14Dec 25
Award Wins, Audiobook Completion, a Special Edition Launch, and More: ALLi Member Milestones December 2025
This regular post from the Alliance of Independent Authors celebrates ALLi member successes to inspire our indie author community. Our ALLi Member Milestones, December 2025, celebrate the successes of author members William Brinkman, John C. A. Manley, Kevin Hwang, Ann Fairway, Brian Thompson, and Jennilynn Wyer. Congratulations to all those featured in this month’s roundup and to everyone in our community who has hit a milestone!
14Dec 25
ALLi Team Roundtable: Navigating New Trends in Self-Publishing
Join ALLi team members Orna Ross, Sacha Black, Matty Dalrymple, Michael La Ronn, Shanaya Wagh, and Dan Holloway for a replay of their SelfPubCon2025 roundtable, which offers practical guidance on today’s self-publishing landscape. The session includes a brief introduction to ALLi and its member services, along with clear, actionable advice on new tools, trends, and strategies to help authors at any stage.
13Dec 25
News Summary: Amazon Shifts DRM Rules for KDP E-Books, Allowing Wider File Downloads
Amazon has just announced a major change that affects everyone who self-publishes e-books made available through KDP. The change relates to Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology—specifically what happens when it is not applied to an e-book.
12Dec 25
News Podcast: Remembering Porter Anderson and Spotify’s Year in Audiobooks
On this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Dan Holloway reflects on the death of Porter Anderson, longtime editor in chief of Publishing Perspectives and a respected, sharp-witted voice in the book world whose influence reached far into both traditional and indie publishing. Dan shares tributes from colleagues and friends before turning to Spotify’s year-end audiobook trends, where romantic and “spicy” fantasy continue to dominate and darker genres like dystopia and horror are showing new momentum.
11Dec 25
News Summary: Spotify Wrapped Reveals Audiobook Trends and Rising Genres for 2026
Many of you will no doubt have already spent some time browsing your Spotify Wrapped. We can, of course, now do so as writers as well as listeners, finding out who spent time listening to our work. And even as listeners, we can now get the lowdown on our audiobook listening as well as music.
10Dec 25
Audio Interview: How Literary RPGs Find Their Audience with Anna Featherstone, Vee Hendro, and Hayley Gordon
How do indie creators reach global audiences while staying true to their values? In this second conversation, Anna Featherstone continues her chat with Vee Hendro and Hayley Gordon about distribution, community, and marketing in the world of literary-inspired role-playing games. From Kickstarter to conventions and creative commons licensing, they share smart strategies for connecting stories with players worldwide.
09Dec 25
News Summary: EU Removes Books from Deforestation Rules, as Daunt Weighs AI-Generated Titles
We start the week with a round-up of stories I originally had slated for Saturday before sadder events overtook us. First up, two of my favourite topics wrapped into one neat story package: print and European law.
07Dec 25
Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Jonathan Posner Writes Tudor-Era Adventures and Built a Publishing Company to Guide New Writers
My ALLi author guest this episode is Jonathan Posner, an indie author who writes historical action-adventure set in the Tudor period. After years of self-publishing, he used what he learned to build his own imprint, which has grown into a publishing company that guides new authors through the indie process. His goal is to give writers the support he wished he had when he started.
06Dec 25
News Summary: Remembering Porter Anderson and His Lasting Impact on Publishing
I was deeply saddened to read on Publishing Perspectives of the death of its editor in chief, Porter Anderson, and wanted to take a few moments to pay tribute. If you have spent any time on this column you will know how regularly I have turned to Porter’s insights even in the most recent weeks. But a source of fascinating and beautifully articulated information doesn’t begin to do justice to the role Porter played: in my life as a writer and reporter, and in the larger world we all inhabit as writers.
05Dec 25
News Podcast: Audiobook Habits Shift, OverDrive Challenges OpenAI, and Study Shows Poetry Can Break AI Guardrails
On this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Dan Holloway looks at a new study of American media habits that reveals strong daily audiobook listening—despite slowing growth driven by low uptake among readers over fifty. He also reports on OverDrive’s trademark lawsuit against OpenAI over the name Sora, and shares findings from a research paper showing that poetic prompts can bypass AI guardrails far more effectively than standard requests.
04Dec 25
News Summary: New Study Shows Poetry Can Bypass AI Guardrails; Character AI Shifts Its Teen Strategy
Authoritarian governments—and commentators on Lord Byron alike—have long suspected poets might be the most dangerous people in society. Indeed, one of my favorite novels, Bolaño’s doorstop The Savage Detectives, has this fear at its heart. A new study has discovered there might be something in that after all. The paper, catchily titled “Adversarial Poetry as a Universal Single-Turn Jailbreak in Large Language Models (LLMs),” can essentially be summed up by saying, “AI will teach you how to do naughty things if you ask it in poetry.”
03Dec 25
Audio Interview: The Hidden Craft of Ghostwritten Fiction with Matty Dalrymple and Jon McGoran
In this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Matty Dalrymple talks with author and ghostwriter Jon McGoran about the craft and business of ghostwriting fiction. They discuss how Jon got started through an agency, the difference between fiction and nonfiction ghostwriting, the challenges of working in someone else’s creative world, and how clear contracts and good collaboration can make ghostwriting a steady income stream for authors.
