Dan Holloway, Author at The Self-Publishing Advice Center

Self-Publishing News: Sustainability Back in the Literary Spotlight

It has recently been impossible to ignore the fact that the literary and political worlds are intertwined in complex ways. While the geopolitical events at the heart of the most recent entanglements, from Ukraine to Gaza, are new and of our time, the nature of the entanglement remains timeless. Authors are fiercely independent and opinionated beings. We have to be. Yet the publishing industry is reliant on large corporations whose financial dealings are often at odds with many of those opinions. Sustainability back in publishing.

Self-Publishing News: Spotify Expands Audiobook Catalog, Dissecting E-Book Figures, and OverDrive Hits 4 Billion Downloads

We end this week with a round-up of some very interesting news and figures from the world of electronic books (e- and audio-). As we have already been talking about them this week, let’s start with the big news about Spotify. Their audiobook premium subscription now includes titles from the catalog of Bonnier UK. This is the UK division, but Bonnier, of course, is one of the Nordic giants of publishing. Interestingly, they seem to be joined on the Spotify list by Blackstone Publishing.

Self-Publishing News: Buyers Jostle to Bid for TikTok and X Finally Marks the Spot

It has been an interesting week for the social media platforms so many of us rely on for both creative communities and connecting with readers. As buyers jostle to bid for TikTok and X finally marks the spot, these developments are making waves in the book community and beyond.

Self-Publishing News: OpenAI Disbands Risk Team as Microsoft Faces $1B EU Fine Related to AI Risk

This week’s AI-related news falls under the umbrella of “What could possibly go wrong?” (or perhaps more pertinently, “What were they thinking?”). The main news is that OpenAI disbands risk team.

Self-Publishing News: Nonfiction Sales Struggle as Romantasy Goes from Strength to Strength

It’s been a while since I ran a story on publishing figures, but I couldn’t resist this one. The reason is that next Thursday I publish my next nonfiction book about creative thinking. What better time to do so than when there’s a headline in Publishers Weekly announcing that nonfiction sales are struggling?

Self-Publishing News: OpenAI Unveils New Features for ChatGPT-4 and UK Publishers Take on Government Over AI

This week’s big AI news is OpenAI’s demonstration of new features for its ChatGPT-4 platform, which the company emphasized does not yet amount to ChatGPT-5. The announcement of GPT-4o, available to all users, including free users, and as a desktop app, was particularly notable.

Self-Publishing News: OpenAI Paper Hints at How it Plans to Compensate Creators

Remember last week when I virtually popped a champagne cork at having gone a whole seven days without an AI story? Well, er, the reverie is over. But I hope the absence has left you wanting because this is a story you really need to read. Find out more about the OpenAI paper.

Self-Publishing News: Legal Changes Impacting Authors, from Noncompete Agreements to Payment Regulations

This feels like a week of legal and related stories. The big news, which I reported on earlier, is, of course, the move closer to a TikTok ban in the United States. But a few other stories caught my attention. First up is the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) voting to ban noncompete agreements.

Self-Publishing News: US Passes Law That Might Ban TikTok

The United States’ longstanding quest to ban TikTok took a significant step forward in the past week. Headlines of the app’s imminent disappearance remain, however, somewhat premature.

Self-publishing News: IBPA Maps out Current Author Publishing Paths and Booksellers Seek New Models

The IBPA has launched its outline of eight publishing models, an interesting companion piece to Jane Friedman’s different publishing models guide.

Self-Publishing News: Meta Considered Buying Simon & Schuster to Train AI

The New York Times received leaks from a former employee at Facebook’s parent Meta that show the company were spending a lot of time at the start of 2023 discussing the possibility of buying Simon & Schuster. The purpose of the acquiring Simon & Schuster would have been to acquire the rights to the catalogue so as to use it for AI training.