Self-Publishing News: Substack Syncs Up With Spotify
Spotify has been working on more tools for creators & consumers as part of its expansionist agenda to become the world’s one-stop audio shop
Self-Publishing News: UK Government AI Update and Society of Authors Survey Show Creators and Regulators Have Vastly Different AI Concerns
CMA published its latest update clarifying where the government’s concerns are. The Society of Authors’ recommendations are a world apart.
Self-Publishing News: Font Selection May Help Make Print More Sustainable
HarperCollins claims to save 245.6 million pages, equivalent to over 5000 trees to improve their sustainability credentials.
Self-Publishing News: Fairly Trained Certifies First Ethical AI Platform
Fairly Trade is a certification body for AI industries that was able to provide a stamp of approval for individual companies and platforms
Self-Publishing News: Draft2Digital Partners With Social Reading App Fable
Draft2Digital will be partnering in a retail distribution deal with the popular social reading app Fable.
Self-Publishing News: Storytel’s 2023 Report Throws Light on the Environmental Impact of Audiobooks
Environmental sustainability is very much on the publishing industry radar. It’s a subject I’ve reported on many times on ALLi's News Column. Here is Storytel's 2023 environmental report
Self-publishing News: AI Voice Cloning is (sort of) Here While Sam Bankman-Fried’s 25 Year Sentence Draws a Line Under FTX Scandal
AI has dominated the news so much in the past year, that it’s easy to forget the level of erstwhile hype about the last techno fad, NFTs (non fungible tokens)
Self-publishing News: 2023’s Book Figures From Around the World Shine a Light on Ongoing Trends
This week saw three sets of figures, each of which comes with an interesting tale about the state of book buying. And that has to be worth reporting on.
Self-Publishing News: The Growth of Romantasy Marked by Inclusion at Goodreads Awards
Romantasy (a portmanteau of, as you would imagine, romance and fantasy) is a relatively new name for a genre that feels as old as storytelling itself but which, like many of the oldest stories, much of the media would have you believe BookTok has made anew.
Self-Publishing News: Does Amazon’s Buy Button Mislead Digital Customers?
Amazon is misleading consumers over what it means to buy a digital product. The focus here is specifically on their practice when selling videos, though the “buy vs license” issue is as live when it comes to ebooks.
Self-Publishing News: Department of Justice Launches Antitrust Suit Against Apple Alleging Anti-Consumer Manipulation of its Market Dominance
The Department of Justice last week launched an antitrust lawsuit that claims Apple is using this dominant market position to lock people into its devices and software, stifling competition and innovation.
Self-Publishing News: Publishers Seek to Stop Internet Archive’s Appeal in Copyright Violation Case
The Internet Archive and the publishing industry have been at loggerheads for many years. Recently this concretised as the industry took legal action against the Internet Archive’s Open Library for copyright violation.