Indie Author Fringe Close: Orna Ross

On this episode of the Self-Publishing News Podcast, Dan Holloway explores Oxford’s Word of the Year shortlist, highlighting trends like "romantasy" and "lore," which reflect shifting reader and writer habits. He also covers Tumblr’s new community feature for creators, TikTok’s legal battle over its U.S. ban, and Harvard’s AI training dataset project, which raises questions about Google Books’ involvement and public domain use.

Any process that improves by being trained on a set of materials will only ever get as good as the materials it’s trained on will allow. That’s as true of machine learning algorithms as it is of human beings. This week’s news that Harvard will release a dataset of 1 million volumes for AI training highlights efforts to address inequities caused by the need for high-quality training data.

The Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast is changing, and this episode gives you an inside look at the exciting new features planned for 2025. Join ALLi Director Orna Ross, Campaigns Manager Matty Dalrymple, and Content and Communications Manager Howard Lovy as they discuss the new name, revamped structure, and fresh approach to delivering expert insights across all seven processes of publishing. With contributions from advisors, expanded guest appearances, and a focus on fostering both virtual and in-person connections among indie authors, the podcast is set to provide even greater value for ALLi members and listeners.