When looking to increase their knowledge about self-publishing, many indie authors instinctively turn to the written word via blogs or books. But there's also plenty of valuable audio-visual material freely available to ease your self-publishing journey, starting with ALLi's YouTube Channel.
Why Use Audio-Visual Resources?
Audio-visual media provide:
- a welcome break from your computer keyboard
- ease of access on various mobile devices
- an opportunity to learn in a different way
On that last point, you might like to read this article explaining the three different kinds of learning – audio, visual and kinesthetic – and how accessing all three can increase your potential achievement.
Why YouTube?
YouTube enables us to capture and preserve events such as scheduled Google Hangouts or exhibition seminars and share them with those who couldn't attend. While we try to schedule our hangouts to suit as many time-zones as possible for our truly global membership and audience, it's impossible to set a time that's convenient for all, not least the key players in the broadcast.
What's On ALLi TV?
On the ALLi YouTube channel, you may relive ALLi's monthly Google hangouts with industry experts, stopping and starting them to make notes, if you wish. Recent hangouts covered the following subjects:
- Using Ingram Spark
- Selfpublishing and selling books with Kobo Writing Life
- Self-publishing via Amazon and Create Space
- Monthly Q&A with Orna Ross and Joanna Penn
- How to make money through self-published books
- How to self-publish children's and YA books
ALLi founder Orna Ross in action on a Google hangout
The channel also shows panel discussions by leading indie authors, filmed at the London Book Fair and BEA, and readings by ALLi members at our recent second birthday celebrations. (And for those authors whose readings are showcased here, what a great resource to link to from their own author websites!)
By the way, it's amazing what a difference it makes not only to put names to faces, which you can already do via social media, but also to put voices to those faces and names. This is one of the many ways in which ALLi provides a sense of community and companionship to independent authors, wherever they are in the world.
Inspiration for Your Author Website
Watching these videos, which are usually simply made for little or no cost, may also inspire you to create effective audio-visual presentations and podcasts to reach your readers, whether by offering interactive hangout-style chats with your fans or adding personal readings from your books to your author website – a great way to whet web visitors' appetites to buy your books and continue reading for themselves.
To help you share this useful information with your author friends, here's our suggested tweet:
“What's on #ALLi TV tonight? Useful #selfpub training videos for indie authors https://selfpublishingadvice.org/writing-advice/writing-advice-videos-on-allis-youtube-channel via @DebbieYoungBN for @IndieAuthorALLi”
I found Orna Ross’ interview with Mark Coker extremely useful when I was looking into the nuts and bolts of indie publishing; there was a lot of information to absorb and it was easier to follow as audio-visual material. Will definitely be checking out ALLi’s Youtube channel more.
Good advice! I have to say that when I was trying to figure out Amazon’s royalty options, this guy’s YouTube video explained it much more clearly than Amazon’s own written material:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v9Hu2Yv8N0