The detection wars: AI is publishing’s ‘wicked problem’
AI is being used to cancel books and authors, turn readers against newsletters, and writers against each other. ALLi director…
News Podcast: Audiobook Listeners Buy in Multiple Formats; AI Splits the Ghostwriting Market
On this week’s Self-Publishing News podcast, ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway digs into Audible’s new Nielsen IQ study of 18,000 listeners, which finds audiobook fans buying the same books in multiple formats — and still seeking out human narrators. He also covers Smashwords adding pre-orders and pre-sales through Draft2Digital, and a Bookseller report on how AI is splitting the ghostwriting market in two.
News Summary: Anne Carson Wins Nobel; Pangram CEO Claims Minimal False Positives; Ghostwriters Lose Lower-End Work to AI
As well as being conference season, it is of course "that time of year" in another way familiar to all of us who follow literary events. Last week saw the Nobel committee announce its annual roster of prizes, including that for literature. So congratulations to Anne Carson, whose winning citation praises her "bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature."
Book Marketing in a Changing World: What Works, What Doesn’t, and What’s Next with Orna Ross and Joanna Penn
In this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Orna Ross and Joanna Penn discuss how book marketing is changing—and what still works. Drawing on their experiences updating their own marketing guides, they explore the growing role of AI, alternatives to social media, the renewed importance of print and in-person marketing, and why email lists remain essential. They also discuss how authors can develop marketing strategies that fit their goals, personalities, and resources, rather than trying to do everything.
ACX and Audible’s New Payment Model: What You Need to Decide Before 31 December
If you have audiobooks on Audible through ACX, you have a decision to make in the next twelve weeks. From…
News Summary: Audible’s NielsenIQ Report Finds Audiobooks Drive Cross-Format Reading; Human Narrators Still Matter
Audiobook companies like to publish numbers with two kinds of finding. First, that the audiobook market is expanding. And second that they as a company are responsible for a large amount of the good stuff they have just demonstrated. Spotify has so far been the leader in this field, but Frankfurt Book Fair saw Audible jump headlong into the space with a much-vaunted report commissioned from NielsenIQ that was launched there.
Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Liz Harris Builds an Indie Career on History, Romance, and Creative Freedom
My ALLi author guest this episode is Liz Harris, a historical romance author whose path to publication took her from a lifelong love of reading and writing through teaching, travel, traditional publishing, and eventually self-publishing. She talks about how history and place shape her fiction, the freedom she found as an indie author, the importance of treating publishing as a business, and why she chose to remain indie even after returning to traditional publishing.
News Summary: Smashwords Adds Pre-Orders; Spotify Expands Audiobooks to 180 Countries
Big news from a couple of the big platforms we use to round off the week. First comes a press release from Draft2Digital that brings the announcement that Smashwords will be accepting pre-orders for the first time. For me this brings all kinds of nostalgia. Like many indies who started in the late aughts, well into the internet era but before Kindle, Smashwords was the platform through which I made my first ever sale. I still occasionally wake up with cold sweats about its Meatgrinder (if you know, you know). So it's great to see them still moving forward.
News Podcast: SelfPubCon 2026 Asks Where Indie Publishing Goes Next; OpenAI Wants a Key Study Tossed
On this week's Self-Publishing News podcast, ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway previews SelfPubCon 2026, running free over the weekend of October 17–18 with a Jane Friedman keynote, sessions on Kickstarter crowdfunding and local marketing, and an indie author lab for pass holders. He also opens the Written Word Media Indie Author Survey — whose past results tied higher earnings to bigger backlists — and reports on OpenAI's bid to have a key market dilution study thrown out of court.
SelfPubCon26: Full Agenda and Speaker Line-Up Announced
The online Self-Publishing Advice Conference (#SelfPubCon26) is almost here! Mark your calendars for Saturday, October 17th to Sunday, October 18th,…
News Summary: OpenAI Moves to Strike AI Market Study; BISG Survey Shows Indies Use AI Mainly for Marketing
"Follow the money" is often a wise phrase when it comes to evaluating studies, and one I advocate regularly in this column (alongside the slightly more arch "they would say that"). Last week saw a rather unexpected development along those lines, as OpenAI decided they wanted to invoke the principle in relation to ongoing legal suits. Specifically, they have requested that courts set aside a study we've heard a lot about: Tuhin Chakrabarty's paper on the impact of generative AI on the book market.
Audio Interview: What Makes Poetry Editing Different from Editing Prose with Howard Lovy and Anna Davidson
On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, host Howard Lovy talks to poet and editor Anna Davidson about the art of editing poetry. They discuss what editors look for in a poem, why every word, line break, sound, and even blank space matters, and how editors can help poets strengthen their work without losing their individual voice. Anna also explains why trust between poet and editor is so important and how indie poets can find the editorial support that best fits their work.