In this special episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Howard Lovy interviews Kayleigh Brindley, conference manager for SelfPubCon25. Kayleigh offers a behind-the-scenes look at this year’s Self-Publishing Advice Conference, which takes place online October 18–19. She discusses the theme, “New Trends in Self-Publishing,” the decision to spread the event across two days, highlights from the speaker lineup, and details of the pre-conference orientation. Kayleigh also explains when free access opens on SelfPubConnect, how long replays will remain available, and what attendees can expect in terms of live Q&As, community networking, and practical takeaways.
Listen to the Podcast: New Trends in Self-Publishing at SelfPubCon25
Show Notes
- SelfPubCon 2025: Full Agenda and Speaker Line-Up Announced
- Self-Publishing Advice Conference 2025
- Best and Worst Self-Publishing Services
About the Host
Author Howard Lovy has been a journalist for 40 years, and now amplifies the voices of independent author-publishers and works with authors as a developmental editor. Find Howard at howardlovy.com, LinkedIn and X.
About the Guest
Kayleigh Brindley is a virtual assistant who started Admin Angels UK in 2013 with the aim of helping small business owners and authors achieve a better work-life balance. Kayleigh joined the ALLi team in 2018 as a social media administrator. She now works on ALLi comms and the annual Self-Publishing Advice Conference. When she’s not working or spending time with her family, Kayleigh spends most of her time reading, running Dungeons and Dragons games, and writing stories about magic.
Read the Transcript
Howard Lovy: Hello, I'm Howard Lovy of the Alliance of Independent Authors and book editor at howardlovy.com.
Welcome to this special episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast. Today, we're focusing on the upcoming Self-Publishing Advice Conference, better known as SelfPubCon 2025.
Joining me is ALLi's own Kayleigh Brindley, the person who pulls all the pieces together to make this global online event happen.
Many of you know Kayleigh from her thoughtful answers and guidance on ALLi's Member Forum, and today she's here to give us a behind the scenes look at what's coming up in this October event.
Hi Kayleigh, and welcome to the show.
Kayleigh Brindley: Hi Howard, thanks so much for having me.
Howard Lovy: Sure.
Howard Lovy: First, let's get to know you a little better, Kayleigh, by maybe telling us a little bit about your background and what drew you to the world of indie publishing.
Kayleigh Brindley: Okay. So, books have always been a part of my life. I've been obsessed, would probably be an accurate term, since I was really young. I literally remember playing librarian as a child; that was my favorite game and whenever I wasn't doing that or reading, I was writing stories.
I didn't actually know anything though about self-publishing until around, I think it was 2016 when I picked writing back up as an adult. I'd lost touch with it after high school, but came back to it in my twenties and like most people at the time, I saw NaNoWriMo on Twitter and decided to finally try writing something. It was then a couple of years later that I met Orna through Sarah, who, again, I'm sure all of our members will know from the Member Care Desk.
Like Sarah, I'm also a virtual assistant outside of ALLi, and I was working with Sarah at the time when she mentioned that ALLi might be looking for some admin help, and would I be interested?
I only knew a small amount about ALLi at this point, but chatting with Orna and discovering more about what ALLi does and how it helps indie authors, I just knew we'd be the perfect match.
I initially began working on the weekly member newsletters, which I still do and love to create, and eventually went on to working on ALLi's social media, the member forum, which is where I spend a lot of my time, and then a few years back I started helping out with the conference and then became the conference manager, which still feels like a daunting title.
It's such a fun event that I just feel lucky to have such a big role in putting it all together.
Howard Lovy: Yeah.
Before we go into the conference, in your role as a kind of moderator for the ALLi Forum, are there any recurring questions that you often get?
Kayleigh Brindley: Ooh, that's a good one. I think a question we get a lot is, how do I use IngramSpark and Amazon together?
That is always a common question. We have an article for that on the ALLi blog, which gives a great answer.
Most of the time the questions surprise me because they're very varied, and what's really great is we get a lot of our members who are willing to support and help others, especially newcomers, who might not know as much as the older members who've been doing it for a while, and it's just a really great opportunity to see how everyone's sharing ideas and sharing experiences.
I don't know if we've got regular questions as such, but yeah, it's a lovely place to hang out.
Howard Lovy: Writing the blog, it's a great way for me to mine firsthand information from indie authors who are down in the trenches of self-publishing, and then have anecdotes for me.
Kayleigh Brindley: Yeah, and we always try to do a new question of the week topic as well to try and generate new discussion on different things, whether they are sometimes controversial or just seeing where people are in the industry right now and seeing how people feel about the industry and what they are embracing and what they're pushing back on, and that kind of thing. It's really great to get that kind of insight from the members.
What can attendees expect from SelfPubCon 2025?
Howard Lovy: Speaking of insight, that's a good segue to SelfPubCon, where all your, as Michael La Ronn would say, all your burning questions will be answered.
What can we expect from this year's conference?
I guess the theme is new trends in self-publishing, and I guess every year features new trends.
Kayleigh Brindley: It does, but this year we're taking a more central focus on trends in general. Publishing is changing, I think, faster than it ever has. There are new tools, social media channels, sales channels, and shifts in reader behavior that can provide daunting challenges for indie authors in some respects, but also great opportunities.
Indie authors are obviously natural innovators and often the driving force behind new trends that are then adopted by traditional publishing.
And so, this year, we wanted to reflect that spirit of adaptability and change. So, by focusing on new trends in self-publishing, we want to help in indie authors both understand what's happening now and how to utilize the things available to them at the moment, but also to look ahead and then prepare them for some of the things that might be coming next.
Which SelfPubCon25 sessions are going to help attendees?
Howard Lovy: Can you name a few trends you expect to be most useful or surprising for attendees?
Kayleigh Brindley: There are so many trends that I think attendees will find helpful. So many sessions, sorry. Depending on where they are with their publishing or what particular challenges they're facing, obviously some will be more helpful to them than others.
A couple though that I think are going to be helpful to a lot of people are Preparing for the Future of Search with Ricardo Fayet from Reedsy. This is a session that's intended to help authors stay visible as discoverability now shifts going forward, with things like AI and AI search engines and things like that.
Ingram Spark will be delivering a session on New Pathways to Readers. So, if you're looking to connect with readers and encourage them to buy your books in new and interesting ways, that will be one to watch out for.
Mark Leslie is also going to be doing a session on new trends in print publishing. So, that will be of particular interest to print focused authors. That's sponsored by Bowker.
There's also going to be our ever-popular ALLi roundtable. So, you're going to be able to ask members of the ALLi team questions on trends and self-publishing as well, and we'll be able to answer those questions live.
There's going to be so much in there that it's hard to pick out a few. We've got strategies for bulk sales, audiobook narration insights, things around copyright protection as things change in the industry. We've also got ALLi's Indie Author Income Survey insights, and just so much more that it's not just about any singular trend or even a collection, it's about indie authors as a whole being the trend and how to succeed at that.
So, yes, hopefully there'll be something for everyone.
How will SelfPubCon25 cover AI?
Howard Lovy: What I didn't hear, or maybe I heard it briefly, was the “A word”: AI, which evokes strong feelings one way or the other with a lot of authors.
You mentioned Reedsy, Ricardo Fayet talking about discoverability, and that's one way that AI is making a difference.
I noticed in my own visitor stats on my website where people are coming from; Facebook, Twitter, Google, and then ChatGPT suddenly appears there too.
Kayleigh Brindley: Yeah, it's one of those tricky things that even authors who are against AI, for whatever reason, and those who are pro for whatever reason, you can't deny that readers are using it. So, there are certain things that you will need to be aware of to make the most of it, in a way, to help you sell your books to those readers who are using it.
So, it's one of those funny topics where I know so many people are anti-AI, and then we have, like I said, the other side of things, but it's just being aware of what's happening, being aware of these different shifts, and then you can make an informed choice about what you want to do and how you want to proceed.
So, that's the intent behind those kinds of sessions.
Howard Lovy: Yeah. So, it's not a matter of being for or against, but the reality is that it's here and here's how you can use it or not use it to your benefit.
Kayleigh Brindley: Precisely, yeah, but you need to be informed to be able to make those decisions. That's why we've added a couple of things in there, a couple of sessions to help with that, and again, taking a very neutral stance so that people can choose how they want to proceed.
What does the SelfPubCon25 format and schedule look like?
Howard Lovy: Can you walk us through the format and schedule? How is the conference structured across two days and across time zones?
Kayleigh Brindley: Yeah, so this year we polled ALLi members about the format that they wanted for the conference, and the overwhelming response was that they wanted us to move away from our traditional 24-hour sprint, a 24-hour marathon where we had back to back sessions over 24-hours, and instead they asked us to spread the conference over two days with a break in between the two days.
So, the conference will be running this year on Saturday and Sunday, October 18th to 19th.
Sessions will run from 1:00 PM London, which I believe is 8:00 AM New York, to 9:00 PM London, which is 4:00 PM New York.
We're really hoping that this will give attendees time to learn and have just a little bit of extra breathing space to connect with each other, reflect between sessions, while still making the conference globally accessible.
We'll have a mixture of pre-recorded sessions and live sessions so that authors don't feel quite so pressured to attend every single session as it happens, and of course, then every session will be available in replay so that authors can catch up on anything they miss.
Where to start if you’re new to SelfPubCon?
Kayleigh Brindley: We're also excited to be hosting a special introductory session the day before the conference as well.
Howard Lovy: Oh yeah, I was going to ask you about that. Tell us a little more about the pre-conference orientation and Q&A.
Kayleigh Brindley: Yeah, so the day before the main event, we'll host a live orientation to walk attendees through everything. It's basically how you would have, if you attended an in-person conference, you usually have an orientation event, so it will cover how to access sessions, how to enter competitions and giveaways, how to take part in the live chat and make the most networking.
It's also a chance to get questions answered directly by myself, by Orna Ross, and by Matty Dalrymple, ALLi's Campaigns Manager.
We did this event last year and it was really well received, especially by attendees who were new to our SelfPubConnect platform as well as those who were new to the conference itself, and perhaps felt a little bit daunted by it.
We'll give a full rundown of the agenda there, just to help attendees plan their weekend to make sure that they get the most of the experience. It's also just a fun opportunity to connect, both from my perspective, because I spend a lot of time chatting with attendees during the conference, but also for attendees to meet each other in the live chat and just figure out who's there to learn about what, maybe buddy up on things, keep each other accountable.
So, it's a lot of fun. That will take place on Friday, the 17th of October at 3:00 PM London time, which I believe is 10:00 AM New York. That will happen inside our 2025 Conference Space on SelfPubConnect as well.
Howard Lovy: Great. Yeah, one thing about the ALLi community is that we are a community. It is not just ALLi talking down to the members, but members talking to one another.
Kayleigh Brindley: Oh, absolutely, yeah.
How do I get free access to SelfPubCon25?
Howard Lovy: Tell me, I guess, some of the details on free access and how long will the sessions remain freely available before moving to the archive?
Kayleigh Brindley: Free access will open up on Monday, the 13th of October. So, not long to go now from when this episode airs.
The quickest way to gain access, if you're not an ALLi member, is to join our conference mailing list. Anyone can do that at selfpublishingadvice.org/conference-2025.
This should give you around five days just to explore the platform, view the agenda, RSVP to the sessions that you're really excited about, learn more about the speakers and the sponsors, and then just start networking with fellow attendees via the live chat. Just start familiarizing yourself with everything and getting ready for the conference.
The conference will then begin on Saturday the 18th of October, and free access will remain open until Tuesday, the 21st of October.
After that time, ALLi members will continue to have access to all of the conference sessions in replay. If you're not a member, this is a great time to join, just a shameless plug, as you'll have lots more ALLi resources at your fingertips just to help you build on and implement the things that you learn at the conference.
If memberships though really aren't your thing, there will also be access passes available to purchase just for the conference itself. So, if you want access once that free access period is closed.
Will there be competitions and giveaways?
Howard Lovy: Now, one thing that a physical conference has over a virtual conference is the ability to just walk away with some free stuff. People at the conferences that I'm at bring bags filled with swag. But are there concrete takeaways or workbooks or downloads for this event?
Kayleigh Brindley: Yes. So, several speakers are providing downloadable workbooks. So, the idea here is that authors will walk away, not just inspired, but with these practical tools that they can put into action straight away.
These aren't available for every session, but for some sessions you'll be able to download the workbook at the same time and use that to either go through the session as it happens, or you can come back and revisit it later, just to help you embed what you've learned there.
In terms of swag though, I think competitions and giveaways are always just so much fun, and we really try to bring that excitement to the conference, just to give this opportunity to win some great prizes and take something, as you said, a little bit more tangible away from the conference once it's over.
So, we have quite a lot of competitions and giveaways and things happening this year. We ran the Indie Authors “Write Your Why” Competition, where authors were encouraged to share why they choose to publish independently in just 500 words.
We've had so many amazing prizes donated by ALLi partner members and our conference sponsors. Just to mention two, which I think are really great, we've had Imprint Digital offer a hardback print run of a hundred copies of a book, and a complete book translation was also offered by PublishMe.
So, the winner of the competition will be able to choose prizes across editorial, design, production & distribution, and marketing & promotion, which should give them an enormous boost to whatever book they're aiming to release next.
Honestly, Howard, I wish I could enter, because the prizes are fantastic. Sadly, I'm not allowed.
Howard Lovy: That's what authors need, not so much physical stuff but services like that.
Kayleigh Brindley: Exactly. Yeah, and it's a great way to, again, connect the attendees and our ALLi partner members as well. So, these are obviously all vetted services who have gone through the ALLi code of conduct and things and been approved.
So, anyone who wins one of these prizes knows that they're working with someone who has been vetted by ALLi. So, that's also a really great thing.
Howard Lovy: We have a wonderful Watchdog Desk that makes sure that everything we promote is legitimate.
Kayleigh Brindley: Yes, we do, it's fantastic. Shall we drop the link for that in the show notes as well, for the services page?
Howard Lovy: Yes, absolutely, send it to me before our conversation's over.
We mentioned Q&A's and chatting in the beginning part of the conference, but what about during?
How can SelfPubCon25 attendees network?
Howard Lovy: Are there going to be chances for live Q&A's or chats among members or networking?
Kayleigh Brindley: Yes, absolutely. There will be a live chat that will run throughout the conference, and this is going to be the main place for networking outside of sessions. It will work just like any sort of live chat forum where you can just post, start threads of conversations around specific topics or specific sessions. It's a really great place to just dive in, especially after a session has happened, because there's usually a lot of discussion going on there about that particular session. So, if you have questions about something that you didn't quite understand or that you'd like to learn more about, that's a great place to jump into.
As I said, we'll also have a mixture of recorded and live sessions. So, every live session have a live Q&A as well where you'll be able to ask the speaker specific questions to be answered at the end of their presentation.
Then for the recorded sessions, there will be comment sections where you can leave, again questions for the speakers, or chat with other attendees if you're not using the live chat.
So, the whole reason we moved to SelfPubConnect last year for the conference was to encourage deeper conversation and collaboration and peer support, and I think last year it was really well appreciated by everyone who attended.
So, my recommendation is just, participate. Whether it's asking questions or sharing your own insights or just joining discussions, I think you'll get a more rewarding experience if you just jump in and chat as well.
This is also where you'll find me during the weekend. I love to chat with our attendees here, just to find out what sessions learned during most and how they're implementing what they've learned.
I actually learn so much as well during this weekend, just from everyone. Everyone's so nice. But yeah, definitely dive in.
Howard Lovy: But there are also recorded sessions. I'm thinking particularly for some of our Australian members, where the time zone might not be convenient for them.
Kayleigh Brindley: Yeah, exactly, and that's why the live chat will always be running throughout the whole weekend, so you can dive back in on anything and start chatting about it there, and every session will be available in replay, whether it's recorded already or live, so you can catch back up on anything if you weren't able to attend it at the time that it aired.
What makes SelfPubCon unique?
Howard Lovy: So, what would you say makes SelfPubCon stand out from other writing and publishing conferences?
Kayleigh Brindley: SelfPubCon was and still is created by indie authors for indie authors, and I think it's the only event like that, that's purely online and also completely free.
We've been running since 2013, building this reputation for trusted advice and a supportive community, all in association with the expertise at ALLi.
You can expect to hear some of the ALLi team and advisors speaking at the conference like Sacha Black, Joanna Penn, and obviously, Orna Ross, as well as then drawing on ALLi's connections with the indie publishing industry to bring even more top speakers.
Because it's online and free during the weekend it's also, as we said, globally accessible. So, there's no barriers on income or even the stage that you're at in your publishing journey. Whether you're a beginner or more seasoned, there's always something that you can learn.
Even if the only thing that you get from it is networking, that's such a powerful thing, and you can network them with anyone all around the world because we are truly an international conference.
Howard Lovy: Yeah, networking is important. I've heard anecdotally that even authors on our forum got together there and ended up collaborating.
Kayleigh Brindley: Yeah, we've even had members on the forum who've arranged in-person events as well, who are locally located. So, that's been really nice to see.
How can attendees get ready for SelfPubCon25?
Howard Lovy: Finally, what should authors be doing right now to get ready? Where can they go to register for updates, and how to not miss on the free access window?
Kayleigh Brindley: The best first step is to sign up for conference updates. So, you'll be the first to know when registration opens and to get that free access once that goes live.
The link again to do that is selfpublishingadvice.org/conference- 2025.
If you're not already an ALLi member, joining does give you instant access to the full SelfPubCon archive, which contains hundreds of past sessions as well to let you learn a bit more while you're waiting for the October conference, obviously, as well as the numerous other benefits that come with being an ALLi member.
But yes, so the main place to go is the selfpublishingadvice.org website, the conference tab. In the conference 2025, you'll see there are speaker lineup. By the time this podcast airs, you'll also hopefully be able to see our full agenda as well, and you can start building a schedule of what you would like your weekend to look like.
Howard Lovy: Wonderful. This sounds exciting, Kayleigh. Is there anything else that you want to add about the conference that I didn't ask?
Kayleigh Brindley: I don't think so.
Howard Lovy: I was that thorough, okay.?
Kayleigh Brindley: Yeah, I think we covered everything.
Oh, do you know, one session that I did want to mention, as well as obviously bringing together bestselling authors and experienced publishing advisors, and then major platforms like Amazon and Ingram Spark, we're also going to be bringing a really exciting session, sponsored by Writers Online, which will feature some of ALLi's most successful members, our Authorpreneurs.
They will be sharing the trends that they're finding success with right now, and also looking ahead to the trends that they're expecting to see coming down the road.
That one's just a really nice session to see what our members are achieving, and they also are then really happy to pass on their experiences, their advice. Even when things have gone wrong, they will share that just to help other members and other attendees learn what not to do.
So, that's a really great session, I'd recommend checking that one out.
Howard Lovy: That's great. I'm always inspired, I also host the Inspirational Indie Authors podcast, and I'm inspired by authors who successfully earned a living from this. That's a goal for me as well.
Kayleigh Brindley: Do you know, I've just remembered we have two other exciting things that I did need to mention.
We have, one of our silver sponsors, Gatekeeper Press are going to be delivering actually a bonus session this year on authentic growth and exploring how indie authors can embrace new trends while staying true to their voices.
So, they've already been gathering questions from our members to answer during that session. So, there'll be lots of feedback there to help with various aspects of how authors can use authenticity to build their leadership. So, this is going back to what we were talking about before about AI and if you are hesitant to use it or if you're adverse to AI, and you want to embrace that authenticity, or even if you are pro AI, embracing authenticity is still important. This might be a really great session for you there.
As well as that, Gatekeeper Press are offering a really fantastic giveaway. So, one attendee this year will win a publishing package from Gatekeeper Press, which is worth up to $3,500.
So, there's some good things to look out for there.
Howard Lovy: That's some amazing giveaways in addition to the informative sessions. It sounds very worthwhile. If I wasn't a member already, I would still want to attend.
Kayleigh Brindley: It's definitely a lot of fun. I definitely recommend, since it's free, you're not going to lose out on anything other than a bit of time. So, do just come along and see if it's for you.
Howard Lovy: Thank you.
That's it for our special episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi. Thank you to Kayleigh Brindley for giving us a preview of what to expect this year.
Don't forget to mark your calendars for October and sign up to make sure you don't miss it.
Kayleigh Brindley: Brilliant. Thanks so much, Howard.
Howard Lovy: Thank you, Kayleigh. Bye.
Kayleigh Brindley: Bye.
