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Self-Publishing For All campaign

ALLi runs an ongoing campaign to find ways to ensure everyone can access self-publishing. We aim to remove physical, mental and financial barriers while sharing good quality advice freely and broadly, to benefit all authors.

What we at ALLi are doing

It is very important to us at ALLi that any author who wishes to publish a book is afforded that opportunity. If you can't self-publish through a lack of money, or access knowledge because of a physical or mental disability, then we cannot claim that anyone can self-publish.

We know self-publishing is bringing more diversity into publishing, which it is certainly in need of. Society needs all stories to be told, not just those of a select few, and therefore we want all authors to use self-publishing to put their stories out into the world.

We are working with our members, ambassadors, and networks of other organizations to make self-publishing more accessible. Read about our campaign activities below. We are committed to continuous improvement in this area.

1.

Accessible and Manageable Knowledge Base:  We have a vast knowledge base of high quality guide books, blog posts, podcast episodes and videos on every topic related to self-publishing. Most of it is free to any author, not just our members. But we also recognise that it needs to be accessible, so we are currently checking and updating all of it to ensure it is physically accessible (e.g. that there are transcripts, alt text, captioning, audiobooks and ability to change the size of text in place).

Having a vast range of good quality information is useful, but we also recognise that the sheer quantity can feel overwhelming. So we are also working to make it easier to navigate, producing a streamlined publishing process, and offering ‘the overwhelm pyramid' as an infographic to offer a reminder of what makes the biggest difference.

2.

Sharing our Knowledge more Widely: We have developed a category of Organization Membership to ensure good quality self-publishing information can reach even more authors. We also send info about our work and how to self-publish for free to charities who work with marginalised communities, to those in prison, suffering physical and/or mental disabilities, digital poverty and other barriers to entry. Please share our resources widely. We want all authors to access our self-publishing expertise.

3.

Financially accessibleIf it’s inaccessible to the poorest amongst us, then it’s neither radical nor revolutionary. We do not want lack of upfront funds to stand in the way of writers' ability to self-publish. We have created a brief guide which will show people how to self-publish for free, as well as where to spend money in their writing business as soon as they have some to spare or are willing to borrow to invest.

4.

You Ask, We Do: We continue to adjust our own processes to make our own services ever more accessible. Our quarterly magazine The Indie Author has a regular column starting this autumn called You Asked, We Did which showcases our ongoing accessibility work. If you are an author and you think we need to do something to increase  accessibility, please email Melissa. We are grateful for all suggestions.

 5.

Global Self-Publishing: We work across the globe, liaising with government and creative industry experts across seven key publishing territories (Australia, Canada, Europe, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States) and intend to expand this reach over time. Our Organization Membership helps us reach beyond our own members. 

How you as an author can both benefit and help others:

Use facts and figures for good decisions and greater author diversity

ALLi both commissions original independent research (the Indie Author Income Survey) and collates sector data from across the world (the Big Indie Author Data Drop), to bring you the best and most complete source of self-publishing facts and figures, enabling you to make informed decisions about your writing and publishing and ALLi to support and campaign for any authors who are not being adequately represented.
Did you know that  in self-publishing there is a reverse gender pay gap? Self-published women out-earn self-published men by 40.9% (In traditional publishing, men out-earn women by 41.4%)

Access (and share!) our amazing Knowledge Base

We bring you honest, high quality knowledge on all possible aspects of self-publishing.

Books: Members can download in the Member Zone, non-members can purchase in our shop.

Podcast with 500+ episodes: Listen to them here

Blog with 3000+ posts: Read them here

YouTube channel with 600+ videos: View them here

Overwhelmed? Get your Pyramid of Priorities in place.

Sometimes there's just too much good information! We can all feel overwhelmed along our publishing journeys and sometimes we need a break. We've created a simple infographic you can use when it's all feels too much: use our Pyramid of Priorities to retreat to something more manageable for your current resources, while keeping your focus on the actions that will have the greatest positive impact for your publishing business. Choose from ready-done, or a completely blank one to personalise as you wish.

Use and share our guide on how to publish for free.

Not everyone has the money upfront to invest in things ALLi usually recommends, such as working with an editor and having a professional designer create your book cover. But financial pressures should not mean an absolute barrier to self-publishing. Our brief guide shows you how to self-publish and begin marketing for free, but also offers advice on where to spend money as soon as you have some to spare, to develop your writing craft and publishing craft, both necessary to profitable publishing. Please share this guide everywhere it might be useful, we ask only that it be shared in its entirety.

Organization Partner Badge

Tell other Writing Organizations about ALLi

Do share information about our Organization Membership with other writing organizations (perhaps where you have membership) who may wish to collaborate with us, benefitting from our expertise in self-publishing for their own members, while they focus on, e.g., genre or location. In this way more authors can make well-informed choices about their publishing options.

Stay safe

No author should feel that they cannot write or publish due to safety concerns. Sadly, some authors do feel unsafe and we want to help. Please download, read and implement our brief guide to author safety. Do share this information to your author contacts.

Join our Campaigners mailing list

Add your name and email to our Campaigners mailing list. From time to time we will ask you if you can help us open up new doors for indie authors, perhaps by sending an email to ask an organization to open up and include indies (we'll give you a template to follow!) or identifying areas you'd like us to target next. We won't ask for anything onerous, but there is power in numbers!

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