Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Michelle M. Pillow

Inspirational Indie Author Interview: Michelle M. Pillow Builds a Lasting Career Through Romance and Reader Connection

My ALLi author guest this episode is Michelle M. Pillow, a bestselling romance author who has published more than one hundred books during a career spanning more than twenty years. She talks about her early love of reading, the unexpected path that led her to indie publishing, the fictional worlds she has built, and the challenge of managing a large backlist while staying connected to her readers. 
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KDP Raises Its Top Royalty Ceiling

News Podcast: KDP Raises Its Top Royalty Ceiling; Bookshop.org Launches UK Audiobooks; Dystomance Is the New Romantasy

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway covers three positive stories: KDP raising the upper price limit for its top royalty bracket from $9.99 to $12.99, effective July 7th; Bookshop.org launching audiobooks for UK readers on a £12.99 monthly subscription designed to deepen ties between readers and their local indie bookstores; and the rise of dystomance — the blend of dystopia and romance trending on BookTok, with a self-published title helping drive the wave.
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How AI Is Changing Book Cover Design

Audio Interview: How AI Is Changing Book Cover Design, with Howard Lovy and Pablo Yáñez

On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, host Howard Lovy talks to Pablo Yáñez González, founder of BeYourCover, about how artificial intelligence is changing book cover design. A professional book cover photographer for more than fifteen years before building AI tools, Yáñez explains where AI can help authors create marketable covers, where it still falls short, and why genre conventions matter more than many writers realize. He also discusses the ethics of AI, the continuing value of human designers, and how authors can decide which approach is right for their books.
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What Librarians Look For

News Summary: ALA Meeting Reveals What Librarians Look for When Ordering Indie Titles

Earlier this month saw the annual meeting of the American Library Association (ALA). Long-time indie supporter Guy LeCharles Gonzalez was there and reported back some invaluable insights. It follows a number of items featuring libraries and the issue of pricing, specifically the way librarians believe e-books should be priced for library usage. This time, the main point of interest is on discovery, and two related questions: what are librarians looking for from indie titles? And how can indie authors make their titles easier for librarians looking for those things to find (and, crucially, to go ahead and order once they have been found)?
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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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