This is the time of year when the lists, like the leaves two months ago, begin to turn. Already the best of what has been is beginning to fade, and the best of what is to come. As I did with lists, I will avoid personalised prognostications. But I couldn't help noticing that this week's news stories carry with them a whiff of the future.
Opening Up: Young Writer of the Year
Shortlisted author Andrew McMillan at this year's awards. Could it be you next year?
As you are probably aware, ALLi's Opening Up to Indie Authors campaign is one of my big passions (talking of which, if you haven't, do go and sign the open up petition), and my particular passion is prizes. Which is why I was so thrilled to be invited to this week's award ceremony for the 2016 Peters Fraser Dunlop Young Writer of the Year, a prize whose alumni reads like a Who's Who of the literary superstardom. After a 6 year hiatus, the award was resurrected last year and one of the things Peters Fraser Dunlop are truly passionate about is getting self-publishers (you need to be a UK/Ireland citizen between 18 and 35) to enter the prize. Entries for next year open in May 2017, and you will hear much more from me before then but please, if you are eligible or know someone who is eligible, take this opportunity. There have been very few self-published entries in the first two years. We want prizes to open up, and this one has – let's go through the door!
Amazon Go
I have spent much of the year covering what may feel like Amazon being borne ceaselessly into the past in opening bricks and mortar stores, but its latest shop is most definitely a store of the future. At the moment, Amazon Go is open only to staff members (I guess that's the IRL equivalent of being in beta), but looks like it will open to the public in the new year in the US, with the UK to follow, and when it does it will do so without shop floor staff. The really interesting thing about this though is not so much the lack of staff as the lack of checkouts – you and what you have with you are scanned when you leave the store, and the cost of the items that leave with you are automatically charged via an app.
Lulu Enters Academic Publishing?
It's not often we feature Lulu here, but this caught my eye. Academic publishing comes under a lot of scrutiny for its absurd pricing and pay to play tendencies, so it was interesting to read of Lulu's entry into academic publishing. Goodereader's notional tagline might be “never knowingly unhyperbolic” but still the claim that this could be a disrupter is interesting. It's certainly good that Glasstree, as it's called, will see academics on the right side of Yog's Law as well as benefitting students, but I'm still scratching my head to see what it brings to the table that uniquely fits it to academic publishing.
Holiday Timetables
Bringing a book out over the holidays? Timing matters!
Many thanks to ALLi author Karl Drinkwater for passing on this information from Pronoun regarding the schedules of many of the platforms we all use for our ebooks – well worth bearing in mind when scheduling those last ditch attempts to capture eager festive eyeballs:
If you're publishing through Apple iBooks then books submitted by December 12 are likely to go live December 18 through December 31 while books submitted by December 16 will wait to the New Year (January 1 to 8). Kobo will be closed from December 19 to December 29 and will do no processing over that period. Barnes & Noble will be closed from December 23 to December 26, and December 30 to January 2 with publishing delayslikely throughout this period. Amazon and Google Play will be business as normal.
A Survey and a strike against vanity publishing
Writer Beware has issued an update on Tate Publishing, whose dubious practices have seen it on the site's thumbs down list since the dawn of time. Tate is facing a whole raft of lawsuits and investigation into its employment practices. The curtain may be coming down. Meanwhile Bowker has published its annual digital publishing survey which makes for very interesting reading, especially about how people go about ensuring the quality of their ebooks.
Upcoming Conferences and Events
JANUARY 2017
New Delhi World Book Fair, Jan 7-15 [New Delhi] Digital Book World, Jan 17-19 [New York]
FEBRUARY 2017
San Francisco Writers Conference, Feb 16-19 [San Francisco] Association of Writers and Writing Programs, Feb 8 [Washington]
MARCH 2017
London Book Fair, Mar 14-16 [London] Indie Author Fringe, Mar 18
APRIL 2017
Resonate, Apr 19-22 [Belgrade] The Self-publishing Conference, Apr 22 [Leicester]
MAY 2017
99U Conference, May 5 [New York] Book Expo America, May 31 – Jun 2[New York]
JUNE 2017
Indie Author Fringe, Jun 3
Dublin Writers Conference, Jun 23-25 [Dublin]
OCTOBER 2017
Frankfurt Book Fair, Oct 11-15 [Frankfurt] Indie Author Fringe, Oct 14
All the week's top #selfpub news from @indieauthoralli for #indieauthors Share on X
[…] The Alliance of Independent Authors news update for Tuesday 14th December, 2016: https://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-is-this-the-future/ […]
[…] The Alliance of Independent Authors news update for Tuesday 14th December, 2016: https://selfpublishingadvice.org/self-publishing-news-is-this-the-future/ […]
Scratch your head no longer!
Hi Dan,
We at Lulu Press are glad that we caught your eye, with the launch of Glasstree Academic Publishing. As to what we bring to the table that will uniquely fit academic publishing;
– bibliometric tracking; this is very important in academic publishing, and authors may choose to applie a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) to their academic content, so that it can track things such as Altmetrics;
– services aligned to academic authors specific needs, such as peer review, editing, illustration and design, translation, etc.;
– Open Access, with Book Processing Charges that are a fraction of those of traditional academic publishers (this will launch in January);
– a full range of licensing options, including all of the new Creative Commons licenses;
– discoverability, which is aligned to academic authors, with content classified according to subject matter (with the help of the National Academy of Sciences), peer review, product type (textbook, thesis, monograph, etc.), audience…
…..and we have many more goodies planned for the new year. Stay tuned.
Daniel Berze
http://www.glasstree.com
Thanks, Daniel – I will keep an eye out in January.
My day job is in academic administration (I’m the Head of Administration at a Faculty in Oxford) so I have a big interest in this – would love to catch up with you some time – especially to talk about the next REF
You guys are great. Thanks for the amazing info. Hope to join the self-publishing community soon with a history book, which is a breakthrough archaeological study.
We look forward to seeing your history book Jeffrey – visit Glasstree and check us out!
Very best wishes for the journey!
[…] week, on ALLi’s Self-Publishing Advice Blog, our news editor Dan Holloway talks about the Peters Fraser Dunlop Young Writer of the Year Award […]