Watching for a day when ‘generosity flows in both directions,’ ALLi’s leadership assesses new development—and division—in the self-publishing sector. Read More
A message to #FutureBook15 from #AuthorDay
To work together, not as antagonists The Bookseller’s Author Day conference opened this year’s FutureBook Week on Monday (30th November). It was the inaugural staging of a conference expressly meant to bring together publishing professionals, traditionally publishing authors, and self-publishing authors. Our term for the conference’s intent is “issues-driven,” by which we meat that it was not… Read More
Publishers And Authors: Inviting Them To The Same Party
Every Job In Publishing Depends On Authors How is book publishing divided today? Let’s not count the ways. Outsiders looking into this beleaguered industry, however, might be surprised at the reticence many authors and publishers can have about each other. Maybe about being around each other. Meeting each other. Talking more than friendly chitchat or… Read More
'No bookshop is an island': ALLi launches #Authors4Bookstores
At IndieReCon: Launching #Authors4Books Standing in this beautiful new Foyles store to launch ALLi’s Authors For Bookstores campaign, for a moment we can fool ourselves that reports of the decline of bricks-and-mortar bookshops are greatly exaggerated. The Alliance of Independent Authors’ (ALLi) Debbie Young (pictured)took to the floor of Friday’s IndieReCon event in London shortly before we… Read More
In And Around London Book Fair: Authors, IndieReCon And ALLi’s Third Anniversary
And Spectacular Weather As if heeding a request from London Book Fair (LBF) director Jacks Thomas, the sun flooded Olympia London with bright springtime light all week. We weary stand-and-stairs brats now head back to planes, trains, and waiting families. Smaller by design — Olympia is a markedly more compressed space than Earls Court — the transfer went remarkably… Read More
From London Book Fair to an IndieReckoning
Where do we find authors this year, as London Book Fair closes? (This story was written originally as a walkup to the #FutureChat of Friday 17th April.) Authors have long attended book fairs, of course, primarily for reasons of publicity or to meet their international publishers—but now they come to do business and to be… Read More
Plunge taken: A #FutureChat recap on The Bookseller's Indie Author Preview
You know the term “four-hander” for a piano piece composed to be played by two pianists, right? Our #FutureChat on Friday turned out to be the Twitteresque equivalent, and I was very glad to have my colleague Caroline Sanderson’s hands along to help engage in the conversation. The FutureBook community seemed energised and welcoming, maybe… Read More
Plunging In: The Bookseller's first Independent Author Preview
Here’s the good news: I do think that pretty much all the books I’ve included are good enough to be traditionally published, and by that I mean, well enough written. That should be music to any weary stigma-fighter’s ears. My colleague Caroline Sanderson is filling me in here on her experiences in choosing the very first round… Read More
Can #EthicalAuthor break through the scepticism?
A funny thing happens when you start talking about ethical behaviour in one setting or another: suddenly everybody was there first. I don’t think this is specific to the authorial community or the wider publishing community: I think we’d find that in almost any industry, a move toward guidelines for ethical business conduct would find… Read More
The Gate We Should Have Kept: And Was Mystique That Bad?
One of the most perceptive regulars in #FutureChat, The FutureBook digital publishing community’s weekly live discussion, is Carla Douglas of BeyondPaperEditing.com in Kingston, Ontario. And in a recent doing of the discussion, Douglas pointed out that writing, while once among the most isolated and solitary of careers has been made one of the most social by digital… Read More