On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway reports on a week dominated by good news for readers and indie authors alike. He covers new social reading partnerships — Kobo with StoryGraph, and Everand with Fable — that let readers track, share, and experience books together. He reports on the American Booksellers Association's announcement that indie bookstore membership has hit its highest level since the 1990s, driven largely by single-genre stores focused on romance, fantasy, and romantasy. And he ends with a personal highlight: a new romantasy bookstore called Bad Girl Books is opening in Oxford — in the former Albion Beatnik space — with a specific welcome for self-published authors.
Listen to the Podcast: Social Reading Partnerships Expand
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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.
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Read the Transcript
Dan Holloway: Hello and welcome to another Self-Publishing News podcast. This week the news feels like it's all about customization, niche, and interesting ways of serving readers. We start with two stories I touched on at the end of last week — about a particular way of serving readers' needs: syncing your reading or listening platform with social reading spaces. This follows on from the Spotify Page Match story and the idea of serving readers who want to read in different formats and different ways.
First: Kobo have partnered with a platform called StoryGraph. StoryGraph is a social reading tracker. For those of you who aren't runners, I apologize for the analogy, but as a runner the best way I can describe it is that it's a bit like Strava. It's a personal way to track your progress through books, work out what you're reading next, what you've read so far this year, maintain your to-be-read list — but it's also a way to share what you're reading, how far you've got, follow your friends' reading habits, find recommendations based on what your friends are reading, and go on reading challenges together. Just as you might challenge each other to run 100 miles in a month, you might challenge each other to read a book together over the next month and follow each other's progress.
This is a partnership that clearly recognizes that readers increasingly want to read together and follow what other people are reading. Book clubs have been around as long as books have been around, and the water-cooler conversation about what you're reading together is nothing new. But what's interesting is that this isn't the only such partnership in the news this week.
The other is a partnership between Everand and Fable. Everand is a strange name — but both Everand and Fable are owned by Scribd. Scribd, of course, is one of the very first digital book platforms and the first to introduce tiered subscription programs. It's not been without controversy over the years, usually around copyright, but it's now a more conventional distribution platform. Last year, Scribd — whose platform is now branded as Everand — also acquired Fable, a social reading app and tracker. You can do essentially the same kinds of things there as with Kobo and StoryGraph: follow what people are reading, track your own progress, share it all.
What makes this particularly interesting is that because both platforms are owned by the same company, they've bundled them together. For $11.99 you get a single subscription that gives you access across both Fable+ and Everand — so as you read in Everand, it updates your Fable profile automatically. It's a similar instinct to what Spotify is doing with Page Match: thinking very carefully about what readers actually want from their reading experience and building the product around those habits.
Indie Bookstores Hit Their Highest Membership Since the 1990s
That brings me to a very interesting set of figures from the American Booksellers Association, and I'll explain the connection in a moment. For many years I've been reporting on how the ABA — which links together the cool indie bookstores across America — has been talking about plummeting membership numbers. At one point the question was: when Indie Bookstore Day comes around next year, will there be any stores left to mark the occasion? Indie bookstores in the US have been in decline for years and years.
But this year the ABA has announced that its membership grew in 2025 by more than 500, reaching 3,417 member stores. Doing the math quickly: that's more than 16 percent — a one-sixth increase. That is a huge rate of growth. And as the ABA claims in their press release, it's the highest level of membership since the 1990s. That really is something to celebrate.
One of the things highlighted as driving this growth is the rise of single-genre bookstores dedicated to a very particular readership. These are not the big box stores trying to cater to everyone — these are bookstores that really know their readers and want to serve them in every way, whether that's cafes, meet-the-author events, book clubs, or other experiences. The genres particularly cited as driving the increase will not surprise you: romance, fantasy, and romantasy. Specifically mentioned in the release are The Spicy Librarian in Denver and The Flutter romance bookstore in Austin, Texas.
Oxford Gets Its Own Romantasy Bookstore — and It Welcomes Indies
Interestingly, I had been wondering about single-genre bookstores and how successful they could be, when I walked past the old Albion Beatnik Bookstore in Oxford. What used to be the Albion Beatnik — one of the most celebrated indie bookstores in the UK — the owner decided he'd had enough and went off to start various presses and other exciting endeavors. That space now has a notice in the window announcing it is about to open as a single-genre romantasy bookstore called Bad Girl Books. Do check them out — that's my plug for my home city.
What makes this particularly exciting for us is that front and center in the announcement is a statement saying they welcome all romantasy authors and fans, with a particular emphasis on self-published authors. That is very good to see. It's a clear recognition — as we've seen in the BookTok conversation — that readers want to double down on a particular genre. They want to know everything there is about it, immerse themselves in it, love the physical books associated with it, and they don't really care who publishes the books. They just want books that do what they want them to do. And they are very willing to support self-published authors. It's absolutely great to see bookstores emerging that genuinely realize there is a valuable need to be served by incorporating indie authors into what they do.
So really interesting to see two sets of big stories this week all around how to serve readers in very particular ways — ways that actually look at how readers want to read, consume books, share them with friends, and incorporate them into their lives. I'll leave you on that very positive note and look forward to speaking to you at the same time next week. Thank you.
