This week’s post is short and sweet: it’s an unashamed appreciation of ALLi (Alliance of Independent Authors) and the online conference they organised last Friday/Saturday as a fringe event associated with the London Book Fair.

I’ve been alive for more than six decades. I’ve been married to an arch cynic for nearly four decades. I’ve been a small business owner for two and a half decades. I tend to be highly skeptical of so-called ‘experts’. I am always happy to sign up for ‘free’ seminars and webinars, hoping to pick up tit-bits of information, but aware of the ‘nothing for nothing’ adage and recognising that these events are primarily sales pitches for more extensive, paid-for training on offer from the presenter. 

At 10am UK time on Friday 15th April, the ALLi online conference began and every hour for the next twenty four, new videos, podcasts or live sessions were posted; sessions run by a variety of leading exponents of every aspect of self-publishing from writing the book, through design and production, to marketing. Some presenters I had heard of; others were new to me. Some topics were irrelevant for me at the moment; others were critical. But each session was packed with information, tips and road maps. I would have paid good money to travel to spend time at this conference – and happily paid an entrance fee as well. Yet it all came straight to my desk, free of charge, and remains online for revisiting at leisure. They will be doing it again twice more this year, in association with other book fairs. And while ALLi is a member-based organisation, these conference are available for non-members as well. 

So this is a huge thank you from me to the organisers. I’m not going to use any names, because I’m sure to miss someone out; but you know who you are. Now I’m off to finish listening to the seminars and start putting their expert advise into practice.