Let’s start with the celebratory news. The shortlists for the first British Audiobook Awards (which are styling themselves as the “Speakies”) have just been released. The categories reflect many of those in the more established Audie Awards across the pond. As is often the case with audiobooks, in some instances it’s tricky to tell which titles are self-published, especially in the “originals” category.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
But one shortlistee stands out. Longtime friend of ALLi and all-around indie hero L. J. Ross has been shortlisted in the crime and thriller category for Panic, the fifth in her Alexander Gregory series, which Ross published as an audiobook through W. F. Howes, the audiobook arm of the giant R. B. Media. Huge congratulations to Ross—I will be cheering her on when the winners are announced in November.
TikTok’s US Future
Last week we came one step closer to finding out what the future of TikTok in the US might actually be. An executive order approved the transfer of TikTok’s US operation from its current owner, ByteDance, to a US-run consortium that includes software giant Oracle. The announcement apparently has the approval of China’s President Xi Jinping. Full details are still to emerge, but for now it looks like it’s still worth authors spending time thinking about how to use the various reading communities of BookTok.
A Life Told Through Chess
Finally, a fascinating project that caught my eye: the Universal Turing Machine. This project approaches written memoir in a different way. Presenting life as a chessboard, with each of the 64 squares representing a year, the project invites readers to explore the 1,000 words behind each year not in a linear fashion but by making a series of knight moves.
And from writers, the invitation is to submit their own words. Anyone can submit, and their work will be copyedited for free and appear on the project’s website. As the title suggests, the aim of the project is to demonstrate the continuing presence and importance of something uniquely human—the human life itself—in an age of AI.
Thoughts or further questions on this post or any self-publishing issue?
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