Last week I was at the London Book Fair: a first for me. Yes, it’s a trade fair and no, the trade publishers who make up the bulk of the exhibitors are not there to meet authors, but the growing importance of the self-publishing sector made it a worthwhile trip up to the capital.
My main porpoise, or maybe purpose (my spell-check seems to be malfunctioning today) was to support the Alliance of Independent Authors’ (ALLi’s) campaign “Opening Up To Indie Authors” and the launch of the book of the same name by Debbie Young and Dan Holloway. I’ve just joined ALLi and I feel sure this will be a worthwhile initiative.
As always, the best thing about going to trade fairs is the unplanned meetings. The ALLi launch was on the Kobo stand; so far my book has not been available on that platform but having met one or two of the really great Kobo people, especially Sean Foy their MD, I intend to change that very soon.
Having made that decision, something even better happened. I bumped into Richard Lalchan, who runs Creatives Hub and whom I’ve known for some time. He’s very switched on to self-publishing and his IT expertise far outstrips mine, so when he told me I needed to check out Ingram Spark, I listened. But Richard did more than tell me; he took me along to their stand and introduced me to the charming and most knowledgeable Robin Cutler.

Right now, my book “Back to the Black” is only available through Amazon (KDP and CreateSpace). Debbie Young has been urging me (in person and through her book “Sell Your Books”) to widen my e-distribution. So I was delighted to hear that through the Spark platform I can publish both in print and e-format, for one setup charge and with one seamless reporting system; and have the books available via Kobo as well as Amazon and Barnes and Noble etc. Best of all, I’d have my books on Ingram’s list, of which I’d previously only dreamed.

We usually understand the phrase “one-stop shop” in terms of convenience for the consumer; if it’s as good as it sounds, it would seem that the Spark service could be a one-stop shop for the content producer. Maybe the answer to an author’s prayer.

WANT TO KNOW MORE?

For info about my book “Back to the Black: how to become debt-free and stay that way”, go to the book’s website HERE.

Independent and self-published authors: if you’d like to find out about joining ALLi, click HERE.