Stonnington Libraries

Presented as part of the Stonnington Libraries Literary Festival, [untitled]: our writers, readers and stories

Location: Toorak/South Yarra Library, 340 Toorak Road, South Yarra VIC
Time: 10.30am - 12pm
Tickets are $10 plus booking fee and GST. Tickets are non refundable.

Taking smart steps towards self-publishing is about much more than writing, editing and proofreading a compelling story. Successful self-publishers need to deal with a lengthy to-do list, including design, distribution and all-important marketing.

Claire Halliday, Alison Croggon and Ellie Marney, experienced authors who made self-publishing work for them, share their tips on how to produce a professional book that attracts reviews, attention and sales.

Claire Halliday started her career as a freelance feature writer for The Sunday Age more than 20 years ago. Since then, more than 1000 of her articles have appeared in a range of publications. She is the author of ‘Things My Mother Taught Me’ and ‘Things My Father Taught Me’ – collections of interviews with interesting Australians who share stories about the impact their parents had on their lives.

Alison Croggon is an award-winning novelist, poet, opera librettist and critic. She is the author of the acclaimed fantasy series ‘The Books of Pellinor’. ‘The Bone Queen’, released through 2016/17, was a finalist for Best Young Adult Novel in the 2016 Aurealis Awards for Excellence in Speculative Fiction.

Other titles include ‘The Gift’, ‘Black Spring’, ‘The River’ and ‘The Book’, endorsed by Amnesty International UK, won the Wilderness Society’s 2016 Prize for Environmental Writing for Children and was shortlisted for a WA Premier’s Award for Young Adult fiction. She has published several collections of poetry in Australia and internationally and has had 16 theatre works produced in Australia, most recently ‘My Dearworthy Darling’ in 2019 at the Malthouse Theatre. She has self-published several books over the past couple of years. She lives in Melbourne.

Ellie Marney is a teacher and a highly-awarded author of crime fiction for Young Adults. Her titles include the ‘Every Breath’ series, ‘No Limits’ and ‘White Night’. Ellie has been involved in the creation of the national campaign called #LoveOzYA to promote and advocate for Australian YA literature – she contributed to the critically-acclaimed Begin End Begin: A #LoveOzYA Anthology, and runs the popular #LoveOzYAbookclub online. She also co-coordinates an online info-sharing group for Australian female-identifying self-publishers. Her most recent release is the YA rom-crime series, ‘Circus Hearts’. She lives in regional north-central Victoria with her partner (also a teacher) and their four sons.