how to self-publish Archives

An Indie Author Is Not An Island

Our 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

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

How to get your Self-Published Books into Bookstores

For a lot of self-publishing authors, getting their books into big-chain bookshops can seem as impossible as hitting a space station with a sling-shot.

There is something of a validation in walking into a bookshop, especially a big-chain branch, and spying your book on the shelf. It’s something we crave as indie authors. But as indies, with corporate structure and head office guidelines, that shelf can often seem a million miles away.

But is getting our books into big chains as impossible as we think?

HOW I DID IT

I’m a fantasy author of The Emaneska Series and my books The Written and Pale Kings are permanently stocked in some 20+ Waterstones stores across the UK. I hold regular signings and events at a large number of branches across the South and the Midlands – around twenty so far in the past year.

I’ve just finished one

What Is An Indie Author?

We're ‘indies', right? Indie authors?

Most of us have embraced the term and have some idea what we mean by the concept. But there's a lot of confusion out there, with people using the term ‘indie' interchangeably with ‘self-publisher', and people meaning wildly different things when they use those words.

Here at The Alliance of Independent Authors we gave great thought to terminology when we were setting up. Were we going to be an alliance of self-publishers or independent authors? What was the difference, anyway?

Here are the conclusions we came to:

Indie authorship and self-publishing are not quite synonymous but an independent author will have self-published at least one book.
Going ‘indie' is, more than anything, an

Why Self-Publishing ?

Welcome!

You've found your way to the very first post by the Alliance of Independent Authors, here on our brand new self-publishing advice blog.

A lot of people ask us why are so many authors going indie and self-publishing these days? The short answer is: because we can.

Self-publication served only a tiny number of writers before digital technology enabled print-on-demand and the direct distribution of ebooks. This technology simultaneously does four things that are very good for writers.

It gives us a global readership, instead of confining us to specific territories.
Our books are continually

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