Introducing The Indie Author Lab

Update to Indie Author Lab: Orna Ross’s New Program Now Online on Substack

Orna Ross, founder and director of the Alliance of Independent Authors, discusses the development and purpose of Indie Author Lab, explaining how it was created in response to changes in the indie author community—particularly the rise of AI. An ongoing monthly program designed to help serious authors address their specific challenges, it is based on Orna's Alliance of Independent Authors guidebook, Creative Self-Publishing, and focuses on four measures of success: productivity, platform, profit, and pleasure. With live monthly sessions, a community chat room, and access to resources and tools, the program is flexible enough to work for authors at any stage of their development — and will feature at AuthorNation 2026.
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Amazon Raises KDP

News Summary: Amazon Raises KDP 70% Royalty Cap to $12.99; Bookshop.org Launches Audiobooks in UK

Breaking news: as of July 7, Amazon has extended the upper limit of the 70 percent KDP royalty bracket to $12.99 from $9.99. That allows some books to have a higher ticket price reflecting an author's desire to price within the market, without having to take a hit down to the 35 percent royalty rate. For those in that $10–$12.99 range currently, you may be eligible to switch to 70 percent per the FAQs, but will not automatically be switched.
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EU Adds Tariff On Book Imports

News Podcast: EU Adds Tariff on Book Imports; The Economist Charts AI Publishing Surge; Pocket Books Returns for Indies

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway covers four stories: a new EU tariff that will affect authors shipping books directly to European readers; The Economist's striking data showing book publishing volumes have doubled since ChatGPT launched in 2022; the Commonwealth Short Story Prize awarding its top prize to the very story accused of AI authorship; and the relaunch of Simon and Schuster's Pocket Books imprint, which is specifically targeting successful indie and hybrid authors for a romance-first print list launching in January 2027.
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AI-Generated Books Now Match Human Output

News Summary: Economist Graph Shows AI-Generated Books Now Match Human Output at 150,000 Titles Monthly

Wherever books are discussed, the past few weeks have seen heated discussion of a graph that appeared in the Economist. It puts flesh on the bones of that "million more books" claim that did the rounds a little earlier. What it shows is the correlation between the steepening of the "books published" figures and the release of ChatGPT 3.5 in November 2022. In classic hockey-stick style, it shows AI-generated books sharply increasing to the point where they are equaling the number of non-AI-generated titles at around 150,000 a month.
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Profit, Pricing, And Publishing Strategy

Author Business Q&A: Profit, Pricing, and Publishing Strategy with Michael La Ronn and Joe Solari

In this member-first Q&A on the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, host Michael La Ronn talks with Alliance of Independent Authors Business Adviser Joe Solari about how indie authors can think more clearly about the business side of writing. Joe explains why authors should focus less on revenue and more on profit, how to approach pricing without undervaluing their work, when going wide makes sense, and why intellectual property and audience are the real foundations of an author business. He also offers practical advice on print distribution, direct sales, and when it may—or may not—make sense to form an LLC.
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Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Diane Hatz

Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Diane Hatz on Turning Music Industry Chaos into Fiction

My ALLi author guest this episode is Diane Hatz. Diane spent years in the music industry, working at major and indie record companies, managing a band, and co-founding a fanzine on The Who that ended up in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Years later, she drew on those surreal experiences and turned them into fiction. After decades of putting off her dream of being an author, she published a four-book series in five years. 
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EU Tariff On Small Packages Hits Book Industry

News Summary: EU Tariff on Small Packages Hits Book Industry; Commonwealth Prize Winner Stands despite AI Controversy

Tariffs have been in the news a lot in the past few years, and this week saw them return, to the anger of the book industry. From July 1, the European Union is introducing a 3 euro tariff on all small packages sent into the union. Small items worth under 150 euros had previously been exempted from tariffs under the "de minimis" principle (which I guess basically equates to "too small to worry about").
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Rakuten Kobo

News Podcast: Rakuten Kobo Took a ‘Book Community First’ Approach to AI — and Rejected 45 Percent of Submissions

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway reports on a revealing piece by Rakuten Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyn, who explains why Kobo rejected 45 percent of self-published submissions in 2025 — most of them suspected AI-generated — and frames the decision as a "book community first" choice over a "readers first" approach. Dan also returns to the Commonwealth Short Story Prize controversy, where organizers have taken a strikingly different and very human approach to AI detection: gathering notes, drafts, and timestamped evidence from authors rather than relying on AI detection tools. He closes with news of a BISG and BookNet Canada survey on AI in publishing that indie authors in the US and Canada are encouraged to take part in.
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Librarians Propose Fairer E-book Pricing Model

News Summary: Librarians Propose Fairer E-book Pricing Model; Commonwealth Prize Verifies Winners without AI Detectors

Following on from recent discussion in this column about what it costs libraries to buy the license for e-books, thanks to Jane Friedman for linking to this fascinating article which outlines exactly what libraries would like to see in this regard. What it attempts to describe is what librarians actually mean when they call for fairer pricing from big publishers.
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How To Make Your Books Discoverable By AI

How to Make Your Books Discoverable by AI, with Orna Ross and Rob Prime

Artificial intelligence is changing how readers discover books, and few people have a broader view of that shift than Rob Prime. An indie author, founder of Publishing.co.uk, co-owner of LoveReading, and head of an Amazon marketing agency, Prime joins Orna Ross on the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast to explain how AI-powered search is reshaping book discoverability. They discuss Amazon’s evolving search tools, AI-friendly metadata, author websites, direct sales, and the practical steps authors can take to make their books easier for both readers and AI to find.
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