While ALLi believes that artificial intelligence has already become a useful tool for many authors (for example, Google Translate now allows authors to do research for their books across languages), all new technology has to go through a period of exploration and clarification about how it will be used ethically and legally, for example, in the creation of images and text content. The impacts are broad and complex, and it will take years to address questions related to issues such as copyright, and to fully understand the impact it will have on the livelihood of many creatives.

You’ll find ALLi's current guidelines related to AI at selfpublishingadvice.org/AI, and you can deep up to date on breaking developments by searching for Artificial Intelligence in our Self-Publishing Advice Centre. It's a topic we'll be returning to frequently.

Authors should respect readers by creating high-quality books, but equally should be respected by readers and be safe to write. Sadly this is not always the case. We have created an author safety guide that we share beyond our own membership, and we recommend that you read and implement it.

We at ALLi believe that no individual author can do it all themselves—after all, we’re the Alliance of Independent Authors, not the Alliance of Self-Published Authors. To help you put together your perfect publishing team, ALLi vets author services against a range of criteria, including customer service and value for money. We rely on our own assessment, feedback from ALLi Advisors and the wider author community, internet research and sometimes mystery shopping to make our evaluations.

Members: Download your copy in the Member Zone

Not sure how to do something or whether there are ethical issues around it? Check out our extensive knowledge base, filled with honest, expert, high-quality information on all possible aspects of self-publishing.

Podcast with 500+ episodes: Listen to them here

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If you come across people or businesses within the self-publishing world who are behaving in a way you find unethical, please contact our Watchdog Desk. We treat such information confidentially and if, upon investigation, we agree that the actions are unethical, we may take actions such as issuing a warning via our Watchdog Desk or launching or participating in a campaign to address the situation.

You can read about Audiblegate here—the history of the issue as well as practical and proactive next steps to take in this important campaign.

As authors, we need to understand our sector’s impact on the planet and actions we can take to be eco-responsible authors; we’ve documented five simple steps you can take here.

Not only do multiple formats of your books—large print, ebook, and audio—help grow your writing and publishing business, they also make for greater accessibility for readers (and can provide an entrée to organizations like libraries and writing associations as well).

Read this post about ways you can make your work more accessible. For example, have you ever tried using a screen reader to audit your own website? If you haven’t filled in the ‘alt text’—a screen reader will voice for visually impaired users—the result will be an odd pause in the read-out, which may give the impression that something has gone wrong. If you're attending an event such as a festival, ask if the venues are accessible, whether that's relevant to you or not: the more people ask, the more events will provide accessible venues.

Here are some of the questions authors most frequently ask about self-publishing standards and quality.

As part of our ethical author focus, we have an author member code of standards, which covers areas such as book promotion, reviews, financial ethics and plagiarism. If you agree to the guiding principles of this code, you can sign up; a badge is available for download to display on your author website to publicly demonstrate your commitment to ethical publishing!
Select a size below and copy the code to embed in your site.

We would love to enlist your support for ALLi’s Campaigns! Just add your name and email to our Campaigners mailing list. We may solicit your help with one of our campaigns—for example, by sending an email to ask an organization to include indies (we'll provide a template to follow), identifying poor quality awards, or identifying which areas in the indie publishing world you'd like us to focus on next.