ALLi Editorial

This author has written 341 articles
Why Recipes For Publishing Success Don't Work

Why Recipes for Publishing Success Don’t Work—and What to Do Instead, with Joe Solari

On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Joe Solari explores why publishing success formulas so often fail. Drawing on a landmark study of cultural markets, he explains how randomness and social feedback loops mean that even books of similar quality can have wildly different outcomes. The good news? The market isn't locked—new winners emerge constantly. Rather than chasing guaranteed recipes, Solari argues authors should focus on building durable advantages and staying in the game long enough for luck to find them.
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Market Literary Fiction

How Indie Authors Market Literary Fiction, with Orna Ross

Many literary fiction authors feel caught in the middle, shut out of a traditional literary establishment that foregrounds their genre, but also out of indie advice urging marketing methods that feel misaligned. Orna Ross explores the psychology of literary writers who feel uneasy about selling their work, shares her own marketing shifts as a literary novelist and poet, and explains why literary fiction is not a special case—simply another genre with its own reader psychology and buying behavior.
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Ebooks On Bookshop.org

Podcast: Ebooks on Bookshop.org: What Does It Mean for Indie Authors?

In 2020, Bookshop.org disrupted the bookselling space with a mission to support independent bookstores while enabling readers to buy print books online. That mission has now expanded to ebooks, with titles distributed through Draft2Digital. In this conversation, Orna Ross is joined by Kris Austin of Draft2Digital and Nick Hunt of Bookshop.org to examine what this shift means for authors. Indie authorship is not the same as indie bookselling. Where do those interests overlap, and where do they diverge? And how can self-publishers make the most of this opportunity?
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First Nations’ Stories

Audio Interview: Using Indie Platforms to Publish First Nations’ Stories with Anna Featherstone and Anna Borzi AM

ALLi nonfiction adviser Anna Featherstone speaks with Anna Borzi AM, chair of the First Nations Writers Festival and its publishing imprint, First Nations Publishers. They discuss how the volunteer-led charity has grown from a literary festival into a global publishing and distribution platform for Pacific writers, often where no other option exists. The conversation covers publishing in an authentic voice, professional production on a lean model, print-on-demand and direct sales, and a strategic move away from costly festivals toward sustainable social media marketing.
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Sell More Books

‘Sell More Books’: Sneak Peek and Pre-Order with Orna Ross

Orna Ross, director of the Alliance of Independent Authors, introduces ALLi’s new guidebook, Sell More Books, now available for pre-order. The book focuses on practical, sustainable book promotion and challenges the idea that promotion is only for loud authors with big budgets. Ross explains how authors of all styles and temperaments can design promotional strategies that suit their work, their readers, and their energy. From direct sales and crowdfunding to newer AI-assisted tools, she looks at what’s changing in book promotion and why, even in an AI-driven landscape, human connection remains central.
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New Takes On Marketing Must-Dos

New Takes on Marketing Must-Dos — Insights from ALLi’s ‘Reach More Readers’ Guidebook: Self-Publishing Advice Conference Highlight

In this Self-Publishing Advice Conference highlight, Orna Ross revisits classic book marketing must-dos and updates them for 2025. Grounded in ALLi’s Reach More Readers guidebook and the organization’s Ethical AI policy, the session cuts through content overload, shifting algorithms, rising ad costs, email deliverability problems, and growing concerns about reader trust. Ross offers a human-first, values-based approach to marketing that helps author-publishers make clear, ethical choices without burning out. Writers leave with a simple mini-audit of their current marketing and a short, realistic upgrade list to help them reach more readers on their own terms.
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Three Trends For 2026

Advice Podcast: Three Trends for 2026 — Transformation, Trust, and the ‘Agentic’ Shift with Orna Ross and Joanna Penn

Orna Ross and Joanna Penn compare notes from the indie front line, drawing on Jo’s new novel and her renewed focus on business basics for ALLi’s Indie Author Lab at the London Book Fair, alongside Orna’s shift to Substack and a clear-eyed look at what is changing fastest for authors. In this forward-looking conversation, two self-publishing veterans unpack agentic AI, the challenge of staying discoverable in a sea of content, and how permission-based audiences, reader trust, and real-world connection can make authors harder to replace.
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