Events Calendar

Anthropic Settlement

News Summary: Judge Issues Final Approval for $1.5 Billion Anthropic Settlement; Copyright Office Proposes Fee Increase

For those of you waiting to receive some kind of compensation in the Anthropic lawsuit (and indeed those who are waiting on other potential lawsuits and wondering if anything other than hot air is ever likely to come of them), the wait is one step closer to being over. A judge has issued the final approval for the $1.5 billion settlement in the class action case of Bartz v. Anthropic. This will see each of the 91.3 percent of titles in the eligible class whose owners came forward receive payment.
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What Librarians Look For

News Summary: ALA Meeting Reveals What Librarians Look for When Ordering Indie Titles

Earlier this month saw the annual meeting of the American Library Association (ALA). Long-time indie supporter Guy LeCharles Gonzalez was there and reported back some invaluable insights. It follows a number of items featuring libraries and the issue of pricing, specifically the way librarians believe e-books should be priced for library usage. This time, the main point of interest is on discovery, and two related questions: what are librarians looking for from indie titles? And how can indie authors make their titles easier for librarians looking for those things to find (and, crucially, to go ahead and order once they have been found)?
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Amazon Raises KDP

News Summary: Amazon Raises KDP 70% Royalty Cap to $12.99; Bookshop.org Launches Audiobooks in UK

Breaking news: as of July 7, Amazon has extended the upper limit of the 70 percent KDP royalty bracket to $12.99 from $9.99. That allows some books to have a higher ticket price reflecting an author's desire to price within the market, without having to take a hit down to the 35 percent royalty rate. For those in that $10–$12.99 range currently, you may be eligible to switch to 70 percent per the FAQs, but will not automatically be switched.
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Librarians Propose Fairer E-book Pricing Model

News Summary: Librarians Propose Fairer E-book Pricing Model; Commonwealth Prize Verifies Winners without AI Detectors

Following on from recent discussion in this column about what it costs libraries to buy the license for e-books, thanks to Jane Friedman for linking to this fascinating article which outlines exactly what libraries would like to see in this regard. What it attempts to describe is what librarians actually mean when they call for fairer pricing from big publishers.
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BISG Launches 2026 AI Survey

News Summary: BISG Launches 2026 AI Survey; 250 UK Publishers Join Collective AI Licensing Scheme

It's been a while since there was an opportunity to get involved in a good old survey. This week, we start a mini roundup of AI-related news with an invitation (to some of you, at least) to get involved in a survey from BISG (Book Industry Study Group) and BookNet Canada. The survey is on "AI Use Across the North American Book Industry 2026," and the call is for anyone involved in the publishing industry in North America (by which they mean Canada and the US).
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Indie Authors May Be Excluded From AI Copyright Class Actions

News Summary: Writer Beware Warns Indie Authors May Be Excluded from AI Copyright Class Actions

Thanks to Jane Friedman for pointing toward the Writer Beware piece that forms the basis for this week's first story. Class action lawsuits taken out by rights holders against tech companies for alleged violations related to copyright law committed in pursuit of the development of large generative AI models. That's a general description of what we've seen a lot in the news. And we will be seeing it a lot more.
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ElevenLabs Launches End-to-End Audiobook Production Tool

News Summary: ElevenLabs Launches End-to-End Audiobook Production Tool Following London Summit

ElevenLabs is a company I've reported on a lot, but this time they really are in the spotlight following their recent summit. As a reminder, ElevenLabs is the tech giant that specializes in AI-generated voice production. It sells its services into various sectors, but the area of real interest to us is audiobooks, where the company offers various options for voice narration in different accents of different languages. Most significantly, ElevenLabs works with Findaway Voices by Spotify to enable indie authors (and others) to produce audiobooks for the streaming platform.
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Market Literary Fiction

How Indie Authors Market Literary Fiction, with Orna Ross

Many literary fiction authors feel caught in the middle, shut out of a traditional literary establishment that foregrounds their genre, but also out of indie advice urging marketing methods that feel misaligned. Orna Ross explores the psychology of literary writers who feel uneasy about selling their work, shares her own marketing shifts as a literary novelist and poet, and explains why literary fiction is not a special case—simply another genre with its own reader psychology and buying behavior.
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