Audrey Niffenegger, Keynote Speaker at Writing In A Digital Age Conference
As the literary events and conference season kicks off, one London conference stands our from the rest. Writing in a Digital Age was launched last year by The Literary Consultancy (TLC) and it was notably inclusive in its approach, perhaps because TLC founder and Director, Rebecca Swift, also happens to be ALLi's Literature Advisor.
“Our premise was simple,” says Rebecca. “Ask the people who can best illuminate our clients to take part, those who can help them to navigate their way through the brave new world of publishing today.
“TLC has a long tradition of linking writers to agents when they have talent and a marketable project, now we can also help people polish their work for self-publishing and help direct them to the people we believe do this well and in a non-exploitative manner.
“This year, we're proud to be working with Orna Ross and ALLI, which we know is committed to helping writers find the best routes as well, along with The Times Literary Supplement, the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfeP), BookFlower, The Literary Platform, Perera and Book Hackday.
It's going to be a great conference.”
Rights & Royalty Rates
Orna will speak about rights and royalties rates at this year's conference, using her past experience as a literary agent to examine the advantages and disadvantages of trade publishing and self-publishing. “People bandy about figures when discussing royalty rates, 10% or 35% or 70%” she says. “But often they are comparing apples to oranges. There's much more to royalties than percentages and much more to publishing these days than signing a contract and getting on with the next book. Authors need to know what they are doing when they licence rights or hand over their work to be distributed as an ebook, and what those numbers mean.”
ALLi is delighted to support and be part of Writing In A Digital Age conference, as we share with TLC an ethos of community, partnership and author empowerment.
Authors may choose different paths to publication at different stages of their writing lives and for different projects.
“The conference cross-pollinates the traditional industry with the new,” agrees Becky, “which we think is vital, as both worlds have much to offer and need to understand one another better than they do.”
To learn more or sign up for the conference: HERE
