On this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Dan Holloway recaps key takeaways from SelfPubCon2025, where authors focused less on AI and more on direct connections with readers through email lists, crowdfunding, and special editions that reflect an artisanal, aesthetic-driven approach. He also reports that Spotify is launching Audiobook Selects, a new platform for indie authors, beginning with romance-themed submissions featuring “swoon-worthy” tropes like friends-to-lovers and grumpy/sunshine pairings.
Listen to the Podcast: SelfPubCon Highlights Direct-to-Reader Trends
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About the Host
Dan Holloway is a novelist, poet, and spoken word artist. He is the MC of the performance arts show The New Libertines, He competed at the National Poetry Slam final at the Royal Albert Hall. His latest collection, The Transparency of Sutures, is available on Kindle.
Read the Transcripts
Dan Holloway: Hello and welcome to another Self-Publishing News podcast, and quite possibly a brief one this week. Though, it's always the case that when I say it's going to be a brief one, it tends to be when I ramble the most.
It has been the kind of week that, because I am a fiction writer you will not believe, that has involved all kinds of domestic disasters and emergencies, and more public disasters and emergencies, while I've been speaking at conferences.
SelfPubCon 2025 Highlights
Dan Holloway: Though that wasn't the ALLi Conference at which I was speaking on Saturday, which is a segue into my first item, which is a report on the SelfPubCon 2025.
I will focus largely on the panel that I was on, because that's really interesting from the perspective of understanding what it is that writers are thinking about right now. It was the Q&A panel. Many of the great and the good of ALLi were there and we had many writers, well over a hundred writers in the room, asking all sorts of questions about the things that are clearly keeping them up at night and they really want expert advice on.
It's always a really salutary reminder for someone like me who spends a lot of time reporting on things that the media think are very important, that actually the questions that writers are asking are often very removed from what the media would like us to think that writers are thinking about.
In particular, there was not a single question in the hour-long session about AI, which was absolutely fascinating. There were questions that I remember about audiobooks, which was interesting. There was most of all questions about marketing, and in particular, people were asking the kinds of questions that show that what's on their mind is what we would think about with Self-Publishing 3.0.
So, there were questions on direct sales, email lists, and crowdfunding, coming thick and fast. That I found really interesting. There weren't questions on ads. So, a couple years ago it would all have been about Facebook ads. There was very little about social media and how to use social media to market.
It was all about things that are essentially based on forming a direct connection between writers and readers. So, we had most of the panelists agreeing that direct marketing is a very good thing.
Great to hear Sacha saying the same thing that I would've said about the importance of using direct marketing to send something a little bit special; so, whether that's bookmarks, artwork. She mentioned she always signs everything, which is something I always do, I hope, as well.
I know I like to send out stickers to readers partly because I'm an absolute sticker nut, so all my journals are covered in stickers, and I really wish more people who send things out would send stickers with what they send. So, that's just a note if I ever order from you.
One of the things that it felt we were talking about was how trends in what writers are doing to sell their books seem really to be working alongside the trends that we see with readers and in particular on social media.
So, if you spend any time on social media in whatever niche interest, you will have noticed that the unboxing trend is huge. So, people who are fans of a particular kind of thing will post pictures of them unboxing the latest version of that thing. In my case, it's usually fountain pens, which I watch endless videos of people unboxing, obviously really famous examples are like sets of Magic: The Gathering, people looking for black lotuses.
But people love to share on social media, pictures and videos of their reaction as they unbox something, and what is very clear from that, and this ties in with things I've talked about with the dark academia aesthetic, other sort of reading aesthetics, is that it's not just about the thing you are getting, it's about the whole experience of feeling that you are connecting with a creator, feeling that you are getting something special, something unique, something that means something deep to you above and beyond the actual physical value of the object.
Books do that anyway, but they especially do that when they come in beautiful editions, or when we sign them, or when we send bookmarks, or all that kind of thing along with them. We as writers can have a really good connection with our readers, and readers can feel the really good connection with us.
Really interesting, and it came across with crowdfunding where Michael was talking really heavily about the importance of making sure it looks good and looks beautiful. Again, this customer side focus on aesthetics, partly because they want to share it on social media, partly also just because I think, in a world that doesn't feel very aesthetically beautiful a lot of the time, having a connection with things that are aesthetically beautiful matters.
There's also the increasing desire amongst consumers to support artisanal work, handcrafted work, specially created work, and that all feeds into writers making these direct connections, whether that's through a crowdfunder, which again is a very personal connection, whether it's through direct marketing, or whether it's through your email list.
So, that was what I found really interesting, was how the emphasis was number one, very much Self-Publishing 3.0. Number two, very artisanal aesthetic, very niche. But also, as a wider trend, how what the trends are with authors is very similar to the trends with readers.
So, that was what I took away from SelfPubCon 2025 in particular, it was the fact that readers and writers are in it together and that we are working together.
Spotify Launches Audiobook Selects
The other big piece of news this week comes from Spotify. There is all sorts of news from Spotify this week. I could talk about new AI tools; I feel like I've spoken about Spotify's AI tools a lot. Yet again, they've emphasized that they are creator-first, they've created some AI tools for music artists. No doubt this will spill over to writers.
Some of them are basic marketing tools, but some of them are focused on helping people to identify when other people have used their work, shall we say, as a way to claw back some compensation. So, that's an interesting one.
But the real thing I wanted to share was the launch of the first Audiobook Selects, which is a platform for works by indie authors.
So, a few months ago, I think actually looking back in the column, it was back in March that I announced that Spotify was holding a competition where it was looking for indie authors with a 10-20,000 word manuscript on sci-fi, fantasy, crime, or romance, and the best of those was going to be selected and pushed out through a new platform.
That new platform is called Audiobook Selects, and it is being launched on November 4th.
As it launches, the next round of submissions will be opening. They are looking this time for 10-40,000 words that they can turn into an audiobook. Specifically, they are looking at romance and what they have said in particular is authors are encouraged to submit novel- length stories that creatively explore romance tropes, like friends to lovers, grumpy/sunshine and only one bed.
I have no idea what the last two of those are, but they sound like something many of you may already be writing, in which case, please do. They also say the overall theme is “swoon-worthy tropes”. So, there we go.
Specifically, they're looking for indie authors to do work with through Audiobook Selects, and very much hope that I'll be reporting on some ALLi winners when the time comes for that second cohort to be announced.
With that, I will speak to you again at the same time next week.
Happy Halloween, if I don't speak to you before.
