
I think that's the other thing. There's these opportunities to learn more in those. By the way, you'll have to do that since you presented.
Orna Ross: No problem, I look forward to doing that.
Joe Solari: We'll make sure you're not getting up at 2:00 AM
Orna Ross: Please.
No, but it's great because obviously most ALLi members aren't here, and are all over the world. So, we think of ourselves as coming here and we'll bring back this chat you and I are having as part of that, but knowing that it's a digital ticket as well as an in-person ticket is really important, I think.
Joe Solari: So, what do you think, just having been immersed in all this for the last 48 hours? Has there been any kind of change in your thinking about like where the industry's going or what trends are?
I think about this a lot because we're planning the show and I'm trying to help the audience be prepared, but I'm just wondering from your side of the pond as well as from just a different perspective as a community organizer, how are you seeing trends develop, things that we should be thinking about as authors?
AI and the Future of Publishing at Author Nation
Orna Ross: So, obviously at this conference, it wasn't dominated by the AI question, which was great because I think that can happen, but it was present in most presentations.
Then obviously there, there were sessions that were devoted to using AI effectively as an indie author. And of course, at ALLi we have, like everywhere, we've authors whose opinions on AI run the full range. So, I think that remains a trend and will for some time, just how people use it and want to use it, and finding out which tools work best for them and how to integrate them into their publishing business in particular.
So, there was lots to learn around that, which I expected, and that learning will continue to unfold certainly through 2026, without a doubt.
A standout session for me, was Ricardo Fayet's Reedsy session because he was talking about unusual advertising channels, one of which was tv and which I would've thought was outside the range of most indie authors, but actually isn't. I learned a lot in that session that I didn't know.
I think certain trends that we're going to see unfolding where, I think the big thing that I'd be taking away is, it's something we know about, but it's actually witnessing the fragmentation of everything.
Joe Solari: Yeah.
Orna Ross: And like everything in life, there's good and bad to that. But for authors, people are taking radically different pathways now. There used to be this sort of, this is the way to do it. That's just gone, and that's a good thing. I think that's a really good thing, and that's very much reflected in the conference, isn't it?
Joe Solari: This is something I observed attending previous conferences and other conferences, is that conferences would say things like, oh, there's so many ways up the mountain, but this is our way up the mountain. And because of how my brain works, I'd be seeing other things and be like, but there's this person over here that's doing direct sales on their site and they're really having fun with it; why aren't we talking about that?
And oh, by the way, they're making as much money as this other person, it's just not as visible.
I think that, in this company, you and I have been around this a while, so much was focused about making money and making money fast, versus most people that are getting into this want to do this for a long time, and it's about the act of creativity, along with wouldn't it be nice if it created a life that supported what I wanted to do.
I was talking to James Pete and he said, I won't be here next year because I'm riding a motorcycle from Washington down to Tierra del Fuego. It's going to take three months, and then I'm going to write a book about it.
That's cool, and the reason why we opened up with Theresa and Willow at the show is, rather than just celebrating people that make a lot of money, celebrating people that are living their best life through writing.
A lot of times you don't need as much money as you think to have the freedom you want. In fact, it can be quite the opposite. If you get yourself on that, I built this monster business, now I have to keep the machine rolling or I'm trapped.
I think that's part of our whole thing, is let's try and bring as much as we possibly can in.
I had a really interesting conversation today with a narrator. He came to me and he was explaining kind of his process to work with authors around AI coming in, and certainly he's concerned about the threat to him, and he feels that it's not equal to a human narrator, and I agree.
And I said, but what if it ever does?
Have a business plan for what if it does and how you succeed with it, not that it's going to kill your business. I explained some of my ideas around that and he was like, oh yeah. Just let that sit and figure out, because those are the kind of things if we are open.
A perfect example with the whole AI thing is, let's not even talk about how you use it in your creative process. What if you figured out ways to use it to be better at the things you don't do? Like, we go from not doing it to doing it really well using automation. That's going to help your business.
Or the things you are doing that you don't want to do that's stealing your creative time?
We're not talking about how it's used for creativity. You get more creative.
I think that's what we're trying to foster when we have these conversations. Let's not get triggered and go after the obvious thing we should be arguing about. There's so many other things that we can use to make your life easier as an author, so that's what we're trying to do.
Orna Ross: I think authors are hearing that message and jumping in. We did our survey recently, and from last time it was a tiny percentage of authors, I can't remember the number now off the top of my head, but it was something like 7% were positive, and this time it was 37%. So, in two years, that's a shift, and we are definitely seeing people who are adopting, as you say, for various things.
Having that conversation is really important, and I think, again, the respectful atmosphere here is allowing people to maybe not change their mind, but at least listen and think about, and discuss, and see that it's not necessarily a monstrous thing or whatever, depending on where people are coming from.
Then of course, there are loads of people who are really seeing the advantages to their author business, particularly, as you say, picking up all the grunt work.
None of us know where it's going. None of us know where we're going to end up here, I don't think, but you can imagine lots of different outcomes.
Joe Solari: From my perspective, I mentioned in my opening comments that, hey, there's going to be sessions next year about selling within ChatGPT. We're early days, they're rolling this stuff out, we know how fast it's moving.
When I see that, I start talking to different companies, some of our sponsors that I know; how are you looking at this? So, we're figuring out so we're making sure that we can have the community ready, and part of being ready might be like, hey guys, it's too soon. Don't waste time trying to make this work. I think there's going to be a lot of that with any early adoption of technologies.
You can spend a lot of time getting ready to sell a book, you want early mover advantage, but you don't want earliest moving. That's a disadvantage, right?
Orna Ross: It can be, yeah.
Joe Solari: That's the part I worry about a lot for authors. You can get really distracted tinkering with technology.
Orna Ross: Yeah, absolutely, and I think a number of the sessions, and in my own session actually, was looking at what stays the same. What's perennial? What's evergreen? What's old books, and how do people write books 200 years ago? What do we still have in common with that, and what will always be there?
You can lose sight of that when you're thinking about all the stuff that's coming, but certain things don't change and have to be there.
Joe Solari: Yeah, if it doesn't connect with another human being willing to give you money. If your point is to make money writing books, then the whole thing breaks.
Orna Ross: Yeah, if it is. Yeah, absolutely. So, there's that, and then within this world, the whole, it's a total cliche now: be more human, double down on being human.
Joe Solari: Amen.
Orna Ross: Yeah, but what does it mean in a practical sense? If you're trying to help an author do that, how does an author actually turn that very good advice. Amen, absolutely, to it. But what does it mean at a practical level? I think that's a very important conversation for next year.
That to me is the most important trend, is that we understand what we do and what value we bring to readers, and where our own values are embedded in our books and in our author stories and how we connect with the reader and all of that.
So, the game, and this always happens with new technology, it happened with eBooks and it happened with everything, everybody has to get better.
The rising tide lifts us all, and you either fall away or you get better at what you do, and how will that unfold, I think, will be the interesting thing to observe.
Joe Solari: Yeah, I think that authenticity piece, and it's not just like, well, you could be really authentic. Like, here's my book and here I am live at a selling event like we do at Reader Nation, or it could be like how people feel like they're part of the brand. I think that's something that is getting more and more important.
We're already seeing authors facing all these AI written emails about, hey, I've read your book and it's amazing. The best one I got was, I got an email from James Patterson. James Patterson wrote me and told me he loved my book that he read, and the funny thing is, we've contracted to have James Patterson here, and he does everything by fax machine.
Orna Ross: That's the best story actually. That's the best one that I've heard.
Joe Solari: I'm really sure it's not James. He doesn't send me emails.
Orna Ross: It's amazing the number of wonderful writers who have been writing to all of us.
Joe Solari: Yeah, they are so busy writing us-
Orna Ross: -to tell us how wonderful we are, yeah.
Reader Nation and Future Plans for Indie Authors
Orna Ross: So, just before we finish, you mentioned Reader Nation there. I won't be here because I have to leave, but just tell us a little bit more about Reader Nation and what you're hoping to do. I know this is a work in progress.
Joe Solari: Again, and I think this is something for folks to think about, what are we doing. We have multi-year plans and there's milestones we're looking to make sure we hit and we're hitting them. Our end goal is to have the largest multi-genre reader listening event in the country, or at least on the west coast because there's some big ones on the East coast, but we believe there's a real need to be met here.
We've got all these great authors that are hanging out here, so with some schedule adjustments and us doing some marketing, we can create an event.
For us, I think we're really good at building events and community. If we can do that for the readers where they get this wonderful experience, and it gets to what you're talking about being real and authentic, where they get what they want out of support from their fellow readers and listeners, and then they can connect with these awesome authors, and money and books get exchanged; that's where we go.
Then from a business standpoint, it's really easy for authors to say, I get to go away for a week, go to Vegas, I'm going to sell more books than I paid into the show. So, I come away with money, and I come away with the education experience.
Orna Ross: And I met my fans.
Joe Solari: Yeah, you're going to meet them, and that's why we're doing some of these.
This kind of gets to another thing we're not really interested in having, is like indie versus trad. We saw that coming last year as that's going away. Traditional publishers are seeing indies as a better bet to bring into a wider distribution than trying to pick something out of a slush pile.
So, now you're seeing them being like, no, you can keep your eBook, you can keep your audio, we'd like it if you give it, but if all we get is print, we'll take it.
Orna Ross: Yeah, exactly, and that's what we've been waiting for really for 10 years. We've been talking about the need for this.
Joe Solari: Yeah, and having conversation, this is where the other kind of metalevel stuff that Susan and I do when we're talking to publishers with these bigger authors, we're bringing in, we're trying to get them to see the proper relationship with Author Nation and Reader Nation is you as a publisher come, not just with your heavy hitters, but also your new and upcoming people you've picked and that you cross market with us.
Instead of making these poor people go to every half empty Barnes and Noble in the country, sitting at a table, bring them here and we'll bring you thousands of readers, and then it gets done in one shot. That takes…
Orna Ross: time.
Joe Solari: Time.
A lot of times there's that institutional, corporate thinking that makes it hard for them to change, but I've seen this enough. We get one to do it, then they all rush in.
Orna Ross: There'll still be lots of room for the indies, right?
Joe Solari: Yeah, I think, in the end the audiences decide what they want, and they don't think indie or trad. They think, I love this author, it's an amazing story. How do I get the product? So, I think, stuff will be put to the history books thinking that way.
Orna Ross: Yeah, for sure. Will there be a way in which the authors can work with you to ensure that there are, in Vegas, at this time, enough readers in their genre that are interested in them as individuals. Is there any potential for that?
Joe Solari: One of the things with this is we're doing the marketing. We are in the process of trying out different ways of marketing into this area.
This year we were very local focused. There's a lot of people in this area that can come. So, instead of doing worldwide global ads on Facebook, what if you just focus all your advertising dollars in the Las Vegas metro area?
Just like authors do, we have to start from scratch, but we're pretty good marketers.
So, we are doing direct mail campaigns, mailing stuff to people's mailboxes. You can do that. We're doing Facebook advertising, we're doing Reddit advertising, we're doing all these different things so we can build that audience.
Then we're good with data analytics as well, so we can start figuring out how to get those different audiences, but we also have a strategic thought to bringing in big authors in different genres so that we can seed every single one of them and make sure that we have an event that's well-rounded.
In the end, it'll probably shake out across the typical demographics where there'll be more romance than thriller, than science fiction, than non-fiction, but we can't change that.
Orna Ross: No, that is the structure of the book business everywhere.
Joe Solari: It's more that book fair feel for indies than say, a romance or romantasy focused conference where it's really about one specific genre experience.
Orna Ross: Yeah, the cross-genre thing is very interesting. More challenging, I think, but more worthwhile when you finally pull it off.
Joe Solari: Yeah. Just got to keep rolling.
Awesome.
Conclusion and Farewell
Joe Solari: I know you've got a shindig to get to. I don't want to keep you, and you've got four miles to walk back to the other hotel.
Orna Ross: At least, yeah.
Joe Solari: It was awesome to talk to you and thanks so much for supporting us and coming out. All the ALLi members, you're all welcome, and this is a great way for at least folks in the US to come and see you in real life.
Orna Ross: Yeah, it's been great. Thank you for doing it.
Alright, take care.
