News Archives

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: Booksellers Pile on Amazon, Everyone Piles on Apple

It won’t have escaped your notice that Amazon is currently, as it regularly is, subject to an antitrust complaint from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The complaint, as it stands, alleges that Amazon uses its giant market share to squeeze out competition, damaging the business ecosystem and preventing rivals from competing with it through price manipulation. There is also an interesting allegation that its own price-cutting damages sellers by reducing their margins to wafer thin.

Self-Publishing News: UK Online Safety Act’s Impact on Content and ByteDance’s Challenge to US Legislation

So far this month, we have seen developments in two stories I’ve covered before that sit together under the heading, “Laying Down the Law for Tech Platforms.” I’ll start close to home here in the UK with the latest in the ongoing saga of the Online Safety Act. This is the UK’s legislation that seeks to protect vulnerable people, especially children, while they are online, by stopping them from encountering material that is “legal but harmful.” The recently implemented act required technology firms to take steps to ensure children were better protected online than adults.

Self-Publishing News: Indie Author Marks New Book with a No-AI Guarantee

OK, bear with me. This no-AI guarantee story is the second AI story for the week. I hope I will round off with something completely different. But because of the unpredictable nature of the news, I cannot promise. Which is, of course, a ham-handed segue into the story.

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: Readers of All Ages Turn to YA Fiction for Solace

As so often happens, this week’s weekend roundup has seen a rather nice theme emerge. That theme is something of interest to indies, who write a lot in this area. That theme is YA literature.

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.