It’s showtime this week with the London Book Fair opening on Tuesday and at the end of the week (Friday, April 15) the Alliance of Independent Authors is running its brilliant annual Indie Author Fringe with a massive range of online sessions.
The Fringe is going to run for a non-stop 24 hours this year from 10am on Friday right through the day and night to 10am on Saturday. If you can’t quite last the whole 24 hours, you can catch up later at your leisure as the sessions will be available on the ALLi website.
It all kicks off on Friday, April 15 at 10am London time (5am New York, 2am LA) and my picks of the Fringe out of the 27 events include (all times are for London):
Friday, April 15
- 12 noon: DESIGNING BOOK COVERS THAT SELL: THE 7 MUST-HAVES by Derek Murphy
- 2pm: SELL MORE BOOKS IN MORE FORMATS IN MORE TERRITORIES — panel discussion with Orna Ross, Mark Dawson, Joanna Penn, Toby Mundy. This is recorded live from the London Book Fair Author HQ.
- 4pm: AUTHORS: METADATA IS YOUR BRAND. GET YOURS IN SHAPE — Kathy Meis
- 9.10pm: TWITTER: COULD INDIE PUBLISHING EXIST WITHOUT IT? and
- 10pm: LEVERAGE YOUR CONTENT: HOW TO BLOG A BOOK OR BOOK A BLOG — Nina Amir
Saturday, April 16
- Midnight: ARE PRINT BOOKS MORE TROUBLE THAN THEY’RE WORTH? Robin Cutler and Andy Bromley
- 2am: AUTHORS PUBLISHING AUTHORS: HOW DOES IT WORK?
- 5am: HOW TO SWITCH GENRE WITHOUT BREAKING YOUR BRAND — Mohanna Rajakumar
- 7am: COVER DESIGN: 5 TOP TIPS TO CREATE A BOOK COVER THAT SELLS — JD Smith
Full details of the ALLi Fringe Agenda can be found on the ALLi website.
You can also enter ALLi’s Opening Line Competition which features a cash prize of £150, courtesy of the International Rubery Book Award, which is an award for indie and self-published authors.
The Alliance of Independent Authors does an amazing job for indie writers and the London Fringe is the start of a three-part tour which also includes BookExpo America on May 14 and the Frankfurt Book Fair on October 22.
The London Fringe is focused on the first part of the author’s journey, including writing, designing, editing, formatting, production and distribution, while at BookExpo America the sessions will cover book promotion and marketing, and Frankfurt will look at book rights and contract advice and how authors can manage time and money to create a sustainable income.