Dan Holloway, Author at The Self-Publishing Advice Center

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.

Self-Publishing News: New AI Tools for Writers and Their Impact on the Industry

AI tools for writers are the focus of this week's self-publishing news, highlighting their potential to enable, enrich, and empower creatives. These developments bring both opportunities and concerns, as the impact of AI on the writing industry continues to evolve.

Self-Publishing News: Spotify’s New Basic Plan Strips Out Audiobooks

Over the past couple of years, I have reported a lot about Spotify’s entry into the audiobook market. This went from anticipation to rumor to normalization with the new subscription offering of fifteen hours of audiobook content per month, which listeners can split across any titles they want in the platform’s catalog.

Self-Publishing News: Cinema Cancels Screening of AI-Written Film

Cancel culture on the rise or institutions standing up for creatives? That’s the question that came to my mind as I read through the main story for today’s news about an AI-written film. We know many creatives feel an angst bordering on the existential about the use of AI. And nothing is as certain to raise hackles as moves that seem to endorse the artistic merit of entirely AI-generated works, especially when the AI is not really the point but just an everyday tool for production.

Self-Publishing News: Canadians Reading More Free Books Than Paid Across All Formats

More Canadians are now reading free books than paid ones across all formats. Remember what feels like many moons ago in a (just) pre-pandemic world when publishers started to get vociferous about libraries cannibalizing their sales and used it as a pretext to ramp up what they charged libraries for e-books? Today’s story feels like something that might have been leapt on as “evidence” during those fractious times.

Self-Publishing News: Meta Pauses Use of Posts for AI Training in EU and UK

It feels as though this week starts with some little victories, and those are always good things to share. I’ll start with one of the stories I featured very recently: the move by Meta to use people’s posts across its various platforms, including Instagram and Facebook, for AI training. If you recall, users of those platforms had to jump through considerable hoops—from finding the notification in the first place to composing an essay explaining why they didn’t want their creative output to train AI—to withdraw from the scheme.