Opening Doors: ALLi’s Guide to the Publishing Industry for Indie Authors

By Alliance of Independent Authors

Opening Doors is ALLi's best practice guide to the publishing industry for indie authors. From entering awards and joining literary associations, to approaching festivals, bookshops and making the most of your publication rights, this proactive book is full of tips, insights and inspiring case studies.

This guidebook is part of ALLi's ongoing Open Up to Indie Authors campaign to encourage and aid literary events, festivals, prizes, reviewers, booksellers, government bodies, and other interested parties to find ways to include self-publishing authors in their programs, events, listings and reviews.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Font Publications
• Release date: Feb 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9781909888654

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

SELF-PUBLISHING TODAY

No matter how a book is published, every author seeks readers, and there are many ways of reaching them:

retailers

reviewers

libraries

festivals

awards

professional associations

word of mouth recommendation

It seems reasonable that books of equal quality should be treated on equal terms in all these spheres, no matter how they have been published. It is, therefore, frustrating and disappointing when self-published authors who have produced top-quality books encounter glass ceilings, closed doors or dead ends simply because they have the skill to manage their own book production and promotion.

The fault is not all on the side of the establishment. Among certain self-published authors there exists an assumption that simply publishing a book gives them de facto equal rights in the marketplace with trade published bestsellers, an assumption that is not realistic for those who have produced a poor quality book.

Savvy indie authors understand that they are operating within an industry which has its own needs, and behave accordingly.

When approaching the publishing trade or literary influencers like librarians, festivals or reviewers, indie authors can do much to help their own cause. First, we should be open-minded about their prospects and not assume prejudice before we meet it. It may not happen.

We also need to be realistic. Publishing is a skill developed over time and, as publishers, we need to learn how the book trade and its associated operations work.

We are unlikely to have the length and breadth of experience enjoyed by traditional publishing companies, some of which are hundreds of years old and have dealt with hundreds of authors. For example, if we are familiar with retailers’ standard expectations for trade discounts but are unwilling to meet them, we should not feel hard done by if our local bookshop refuses to stock our books. With realistic expectations, we’ll meet less disappointment.

Equally, the publishing trade and literary establishment needs to recognize and respect the high quality of books now being self-published and the undeniable achievements of independent authors.

It’s one thing for a book to be rejected by a literary organization because it is not good enough, with a shoddy cover or content. To have it rejected because it lacks a publishing imprint’s name on its spine, even though it’s a match for a trade published books in every other respect, feels uncomfortably like snobbery or literary prejudice—especially when it’s a blanket ban.

Indie Author Achievements

Here are just a few of the many achievements by self-publishers, showing just how successful indie authors have been within the publishing industry, as well as the wonderful opportunities open to writers who want to emulate their successes.

Reach

Indie authors today can self-publish in almost two hundred countries around the globe, in formats including hardback, paperback, eBooks and audiobooks. Thanks to Print on Demand (POD) technology, physical books can be printed and distributed one at a time, allowing books to be kept permanently ‘in print’ with little storage space required.

Sales

Books by indie authors account for 30-34% of all e-book sales in the largest English-language markets, as reported in Publishers Weekly. In 2020 8% of Alliance of Independent Authors members had sold more than 50,000 books in the past two years.

Indie authors have comfortably exceeded six-figure turnovers, including Joanna Penn, Ines Johnson, Joseph Alexander, Helen Scheuerer, Hugh Howey, Elana Johnson, DC Kalbach and Octavia Randolph. Author LJ Ross sold 5.5million copies of her books in 5 years and in 2022 Amazon reported that her DCI Ryan Mysteries were the second bestselling series of all time, ahead of Harry Potter. Mark Dawson has a seven-figure turnover from his books and has sold film and TV rights. Because indie authors make up to 70% commissions from sales rather than traditional 5-15% royalties (minus the 15% which goes to their agent), for those authors prepared to merge artistic and business skills there is far greater scope for making a real income from their writing than has previously been the case.

In 2019 Amazon’s review of Kindle sales said that ‘thousands’ of indie authors had earned more than $50,000 and that ‘more than a thousand’ had already passed $100,000 in royalties.

Recognition

Indie authors have made the USA Today bestseller list, won literary awards, achieved MAs and PhDs in Creative Writing, as well as taking up paid positions as Writers in Residence in prestigious organisations such as the British Library. The Martian, a sci-fi thriller first self-published by Andy Weir, was turned into a movie directed by Ridley Scott and starring Matt Damon, which grossed over $630m. Amazon created the Kindle Storyteller Award, whose £20,000 prize fund is larger than the Pulitzer and similar to the Costa.

In 2022 data from K-Lytics has shown that indie authors not only rank equally to traditionally published authors for quality of reviews, but also take home 39% of Kindle royalties in 30 top-100 Bestseller lists (Big 5 Publishers take 32%, Amazon imprints 15% and other traditional publishers take 8%). And in terms of author income, traditionally published authors are then receiving only 5-10% of those royalties compared to the up to 70% received by indie authors.

None of this data accounts for the fastest growing sector of publishing: the creator economy. This is where consumers (in our case readers) buy products and services (for us books but also premium products, reader memberships, merchandise, NFTs and more) directly from the creative, usually online through their own website or app.

The Bookseller Magazine has repeatedly named Orna Ross, founder and co-director of the Alliance of Independent Authors, as one of the 100 top people in publishing, acknowledging the growing importance of self-publishing within the industry.

Representation

A study by FicShelf found that women wrote just 39% of traditionally published titles, but 67% of self-published titles. Multiple indie authors from under-represented groups or even genres have referred to self-publishing having been a positive path for them, including Latinx author Maria E Cantu Alegre and Indian-Canadian Rupi Kaur, who sold 8 million copies of her first two poetry books. Fatal Shadows by Josh Lanyon became the first LGBTQ mobile game created by Moments: Choose Your Story. The rise of, and accessibility to, self-publishing, has allowed many people who might not otherwise have been published to self-publish their work, opening up to a far greater diversity of voices.

Open Up: The Campaign

We hope ALLi’s Open Up to Indie Authors campaign will help other members of the book trade make informed rather than prejudiced judgments. We want to encourage and aid literary events, festivals, prizes, reviewers, booksellers, government bodies, and other organisations to find ways to include self-publishing authors in their programs, events, listings and reviews.

We also work with those organisations who already welcome indie authors to offer simple guidelines and suggestions on how to meet such writers' needs, for their benefit and yours.

And in this guide, we explain best practice in approaching different literary and publishing organizations, institutions and influencers, within today’s publishing ecosystem and creator economy.

The creator economy is the term given to that section of the economy where consumers directly fund the work of artists, musicians, film-makers and, yes, authors. Sam Yam, the co-founder of Patreon, a pioneer of the creator economy, describes it as: value directly exchanged for creativity.

It’s about personal, meaningful connections between creator and consumers (in our case, readers) and centers on direct transactions between them.

As other sectors struggle and fail post-pandemic, this sector is booming. At the time of writing, creator-run enterprises are now the fastest-growing type of small business in many countries, across the world. Like music, art and film, publishing is being turned on its head by this trend as more and more readers come to appreciate opportunities to directly engage with, and buy from, the authors they love.

New publishing platforms, new literary forms, and new genres are emerging, springing up from the needs of readers and response of authors, rather than top-down from a curating literary establishment. As authors, we can bring these together in an enterprise based on the understanding that we are creating, producing, promoting, and licensing valuable IP.

This new model is about questioning how things are currently done and doing what works for you—using other influencers,