Dan Holloway, Author at The Self-Publishing Advice Center

Self-Publishing News: Universal Basic Income for Creatives and Amazon Literary Partnerships Expand to Ireland

Universal Basic Income is at the center of one of the two stories I want to highlight this week, both of which revolve around supporting creative work. While this story isn’t directly about AI, it uses an AI angle in its original reporting because that is zeitgeisty. AI is currently seen as an existential threat by many, taking over jobs they rely on for their survival.

Self-Publishing News: New AI Platforms Aim to Balance Copyright Rights for Creators

This week’s selection of AI-related stories has an interesting common theme centered around new AI platforms. As we’re increasingly seeing, it’s a theme that reflects the fact that this technology is now settling into becoming a part of the landscape, and everyone concerned is finding ways to navigate that landscape. For some, these developments will be a welcome pragmatism and seriousness after endless hype. For others, they will be a worrying normalization of the until-recently unthinkable.

Self-Publishing News: Audible Has a New Royalty Model

“More opportunities for authors and publishers.” That’s how Audible describes its new royalty model in the headline of its press release. I have seen authors variously offer a cautious welcome for a model that claims to have arisen from discussions with ours and be part of a “creator-centric ethos” and scratch their heads to try and figure out what it actually means in practice. Before I get to that detail, I will say that the emphasis placed in the release on transparency is welcome.

Self-Publishing News: AI Research Reveals Impact on Creativity and New US Bill to Protect Copyright

AI has been quiet in the news of late. But this week, there is a suitably chunky round-up of stories related to a technology that is increasingly ubiquitous. There has been a lot of debate about whether generative AI is good or bad for creatives, and whether creatives should, and increasingly do, use generative AI in their practice. But there hasn’t been much discussion (as opposed to opining) about whether or not it actually makes you more creative. This is, of course, not surprising, as the technology is so new that there hasn’t been much time yet for accurate academic studies on the matter.

Self-Publishing News: 2024 Kindle Storyteller UK Launches and RBMedia Expands Audiobook Offering for Indies

It’s clearly Amazon competition time. Last week (reminder to enter!) they launched the first-ever Vellys, with $62,000 in prizes for US-based serialized fiction authors. Now in the UK, we have the flagship Kindle Storyteller Award. This has a £20,000 first prize and is open to books published through KDP between the start of May and the end of August. Books must be available as an e-book and a paperback, and must be enrolled in KDP Select until the closing date at the end of August.

Self-Publishing News: Spotify is Slowly Building an Audio Social Network to Connect Creators and Listeners

Is Spotify building an Audio Social Network? It’s interesting that Spotify has nudged its way back into the news of late with a couple of moves relevant to writers. First, there was the decoupling of audiobooks from its music streaming by allowing listeners to select between a premium service that included fifteen hours of audiobooks and a dollar-cheaper basic service that didn’t. Now they are supporting comments on podcasts, and TechCrunch has a fascinating article suggesting that may get rolled out across all audio.

Self-Publishing News: First International Summit of Audio Publishers to Take Place in September

It feels rather extraordinary that this year, when the format has become so established that we have seen a decade of double-digit growth and sales that now rank alongside e-books, sees the first staging of the International Summit of Audio Publishers.

Self-Publishing News: Australia’s Largest Online Bookseller Booktopia Goes into Administration

Thank you to our Australia ambassador, Jacqui Lane, for bringing this story to our attention. Booktopia is Australia's largest online bookseller, and it is, sadly, seemingly on the verge of collapse. A fascinating article on the academic longform platform The Conversation goes into the full details, why it matters, and what it means.

Self-Publishing News: Amazon Launches Vellys Awards with $62,000 Prize for Serial Fiction

It’s always a pleasure to share some encouraging news that will pique the interest and get the juices flowing for a large number of you. And I get to round out this week with the news of a competition that’s open to everyone based in the United States. The Vellys, as Amazon would like us to know it affectionately, is a brand-new competition based on its Kindle Vella format. Entries are open until August 20. Prizes total $62,000 and include a first-time author award of $15,000 and a grand prize of $25,000.

Self-Publishing News: Wattpad Parent Company Webtoon Receives Nearly $3B Valuation in IPO

Last week, we saw another reminder that there are actually bigger parts of our world than the traditional publishers, including Wattpad. Remember when Simon & Schuster was up for sale, and the valuation was just north of $2 billion? I’m fairly sure I commented at the time on the fact that although we think of the big traditional publishers as the behemoths of our industry, the figures didn’t stack up.

Self-Publishing News: TikTok and Indie Booksellers Challenge Amazon Prime Day

Welcome to July. While the start of the month technically represents just the very beginning of the second half of the year, from here on in it can feel like one endless sale season. It kicks off with Amazon Prime Day. But this year, the everything store isn’t being left to own the field of early season sales. Two very different challengers will be of note to the writing community.

Self-Publishing News: Authors Equity Announces First Titles

Reporting on a new publishing model is always interesting. And the news from Author Equity coincides with the Readmagine conference in Spain, where it announced the first titles on its roster, so it makes an ideal story.