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Lightning Source Best for Self-Publishers?

 

Ben Galley

Today, in the third part of our ‘Which Distributor' series where Alliance members share the experiences they've enjoyed with distributors, author Ben Galley gives us his take on Print on Demand (POD) company Lightning Source:

If your book were a delicious pie, distributors would be the ones who put it in the hands of the supermarkets.

It's a very simple analogy, but it rings true. Distribution is the supply link between our printers and the bookstores, and without it, our books would simply never reach our readers' hands. That's a painful vision. And to me, so is keeping a veritable mountain of books in your garage, shipping one at a time, staring at the big hole in your bank account.

No, thank you, I want a different road.

With the advent of the digital revolution came Print on Demand, and with it came distribution relationships. Now, POD companies have forged relationships with the wholesaler distributors to allow us indies access to

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An Indie Author Is Not An Island

International rights agent for self-publishersOur decision here at The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) to hire a rights agent to represent our members' books in translation markets has raised the hackles of those who think an indie author is not allowed to make publishing partnerships.

Snarky comments emerging across the Internet, of the indies-admit-they-are-not-so-indie-after-all variety, show that there is still fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be an indie author or self-publisher.

Here at ALLi, our definition of an indie is one who recognises the writer as the primary driver of the book, not just in getting it written but also in

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Guest Post: Independent Authors and Visibility by Linda Gillard

Linda knows how to be seen!

 

In an over-crowded marketplace, we assume it’s reviews that sell books and, predictably, it’s now possible to buy “honest reviews”. Could paid-for reviews be a good investment? Possibly, but I think we should be asking ourselves a different question—how do books find their readers? Or, to put it another way, what makes a book visible in the marketplace?

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Self-Publishers Promote Each Other

We value each other's work

We've been having a debate about self-promotion on our Alliance of Independent Authors' member-only Facebook group.  And one of our members, Richard Bunning, came up with a great idea to get around this  perennial problem for self-publishers and the forums they hang out on.

Like most great ideas, it's simple. Naturally, as writers, we want to share news of our books and other writings but

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