Making indies less indie...

Yesterday I read a curious piece in The Bookseller online about author and former literary agent Orna Ross's plans to set up a 'non-profit body representing the interests of self-published authors' called The Alliance of Independent Authors. Members will pay a fee to join.

And how will writers benefit from tAoIA?

Orna Ross says: "We will be speaking up on behalf of independent authors, and making links with booksellers, wholesalers, agents and legacy publishers, so people have an idea of what our creative needs are. It requires a change of attitude both in writers and in other players. In the past, the author was a resource to be mined, but indie authorship is about meeting the publisher as a partner."

Right. I've always yearned for booksellers, wholesalers, agents and legacy publishers to be aware of my creative needs. Whatever they are. I wonder what they'll do once they've worked them out?

And "indie authorship is about meeting the publisher as a partner" - well, stone me, I'd always thought indie authorship was all about going it alone without a publisher. Shows how little I know.

At the moment, it's Them and Us. The publishing industry is unhappy about the hordes of self-publishers cluttering up territory that hitherto they have managed to keep fenced and gated. They are cross with Amazon for letting it happen. They look back nostalgically to the time when they had a monopoly of distribution and bricks and mortar bookshops were the only outlets; when self-publishing meant a garage full of books and nowhere to sell them; when an author they rejected stayed rejected. And we don't like them much either - why would we? Most of us have had experience of being ignored or treated with contempt by agents and publishers.

If Orna does somehow organize that meeting between unlikely partners, I'd love to be there and take notes.