In this month's Advanced Self-Publishing Salon from the Alliance of Independent Authors, Orna Ross and Joanna Penn discuss ethics. The need for book reviews, the desirability of bestseller badges, the value in superfast author business models can put a strain on ethics. Sometimes authors make mistakes inadvertently, sometimes we stretch the rules on purpose. 

Orna and Joanna look at recent controversies in the community around plagiarism, ghostwriting, reviews, and bestseller listings and ask: how far would you go to ensure your book is successful?

The AskALLi podcasts are sponsored by Damonza: Books Made Awesome.

Topics discussed this week include:

• Orna previews some changes coming on the ALLi website as we approach our seventh birthday.
• How do global changes in copyright law impact indie authors?
• A discussion about a recent ghostwriting/plagiarism scandal that rocked the indie Romance world.
• Is there a gray area between writing that's your own and something you picked up elsewhere? What are the limits of fair use?
• Where does AI fit into this issue of authorship?

And more!

Find more author advice, tips and tools at our self-publishing advice center, http://selfpublishingadvice.org. And, if you haven’t already, we invite you to join our organization and become a self-publishing ally. You can do that at http://allianceindependentauthors.org.

Now, go write and publish!

About the Hosts

Joanna Penn is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author, as well as writing non-fiction for authors. She is also a professional speaker and entrepreneur, voted as one of The Guardian UK Top 100 creative professionals 2013. She spent 13 years as a business IT consultant in large corporations across the globe before becoming a full-time author-entrepreneur in September 2011. For more information about Joanna, visit her website: http://thecreativepenn.com

Orna Ross launched the Alliance of Independent Authors at the London Book Fair in 2012. Her work for ALLi has seen her named as one of The Bookseller’s “100 top people in publishing”. She also publishes poetry, fiction and nonfiction, and is greatly excited by the democratising, empowering potential of author-publishing. For more information about Orna, visit her website: http://www.ornaross.com