Dan Holloway

This author has written 931 articles
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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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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EU Tariff On Small Packages Hits Book Industry

News Summary: EU Tariff on Small Packages Hits Book Industry; Commonwealth Prize Winner Stands despite AI Controversy

Tariffs have been in the news a lot in the past few years, and this week saw them return, to the anger of the book industry. From July 1, the European Union is introducing a 3 euro tariff on all small packages sent into the union. Small items worth under 150 euros had previously been exempted from tariffs under the "de minimis" principle (which I guess basically equates to "too small to worry about").
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Rakuten Kobo

News Podcast: Rakuten Kobo Took a ‘Book Community First’ Approach to AI — and Rejected 45 Percent of Submissions

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway reports on a revealing piece by Rakuten Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyn, who explains why Kobo rejected 45 percent of self-published submissions in 2025 — most of them suspected AI-generated — and frames the decision as a "book community first" choice over a "readers first" approach. Dan also returns to the Commonwealth Short Story Prize controversy, where organizers have taken a strikingly different and very human approach to AI detection: gathering notes, drafts, and timestamped evidence from authors rather than relying on AI detection tools. He closes with news of a BISG and BookNet Canada survey on AI in publishing that indie authors in the US and Canada are encouraged to take part in.
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Librarians Propose Fairer E-book Pricing Model

News Summary: Librarians Propose Fairer E-book Pricing Model; Commonwealth Prize Verifies Winners without AI Detectors

Following on from recent discussion in this column about what it costs libraries to buy the license for e-books, thanks to Jane Friedman for linking to this fascinating article which outlines exactly what libraries would like to see in this regard. What it attempts to describe is what librarians actually mean when they call for fairer pricing from big publishers.
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BISG Launches 2026 AI Survey

News Summary: BISG Launches 2026 AI Survey; 250 UK Publishers Join Collective AI Licensing Scheme

It's been a while since there was an opportunity to get involved in a good old survey. This week, we start a mini roundup of AI-related news with an invitation (to some of you, at least) to get involved in a survey from BISG (Book Industry Study Group) and BookNet Canada. The survey is on "AI Use Across the North American Book Industry 2026," and the call is for anyone involved in the publishing industry in North America (by which they mean Canada and the US).
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Suspected AI Content

News Summary: Kobo CEO Reveals 45% of Self-Published Submissions Rejected for Suspected AI Content

I missed this story when it first came out a fortnight ago (I think because the title of the article by Rakuten Kobo's Russ Tamblyn is decidedly oblique, so I just moved on). Fortunately the substantive content has generated several more helpfully titled spinout columns since then, so I'm circling back to the original. A single sentence is at the heart of this piece, and it contains a figure that provides additional context for much of the recent debate over AI-generated content. Tamblyn is speaking in his capacity as president and CEO at Rakuten Kobo.
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BookFunnel Launches WooCommerce Plugin

News Podcast: BookFunnel Launches WooCommerce Plugin; Substack Opens Sponsorships; New Book Carbon Calculator; Kindle’s Story So Far Goes Live

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway covers a week dominated by new tools for authors and readers alike. He reports on BookFunnel's new WooCommerce plugin for self-hosted WordPress sites, Substack's rollout of paid sponsorships for writers with 100 or more paid subscribers, and the launch of the Book Carbon Calculator, which lets print-focused authors generate a certified carbon footprint for their titles. He closes with the long-awaited launch of Kindle's Story So Far feature, an AI-generated recap tool that raises familiar questions about training data and copyright.
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