On this episode of the Self-Publishing News Podcast, Dan Holloway explains how a major legal ruling against Apple is changing the landscape for in-app purchases, with Kindle, Patreon, and Spotify now enabling direct book sales on iOS. He also covers a call for cooperation between publishers and tech companies from the Association of American Publishers, and reports strong Q1 growth in audiobook subscriptions from Nordic platform Storytel.
Listen to the Podcast: Apple Ruling Opens iOS to Direct Book Sales
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About the Host
Dan Holloway is a novelist, poet, and spoken word artist. He is the MC of the performance arts show The New Libertines, He competed at the National Poetry Slam final at the Royal Albert Hall. His latest collection, The Transparency of Sutures, is available on Kindle.
Read the Transcripts
Dan Holloway: Hello and welcome to what could be a very spectacular self-publishing news this week. On that note, with apologies for any disruption, disturbance or loud noises in the background, after about a month of dry weather, we are in the middle of the most almighty storm here in the south of England. So, if I jump or skip or stop, that's what's going on.
Somewhat less cataclysmic events actually in the news.
Apple Forced to Accept In-App Payments in New Ruling
Dan Holloway: The main news over the past week has focused on the legal ruling against Apple. This is in the case of Epic Games against Apple. For some background, Apple, as you are probably aware, has taken a cut of all in-app sales that are made through any app downloaded in the app store.
This currently amounts to around 27%. It basically means that either people who buy things in app through apps for iOS pay more, or the companies who have developed those apps get less and Apple takes a cut, which does them very nicely.
Back in 2020, Epic Games took issue with this on behalf of Fortnite, which was at the time about as big as anything in the media world got. Finally, fast forward five years later, we are seeing some rulings rolled out in this case.
Specifically, it has been ruled that Apple need to accept apps that allow direct purchases in app without taking a cut from them. This ruling came about probably two weeks ago now and what we have been seeing ever since is the consequences of it.
So, the main consequence that actually will affect readers and will affect us, is that the Kindle app for iOS now has a “buy book” button.
Previously, if you were reading on your iPhone or on your iPad through the Kindle app you couldn't buy books, you would have to go to the web version of Amazon and buy from there. This makes it much easier for people to buy books through their Kindle or through the Kindle app, which is good news for us as authors who do a lot of sales that way.
Other things that will affect us include Patreon. You can now make payments direct to creators through the iOS Patreon app. This is likely to open up all kinds of possibilities for fans who have iPhones and iPads, and do everything that way, to pay the people whose work they love without Apple taking a cut, or just through apps that they haven't been able to use before because of disputes with Apple.
The other big knock on for this will be Spotify. Spotify, along with Epic Games and Fortnite, have resubmitted a whole new version of the app to the app store based on these new rules that will allow people directly in app to top up. If they're premium subscribers, it will allow them to top up their 15 hours with additional hours of audio books. It will also allow them to buy audio books direct from Spotify through the iOS Spotify app if it is accepted into the app store.
So, that's potentially huge news. Apple, of course have filed an appeal. They've also asked for a stay in the interim so that while the appeal is being heard they don't have to go ahead and follow the judgment. Nonetheless, at the moment they do have to, and certainly Spotify, Amazon and Patreon and others think that it is worth their while pursuing that route.
Big changes to the way that Apple and the App store works that could benefit many of us. So, that's some good news.
Association of American Publishers Issue AI Plea to Tech Industry
Dan Holloway: There is some AI news going around. That is the statement on AI by the Association of American Publishers. If you read Mark Williams, as many of you will, I'm sure, as I certainly do avidly, Mark has always portrayed the Association of American Publishers as being much more firmly pro-tech than organizations in the UK.
This week, however, they have really taken an interesting stance and are framing the situation as war between publishers and tech. The AP, Association of American Publishers President, Maria Pallante has issued a plea for the tech industry and the publishing industry to work together as what she calls symbiotic superpowers, saying that actually they should not be at war as they appear to be, they should be working together because, and this is the longest established and used argument, AI is only as good as the data it is trained on.
If the tech industry takes content such that there is no incentive for people to create it anymore, the AI that results from it will very soon lose its usefulness and there will become a law of diminishing returns, so no one will benefit. She has called for cooperation in the light of that.
Audiobooks Continue to Perform Well
Dan Holloway: We will end with some more good news, that is that audio books seem to be continuing to do well. We have the Q1 figures this week from StoryTel, which is the OG of the Nordic audio book subscription services. They now have two and a half million paid subscribers. They had a revenue last year of nearly a hundred million dollars, which was a 7% increase over the same period last year.
Audio books still seem to be doing exceptionally well, and that's even outside of Spotify, and I'm sure that some, especially Daniel Eck at Spotify, would claim that a portion of that at least is what he would call the Spotify effect, which is that Spotify's entry into the audio book market has simply widened the market for everyone.
Whether or not that's the case, I'm not sure is proven. But it is still the case that audio books are doing exceptionally well. That feels like a week with quite a lot of positive news and quite a lot of potential for future positive news. I very much hope that I get to share more positive news with you next week, and I very much look forward to speaking to you again then.
I hope Howard is going to tell me that there hasn't been massive electrical interference that has ruined the quality of this recording because there has certainly been a soundtrack going on here in Oxford. So, thank you all and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.
