It’s time for a self-publishers’ alliance

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It’s time for a self-publishers’ alliance

The Taleist Self-Publishing Survey, due at the end of May, has some interesting things to say about whether self-publishers should in fact be self-publishing houses. The answers from over 1,000 self-publishers show clearly that those who get the most help do better financially.

Writing might be a one-person endeavour but the “self” in self-publishing doesn’t have to mean “alone”; and, it turns out, it shouldn’t, not if you want to be really successful.

That’s one reason I signed on to be an advisor to the Alliance of Independent Authors, which launches officially at London Book Fair tomorrow. I wish I could be there but there’s a reason I’m the Australasian representative on the advisory board. The Fair brings together 1,500 companies from around the world exhibiting their wares to 24,500 publishing professionals, including the Alliance’s founder, Orna Ross.

The advisory board comprises names familiar to regular readers of this blog — and indeed anyone who has spent any time in the self-publishing community – Joel Friedlander, Joanna Penn, Mark Coker, and Dana Lynn Smith.

I’ve always said — and I’m hardly alone in doing so — that self-publishing is a business and it needs to be treated as such. There’s a symbolism involved in choosing to launch a self-publishing group during one of the world’s most significant publishing business events.

Those able to make the Alliance launch will get to hear writers talking about their experience of going indie, including successes like Linda Gillard, recent converts like New York Times bestseller Joni Rodgers, and current Amazon.uk No 1, Hazel Gaynor. Amazon’s onboard, too: Thom Kephart from Amazon will talk about its policies for self-publishers.

The Alliance isn’t free to join but that, in my opinion, goes to the heart of treating your self-publishing as a business. Nonethelss, it’s a nonprofit, the only one for the self-publishing writer. Orna started it because of her own experiences leaving traditional publishing to try the independent route, so she knows what she’s doing in building an organisation to offer guidance, connection, collaboration, and other benefits to indie authors.

The Alliance will become, as Orna puts it, “an advocate, and campaigning voice, as self-publishing writers are currently unrepresented within the literary and publishing industries — often voiceless, excluded from most other writing organisations on largely spurious grounds, asked to pay for reviews, rarely invited to literary events or conferences.

I hope you’ll join us.