Dan Holloway, Author at The Self-Publishing Advice Center

Unbound Goes into Administration, Leaving Writers Wondering About Payments: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

This is a sad column to write. But perhaps not an unexpected one, given how little the company in question has featured in these articles in the past few years. A decade ago, when Unbound was still a relatively new venture, I was very excited to see one of its titles, Richard Kingsnorth’s The Wake, on the Booker Prize longlist and Goldsmiths Prize shortlist. Sadly, that was to be a high-water mark for the venture, which went into administration last week.

Spotify Launches New Program for Short Audiobooks: Self-Publishing with ALLi Featuring Dan Holloway

On this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Dan Holloway covers Spotify’s new publishing program for indie authors, which focuses on short audiobooks in popular genres like romance, mystery, and sci-fi. He also discusses the latest AI-generated fiction making waves in the literary world, including reactions from authors and critics to OpenAI’s new model.

AI Wrote a Story; People Had Feelings! Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

AI has been writing things for a long time now. Whatever that means. For several years, large numbers of online articles have been produced by machines. And dabblings in poetry and fictional prose are hardly unheard of. But this week, OpenAI’s Sam Altman released something written by what he describes as “a new model that is good at creative writing.” He also stated he didn’t yet know how or where the model would be released, but of course, writers have had thoughts and feelings aplenty.

Spotify for Authors Expands with New Short Audiobook Program: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

Spotify has launched a new program aimed directly at indie authors. For a few months, I’ve been reporting on Spotify’s increasing appetite for courting indie authors. The Spotify for Authors platform has been adding tools. And recently, the streaming giant announced a deal with ElevenLabs to allow the firm’s AI-generated narration to be used for audiobooks, which indie authors could then upload through Spotify for Authors.

Christie’s AI Art Auction and Mistral’s OCR Tool Spark Debate: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

When the least teeth-on-edge AI story of the week is a sale at the world’s leading auction house, Christie’s, that consists solely of AI art, you know you might want to go and run your nails down a blackboard for some light relief (and who knows, you could sell it as performance art).

ALLi Authors Sweep 2025 Selfies Awards, Libro.fm Sees Membership Surge, and Christie’s Holds First AI Art Auction: Self-Publishing with ALLi Featuring Dan Holloway

On this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Dan Holloway reports from the London Book Fair on the 2025 Selfies Awards, where ALLi authors won in all three categories. He discusses a surge in new members for audiobook platform Libro.fm, the rollout of a "look inside" feature for indie bookstores, and the first major auction of AI-generated art at Christie's.

ALLi Authors Win Big at the Selfies Awards 2025: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

It feels like just yesterday that I reported on the very first Selfies Awards, won by Jane Davis’s Smash All the Windows. It turns out it was more than half a decade ago, during which time the award dedicated to finding the very best books by indie authors has expanded into three categories: fiction, children’s fiction, and general nonfiction.

Libro.fm Sees Rapid Boom as Indie Bookstores Grow in Confidence: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

The article in Publishers Weekly, where I first came across this story, says that Libro.fm has a similar style to Bookshop.org (before I get too sanctimonious, I might add that a search reveals I said the same thing in an article in 2023). In actual fact, of course, Libro.fm has considerably more history than Bookshop.org. It’s also not “similar.” It’s actually Bookshop.org’s audiobook partner, enabling listeners to buy audiobooks from independent retailers.

March 11, 2025
Dan Holloway
News
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Publishers Face Backlash Over AI Rights in Author Contracts: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

The ongoing case against Meta has highlighted the conversations publishers have and haven’t had with their authors about licensing AI rights.

AI-Generated Audiobooks Gain Momentum with Eleven Labs and Spotify Partnership: Self-Publishing with ALLi Featuring Dan Holloway

On this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Dan Holloway examines major developments in AI-generated audiobooks. Eleven Labs has launched direct audiobook publishing, offering authors new distribution options and competitive royalties. The company has also expanded its speech-to-text services, allowing authors to transcribe and produce audiobooks seamlessly. Meanwhile, OpenAI's video-generation tool Sora is now available in the UK and EU, and Twitch has expanded monetization features, creating new opportunities for authors to engage with audiences.

TikTok and Twitch Expand Monetization; Eleven Labs Launches Speech-to-Text: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

This week’s news seems to be all about tools that could help authors make more money. We started the week by looking at Eleven Labs’ big move into dealing directly with authors to create AI-generated e-books. Today, we are looking at a couple of other tools that caught my eye over the past week, including TikTok and Twitch, both of which are expanding opportunities for creators to monetize their work.

Eleven Labs Expands AI Audiobook Tools; Spotify Opens to AI Narration: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

Eleven Labs is the best-known company working on the production of AI-generated voices. And in the past week, they have been busy translating that technology into tools for indie authors to use to create audiobooks.