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Alliance Of Independent Authors | Self-Publishing News May 8, 2025 | With Dan Holloway

New Novelry Prize Offers £75,000 for First Three Pages; BISG Honors Spotify: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

There is a new prize on the block, and it comes with a truly substantial purse. As always when bringing news of a new prize, I have checked the terms and conditions thoroughly to make sure it is likely to be relevant to a decent number of readers. And the eligibility for the new Novelry Prize seems fairly straightforward. Anyone who is unagented (and with some standard territorial exceptions) is able to enter for the chance to grab the £75,000 award.
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Alliance Of Independent Authors | Self-Publishing News | May 3, 2025 | With Dan Holloway

Parents Reading to Children Declining; AudioNext Conference Highlights Audiobook Trends: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

It is clearly the season for reading surveys. Indeed, this story comes so hot on the heels of the reading habits survey that I had to check it wasn’t a different angle on the same survey. But no, this time we have a survey from HarperCollins and the book data people at Nielsen. They carried out a survey not about the habits of those who read to themselves but about how parents read—or don’t—to their children. The focus: parents reading to children, and how that behavior is changing.
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Alliance Of Independent Authors | Self-Publishing News | May 1, 2025 | With Dan Holloway

Surveys Show Reading Habits Shifting in the UK and New Zealand: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

If you are ever inclined to think the cultural landscape is spiraling out of control into uncharted territory, it can be a grounding experience to stop and actually look at the headlines. And realize that some things really don’t change. Such as pundits pontificating that the novel is dead, or that people’s reading habits aren’t what they used to be “back in my day.”
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Alliance Of Independent Authors | Self-Publishing News | April 29, 2025 | With Dan Holloway

Independent Bookstore Day Celebrates Growing Support for Indies; Linktree Expands Creator Tools: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

It has now passed, but as I write, it is Independent Bookstore Day. This is run annually (I believe on the last Saturday in April) by the American Booksellers Association. Sixteen hundred stores are taking part across America, and the day is a celebration of the important part they play both in the literary and the wider community.
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Alliance Of Independent Authors | Self-Publishing News | April 26, 2025 | With Dan Holloway

Oscars Open to AI-Generated Films and Literary Events Make a Comeback: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

It was inevitable that AI would poke its nose in before the week drew to a close, and here we are (though we also have a delightfully analog story as a counterbalance). You will recall that the Grammys recently announced they would permit music that AI had played a part in creating to be eligible for their awards. This week, the Oscars followed suit, announcing that AI-generated films will be eligible for top honors.
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Alliance Of Independent Authors | Self-Publishing News | April 24, 2025 | With Dan Holloway

Patreon Livestreaming and Book Box Publishers Highlight Creator-Led Trends: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

An increasing number of my favorite online creatives are moving more of their content behind a paywall, and new tools like Patreon livestreaming are helping them do it. This applies to YouTube channels, and it also applies to writers and bloggers. Creators are increasingly discovering that the OG of internet art, the 1,000 true fans model, is still a viable way to avoid the twin perils of the algorithm and changing payment models that come with relying on ad revenue, general fee pools, and other forms of reliance on wider platforms.
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Amazon’s TikTok Bid

Amazon’s TikTok Bid Sparks Booksellers’ Opposition; Publishers File Brief Against Meta: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

We end the week with a round-up that begins with a story I seem to have missed when it first broke at the start of April. It’s an interesting and highly relevant twist in the TikTok ownership saga. You will recall that we are currently in a ninety-day extension to the time at which the TikTok ban is scheduled to come into force. The condition for avoiding the ban is that TikTok in the US is sold to a company not based in China and uses a different algorithm from the one the ByteDance-owned company currently operates everywhere it is available.
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Mediascout

Ingram Mediascout Offers Film Rights Exposure for Indie Authors: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

In my day job in higher education, I am, like many others, winding down for the holiday season. But in the book world, we seem to have stumbled into a particularly busy time for news. So expect more than one story from each column this week. I begin with particularly exciting news for indie authors looking to extract the maximum return from all of the rights they own in their work. Ingram has just gone live with its Mediascout program.
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Canva Unveils AI Tools

Canva Unveils AI Tools, Including Image Generation; Law Professors Challenge Meta’s Copyright Use: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

This week’s AI news focuses on two issues of great interest to indie authors. I will start with Canva. In part because I haven’t talked about them for a while. And partly because this news picks up from the last time I did talk about them. Which was last year, when they made a lot of people unhappy by increasing the price of its Pro offering from a flat $120 per year for a team license to $10 a month per team member.
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Books Exempt From Latest US Tariffs

Books Exempt from Latest US Tariffs, but Printing Materials May Be Hit: Self-Publishing News with Dan Holloway

You will probably have noticed an absence of reporting on what has been an almost constant in the regular news media: the impact of the various new international trade tariffs. That is because there has been considerable lack of clarity on the impact this would have on the book business and our particular corner of it. This week we learned a lot more. Tl;dr: books are exempt from the latest round of tariffs imposed on trade imports into the US.
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