Copy of my speech at the Open Up To Indie Authors launch at The London Book Fair
The guidebook we’ve gathered here today to launch is part of The Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi)’s Open Up To Indie Authors campaign (found on Twitter with the hashtag #PublishingOpenUp).
This campaign is aimed at book fairs and conferences, award bodies and libraries, festival and event organisers, retailers and reviewers, and anyone who acts as a bridge between writer and reader — and at self-publishing writers themselves.
Open up to what? To the most exciting and expansive movement in the books business for centuries: author publishing.
Half or more of the books on Amazon’s bestseller lists are now self-published. ALLi has many members who have sold more than 100,000 copies of their books; some who have sold in their millions and many more who are producing work of outstanding literary merit.
Corporate publishers and agents are watching and pouncing on successfully self-published authors, hoping to woo them over.
There is no denying that publishing times are a-changing — but those changes are still not reflected throughout the literary world of libraries, reviews, bookstores, festivals and prizes.
This book, and the associated campaign, hopes to change that.
#PublishingOpenUp
The Open Up To Indie Authors (#PublishingOpenUp) campaign includes