Resources for self-published authors: the organisations, help pages and standards bodies worth knowing

Most of the questions that stall a self-published author have an official answer somewhere. The trouble is knowing where. This page lists the organisations, help centres and standards bodies that are worth bookmarking, grouped by the job each one does. We link to the organisation itself rather than to a blog post about it, so you are reading the source.

We check these links when the page is updated. If one has moved, the organisation's name will still find it.

Author bodies and unions

• Alliance of Independent Authors (ALLi) is the membership body for authors who publish their own work. Its Self-Publishing Advice Center is free to read, and its watchdog ratings are the first place to look before paying any publishing service.
• Society of Authors (UK) is a trade union for writers. Members get contract vetting and legal advice, and the Society publishes guidance that non-members can read.
• Authors Guild (US) is a professional association with legal guidance on contracts, copyright and fair use.
• National Writers Union (US) is a union for freelance writers of every kind, affiliated with the United Auto Workers.
• Writers' Guild of Great Britain is a union for screen, stage, radio and games writers, and is useful if your work crosses into those forms.
• Novelists, Inc. (US) is an association for working novelists, with a members-only conference known for its publishing-business sessions.
• Authors Alliance (US) is a non-profit with plain guides to rights reversion, open access and fair use.

Trade bodies

• Independent Book Publishers Association (IBPA) (US) is for small presses and author-publishers. Its industry standards checklist is a useful measure of whether a book is finished.
• Publishers Association (UK) is the trade body for publishers. Its policy pages are where UK tax and copyright changes are explained from the industry's side.
• Book Industry Communication (BIC) (UK) is the standards body for book metadata and supply chain. BIC published the plainest trade guide to the EU's product safety rules for books.
• Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) (UK) collects secondary royalties for photocopying and lending and pays them to authors. It is free to join if you are a member of the Society of Authors or the Writers' Guild.

Official help for each store

When a forum post and the store's own help page disagree, the help page wins. These are the ones that matter.

• KDP Help has the royalty tables, delivery fees, print costs, content guidelines and the KDP Select terms. Author Central is the separate site for your author page.
• Kobo Writing Life is Kobo's direct publishing platform, with its own royalty terms and promotions tab.
• Apple Books for Authors is Apple's guide to publishing on Apple Books, directly or through a partner.
• Google Play Books Partner Centre is where you publish to Google Play.
• Barnes & Noble Press offers direct publishing for the Nook store and B&N print.
• Draft2Digital and PublishDrive are aggregators that send one file to many stores. Draft2Digital's Books2Read makes a single link that sends each reader to their own store.
• IngramSpark, Lulu and Bookvault offer print on demand for bookshops, direct sales and your own stock.
• ACX and Findaway Voices by Spotify are the two main routes to producing and distributing an audiobook.
• BookFunnel and StoryOrigin handle delivery of review copies and reader magnets, and the group promotions that run on them. The Indie Author Toolchest covers the same jobs from your own author page.

Numbers, law and standards

• Nielsen ISBN Store (UK) and Bowker MyIdentifiers (US) are the UK and US ISBN agencies. The International ISBN Agency lists every other country's agency.
• Agency for the Legal Deposit Libraries handles the UK and Irish legal deposit requests for every library other than the British Library, which you deposit with directly.
• GOV.UK on VAT for digital services sets out the rules for selling ebooks to consumers in other countries from the UK. Our own VAT article walks through them.
• GOV.UK on copyright and the Intellectual Property Office explain what copyright covers in the UK and how long it lasts. There is no register to pay for.
• Your Europe on product safety is the EU's own explanation of the General Product Safety Regulation. Our GPSR article covers what it means for paperbacks.

Trade reading

• Kindlepreneur covers Amazon advertising, keywords and categories.
• Reedsy blog covers craft, editing, cover design and tool reviews.
• Jane Friedman writes about the business of publishing, traditional and independent.
• David Gaughran writes about marketing and Amazon's algorithms, and has a long record of naming scams.
• Written Word Media publishes reader surveys and pricing data from its promotion service.
• Publishers Weekly and The Bookseller are the US and UK trade papers. Most of The Bookseller sits behind a paywall, but its headlines are free and they are where UK industry news breaks.

If you know of an organisation that belongs on this list, tell us and we will check it and add it.