On this episode of the Self-Publishing News Podcast, Dan Holloway covers Spotify’s expanded audiobook options, Meta’s refusal to support the EU’s AI code of conduct, and the fast-approaching deadline for the $100,000 Novel Prize. He also highlights new data suggesting the romantasy trend still has years of life, especially in emerging subgenres.
Listen to the Podcast: Spotify Expands Audiobook Access
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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 another week of Self-Publishing News. We have more Spotify updates for you this week to start with.
Spotify have been very much doubling down on their audiobooks offering and their desire to corner of the audiobooks market for readers and for writers.
The latest moves they have made in this area come with the addition of new options for plan holders. These apply in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein. It is obviously the intention to roll them out more widely across the board and inevitably, eventually, in the U.S.
So, what does this give you? Audiobooks Plus. This is basically an add-on for people who have existing plans. So, if you're an individual subscriber to Spotify Premium, you can get an extra 15 hours of listening each month. If you are the member of a DUO plan, which is a two-person plan, each member of the plan can now access 15 hours of audiobooks. The second user on the plan can access this through the plan owner purchasing an Audiobooks Plus add-on. If you are a family plan holder, which is up to six people, then the plan owner can buy additional Audiobooks Plus add-ons for each individual subscriber to their family plan.
This is inevitably going to be one of many announcements of additional options to get more people reading audiobooks, because as we saw from the most recent audiobook reports from Spotify, they are growing their listeners very rapidly but the listeners they have are also reading more.
So, we inferred that from the fact that the number of hours of audiobooks being listened to have increased by a greater percentage than the number of subscribers. So, they're clearly catering to what they see as an audiobook hungry audience, which at the moment, it looks like it is good news for writers with increased potential income from these subscriptions.
They continue to be offering, of course, hours based on being able to be distributed however you want to, so you don't have to use your, all of your 15 hours on the same book. You don't even have to use them one hour on each 15 books. You can use your 15 reading hours however you want, which they have always claimed a very indie-friendly policy designed to enable people to experiment without using all their allowance.
That's the news from Spotify.
Meta Refuses the European Union's AI Act Code of Conduct
Dan Holloway: We also have some news from Meta this week. Meta, we know has been in the news about AI recently. We had the ruling that was in Meta's favor, but hinted at some future actions that might not be so favorable. That was the ruling in the Authors against Meta case around Library Genesis use and so on.
Now, Meta have taken umbrage with the European Union.
So, the European Union's AI Act is coming into force shortly. This seeks to impose regulation on the tech industry. A lot of that regulation, of course, is around risk. We've talked at length in the past about the different models of risk that are associated with different kinds of AI. That's not necessarily particularly relevant to us, that's more about things as social manipulation, facial recognition, and so on. But another strand to the act is the protection of rights holders, which is something the European Union is very keen on. They were widely praised by publishers and writers and content creators for pushing back against big tech when drawing up the act.
They have released a code of conduct that sits alongside that legislation. It's a voluntary code of conduct, but it's a code of conduct that they want tech companies to sign up to. Meta have, no surprise, said that they are not going to sign up to it. They have said, and I quote, that the EU is “heading down the wrong path on AI.”
So, Meta don't like the fact that the European Union is out to protect the rights of copyright holders. They think that will slow down the progress of technology and all those tropes that we are very used to hearing from the tech industry.
The Novelry's $100,000 Prize
Dan Holloway: Onto slightly jollier things, the $100,000 prize for The Novelry’s closes at the end of July. So, you have just a few days to get in your entries for the next big story competition. A reminder, this is for anyone, and it will be assessed by genuine employees of The Novelry, then judged by a number of high-profile judges.
It's a $15 entry fee, and what they are looking for is the first 1500 words of your book.
It's aimed at discovering amazing new talent. I know there's a lot of amazing new talent out there. There are also a lot of you, I am pretty sure, who would benefit greatly from a hundred thousand dollars. I very much hope to be reporting when I report on the winner that it is an ALLi member. So, do get entering, you have a few days left to do so.
Romantasy Still Going Strong
Dan Holloway: Finally, talking of your future writing, a fascinating piece from Jane Friedman last week, who was speaking with Alex Newton from K-lytics, and they were looking at the romantasy trend.
This is something that feels like it's been everywhere for a long time now, and everyone must truly be saying, hasn't it run its course yet?
They actually looked and compared it to the billionaire romance market, which ran for 5 to 10 years. They didn't talk about sparkly vampires. Has the industry forgotten about sparkly vampires now, or is it actually due to be the next new trend again? But that was the first time I really became aware of how the cycle worked.
Of course, the sparkly vampire trend was in a way responsible for the billionaire romance trend, as 50 Shades of Gray was originally a fan fiction about Twilight.
Anyway, the long and the short of it is that doing the analysis suggested to them that there were several years left to run in the romantasy trend.
Interestingly, they talk about the potential for sub-genres to emerge and the fact that sub-genres are starting to emerge, and this is going to be something that offers opportunity for many years to come.
So, if you are out there wondering what to write about, wondering what to make your 1500 words about, why not try a sub-genre of romantasy?
On that positive and trendsetting note, I will leave you and very much look forward to speaking to you again at the same time next week.
