Self-Publishing with ALLi

My guest this episode is Linda L. Garnett, a gothic supernatural thriller author who came to fiction after seven years in independent music journalism. We talk about how that experience shaped her approach to publishing, marketing, and building an audience, as well as the writing process that helped her turn years of unfinished manuscripts into a professional author career.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of 2,000+ blog posts, and a handy search box to find key info on the topic you need.

We invite y...

On this week's Self-Publishing News podcast, ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway brings two pieces of good news for indie authors: the launch of the Indie Manga Alliance, a new US-based group representing manga creators and publishers outside the mainstream, and Libro.fm's expansion into e-books, giving readers another way to support indie authors and bookstores at the same time. Then he digs into a new Cambridge University Press study, "Bot or Not?", which found that readers not only struggle to tell human-written stories from AI-generated ones — they may actually prefer the AI versions.

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On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, host Howard Lovy talks to novelist, poet, and educator Elizabeth Gauffreau about beta readers — what they actually do, how they differ from developmental editors, and why their real job is reader response, not critique. Drawing on decades of giving and receiving feedback as a writer and teacher, Gauffreau explains how authors can set clear expectations, choose the right readers, sort through conflicting feedback, and know when a reader's gut reaction matters more than being factually right.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center, with a hug...

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway covers a turbulent week for AI and publishing: the Association of American Literary Agents updating their Canon of Ethics to allow closer work with indie authors; a seven-figure publishing deal shelved within hours of an AI allegation; and a peer-reviewed study of 14,419 self-published Amazon titles finding that AI-generated books are commercially viable but outsold by human authors — while the number of titles grows twice as fast as revenue.

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In this member-first partner webinar at the Alliance of Independent Authors, ALLi Director Orna Ross presses Draft2Digital CEO Kris Austin on the $20 activation fee and $12 annual maintenance fee that landed on indie authors in April with no advance warning. Austin explains what the fees are meant to stop, why authors weren't consulted first, and whether the era of free, open access to publishing platforms is drawing to a close.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of 2,000+ blog posts, and a handy search box to find k...

My guest this episode is Julie Day, an autistic author and advocate from London who writes children's books featuring autistic characters finding confidence — the kind of books she never had growing up undiagnosed. Her path to indie publishing began with a recurring dream she had to write down, and it carried her through a late Asperger's diagnosis and a life-threatening heart illness she turned into a book to help others.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of 2,000+ blog posts, and a handy search box to find key...

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway reports that the Anthropic settlement has received its final legal approval, with nearly half a million titles eligible for a payout of around $3,000 — and legal fees cut to just over $100 million. He covers Simon and Schuster's second new imprint for indie authors, Simon Stream, offering 50 percent net ebook royalties, alongside the previously reported Pocket Books relaunch. And he closes with Canadian survey data showing readers are already paying an average of US$8.74 for ebooks — neatly vindicating KDP's recent royalty cap rise to $12.99.

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In this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi Member Q&A podcast, hosts Michael La Ronn and Sacha Black discuss whether an author can safely use a real band's name in a novel title, including how to check for trademarks, why disclaimers won't shield you from lawsuits, and when it's worth consulting an intellectual property attorney.

Other questions include:

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway covers three stories pointing in the same direction: books are everywhere. He reports on AI search engine Perplexity launching an ebook store, adding yet another major platform to the growing list selling books directly to readers. He examines the Library of Congress's initiative to acquire indie and self-published titles — and explains why copyright registration and deposit matter more than ever in the age of AI lawsuits. And he closes with Spotify's announcement that it has passed 100 million audiobook listeners, now dwarfing Audible in audience size.

Show Notes

Anna Featherstone talks with author Sarah Martin about the production and distribution of her two purpose-led nonfiction books, Dear Psychosis and Dear Carer. Sarah explains how she built a professional publishing team, changed her approach for her second book, secured consignment with a local bookstore, and used speaking engagements—including one that generated a 260-book order—to reach readers.

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My guest this episode is Michelle M. Pillow, a bestselling romance author who has published more than one hundred books during a career spanning more than twenty years. She talks about her early love of reading, the unexpected path that led her to indie publishing, the fictional worlds she has built, and the challenge of managing a large backlist while staying connected to her readers.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of 2,000+ blog posts, and a handy search box to find key info on the topic y...

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway covers three positive stories: KDP raising the upper price limit for its top royalty bracket from $9.99 to $12.99, effective July 7th; Bookshop.org launching audiobooks for UK readers on a £12.99 monthly subscription designed to deepen ties between readers and their local indie bookstores; and the rise of dystomance — the blend of dystopia and romance trending on BookTok, with a self-published title helping drive the wave.

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Self-Publishing News is proudly sponsored by PublishMe—helping indie authors succeed globally with expert translation, tailored marketing, and publishing support. From first...

On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, host Howard Lovy talks to Pablo Yáñez, founder of BeYourCover, about how artificial intelligence is changing book cover design. A professional book cover photographer for more than fifteen years before building AI tools, Yáñez explains where AI can help authors create marketable covers, where it still falls short, and why genre conventions matter more than many writers realize. He also discusses the ethics of AI, the continuing value of human designers, and how authors can decide which approach is right for their books.

Find more author advice, tips, and tool...

Orna Ross, founder and director of the Alliance of Independent Authors, discusses the development and purpose of Indie Author Lab, explaining how it was created in response to changes in the indie author community—particularly the rise of AI. An ongoing monthly program designed to help serious authors address their specific challenges, it is based on Orna's Alliance of Independent Authors guidebook, Creative Self-Publishing, and focuses on four measures of success: productivity, platform, profit, and pleasure. With live monthly sessions, a community chat room, and access to resources and tools, the program is flexible enough to work for authors at...

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway covers four stories: a new EU tariff that will affect authors shipping books directly to European readers; The Economist's striking data showing book publishing volumes have doubled since ChatGPT launched in 2022; the Commonwealth Short Story Prize awarding its top prize to the very story accused of AI authorship; and the relaunch of Simon and Schuster's Pocket Books imprint, which is specifically targeting successful indie and hybrid authors for a romance-first print list launching in January 2027.

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In this member-first Q&A on the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, host Michael La Ronn talks with Alliance of Independent Authors Business Adviser Joe Solari about how indie authors can think more clearly about the business side of writing. Joe explains why authors should focus less on revenue and more on profit, how to approach pricing without undervaluing their work, when going wide makes sense, and why intellectual property and audience are the real foundations of an author business. He also offers practical advice on print distribution, direct sales, and when it may—or may not—make sense to form...

My guest this episode is Diane Hatz. Diane spent years in the music industry, working at major and indie record companies, managing a band, and co-founding a fanzine on The Who that ended up in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Years later, she drew on those surreal experiences and turned them into fiction. After decades of putting off her dream of being an author, she published a four-book series in five years.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of 2,000+ blog posts, and a handy search b...

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway reports on a revealing piece by Rakuten Kobo CEO Michael Tamblyn, who explains why Kobo rejected 45 percent of self-published submissions in 2025 — most of them suspected AI-generated — and frames the decision as a "book community first" choice over a "readers first" approach. Dan also returns to the Commonwealth Short Story Prize controversy, where organizers have taken a strikingly different and very human approach to AI detection: gathering notes, drafts, and timestamped evidence from authors rather than relying on AI detection tools. He closes with news of a BISG and BookNet Canada surv...

Artificial intelligence is changing how readers discover books, and few people have a broader view of that shift than Rob Prime. An indie author, founder of Publishing.co.uk, co-owner of LoveReading, and head of an Amazon marketing agency, Prime joins Orna Ross on the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast to explain how AI-powered search is reshaping book discoverability. They discuss Amazon's evolving search tools, AI-friendly metadata, author websites, direct sales, and the practical steps authors can take to make their books easier for both readers and AI to find.

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In this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi Member Q&A podcast, hosts Michael La Ronn and Sacha Black discuss whether it is legal to use real people's names in nonfiction, including the limits around copyright, defamation, and writing about deceased public figures.

Other questions include:

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway covers a week dominated by new tools for authors and readers alike. He reports on BookFunnel's new WooCommerce plugin for self-hosted WordPress sites, Substack's rollout of paid sponsorships for writers with 100 or more paid subscribers, and the launch of the Book Carbon Calculator, which lets print-focused authors generate a certified carbon footprint for their titles. He closes with the long-awaited launch of Kindle's Story So Far feature, an AI-generated recap tool that raises familiar questions about training data and copyright.

Show Notes

Book Carbon Calculator

Most indie authors know print-on-demand. Pop-up and movable books inhabit a very different world — one of hand-assembly, specialist printers, and minimum print runs that make the economics unlike anything in standard publishing. In this episode, Anna Featherstone talks with Kelli Anderson, paper engineer and author of Alphabet in Motion, about what it actually takes to bring a movable book to life. They cover the manufacturing process, working with printers, using Kickstarter to fund a 25,000-copy print run, and where a curious author might begin if this form is calling to them.

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My guest this episode is Annabel Youens, a novelist who left a long career in tech to return to her first love: writing fiction. Her work explores midlife reinvention, creativity, nature, and the courage it takes to stop putting off the life you meant to live. She also brings a business founder's discipline to indie publishing, treating authorship not just as a creative act but as a serious enterprise.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of 2,000+ blog posts, and a handy search box to find key i...

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway reports that audiobook sales grew 9 percent in the US and 10 percent in the UK in 2025 — a return to double-digit growth — but cautions that active titles grew even faster, meaning many individual authors are getting a smaller slice of a bigger pie. He also questions a suspiciously low 0.03 percent figure for AI-narrated audiobook sales, and examines an Authors Guild survey finding that only a quarter of readers paid for the book they were reading last month, with library lending and "other sources," including piracy, making up much of the rest.

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On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, host Howard Lovy talks to Amelia Ross, a developmental editor and children's librarian who specializes in KidLit, about what authors need to know when writing for young readers. Amelia explains the differences between board books, picture books, early readers, chapter books, middle grade, and YA, and why age categories matter. She also discusses authentic voice, age-appropriate content, the role of illustrations, and why children's books work best when lessons emerge naturally through story and character.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge a...

Germany is the third-largest book market in the world, and unlike the English-language market, it is not yet saturated. Skye MacKinnon has turned her second publishing language into her bestselling one across three pen names and more than seventy translated titles. In this conversation about the newly released second edition of her book, Self-Publishing in German, she tells indie authors how to decide which of their books to translate first, where AI earns its keep and where it quietly ruins things, and how on earth you market a book in a language you don't speak.

Show Notes<...

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 Beatni...

In this member-first Q&A on the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, ALLi nonfiction adviser Anna Featherstone walks authors through how to write, publish, and promote nonfiction that sells—covering how to test market demand, what makes a book stand out, and the most common pricing and production mistakes. She shares practical, low-cost marketing tactics, from direct outreach and library events to writing ready-made stories that overstretched newsrooms welcome.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of 2,000+ blog posts, and a handy search box to find key info on...

My guest this episode is Michael Maloof, author of award-winning thrillers about a former CIA analyst drawn into conspiracies that stretch across continents. Michael brings to his fiction a background in technology, entrepreneurship, global travel, and real-world tactical training. His books combine action, technology, emotional stakes, and a strong female lead who refuses to back down.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of 2,000+ blog posts, and a handy search box to find key info on the topic you need.

We invite you to join o...

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway reports on Spotify's investor day, where the company credited its Page Match feature for a 60 percent rise in audiobook listening hours, notes ElevenLabs' quiet expansion as a listening platform in its own right, and examines a troubling trend in AI copyright class actions — where increasingly narrow eligibility requirements around ISBN registration and Copyright Office filings are leaving many indie and overseas authors out of the picture.

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Orna Ross explores what social media can — and can't — do for indie authors in a landscape that has changed beyond recognition. Listen for tips on how to audit what social media truly costs you in time, money, and creative energy; a comparison of the top ten platforms for authors in 2026; and questions that point you to the right platform for you — or help you decide whether social media is worth your time at all.

Show Notes

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In this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi Member Q&A podcast, hosts Michael La Ronn and Sacha Black discuss how to successfully pivot from one nonfiction topic to another, including whether you need a new pen name and how to manage existing backlist titles.

Other questions include:

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway covers a week dominated by AI controversy: Spotify's expanded ElevenLabs partnership for seamless AI audiobook creation, Barnes & Noble CEO James Daunt's muddled attempt to clarify his store's AI book policy, and a Commonwealth Short Story Prize winner accused of using AI — and why Dan thinks the organizers got their response exactly right.

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On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, host Anna Featherstone speaks with indie author-illustrator Mike Barry about the production and distribution decisions behind his children's graphic novel trilogy Action Tank, from reverse-engineering Marvel's print specifications to building a loyal school and library audience. Barry reflects on Kickstarter, the realities of international distribution, and his publishing adventures. Whether you write for children or not, the conversation offers insight into finishing what you start, finding your market, and letting one opportunity lead to the next.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-Publishing Author Advice Center, with a...

My guest this episode is D. K. Marie, a Michigan-based romance author who writes stories about second chances, emotional healing, and hope. She's moved from traditional publishing into indie publishing and recently won a Wishing Shelf Gold Award. We talk about her journey from reader to writer, the business side of indie publishing, building a loyal readership, and why she believes romance novels can offer comfort during difficult times.

Find more author advice, tips, and tools at our Self-publishing Author Advice Center, with a huge archive of 2,000+ blog posts, and a handy search box to find key i...

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway opens with an urgent warning from Writer Beware's Victoria Strauss about two new AI-generated scams targeting authors — one involving fake radio show invitations, one involving fraudulent book fair representation — and explains the telltale signs that give them away. He then reports on Audible's StoryHouse, a pop-up audiobook store in New York's Bowery modeled on a vinyl record shop, and closes with an update on the Anthropic settlement fairness hearing, including concerns about the $3,000 per-title payout and the US copyright registration requirement that overseas authors say is unfair to them.

Sh...

On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, host Howard Lovy talks to Michele DeFilippo, founder of 1106 Design, about the role genre conventions play in professional book cover design. Michele explains the visual signals that help readers recognize a book's category at a glance, from the authority expected in business books to the mood and atmosphere that drive fiction covers. She also discusses the thumbnail test, common amateur mistakes, the danger of cramming too much information onto a cover, and the importance of giving designers enough room to create a cover that serves both the author and the marketplace.

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On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Orna Ross and Joanna Penn explore the concept of friction in the author business — the stuff that stops readers from buying and stops authors from acting. They examine reader friction including decision fatigue, pricing signals, platform fragmentation, and the challenge of buying direct; author friction including tech overload, identity resistance, and fear of judgment; and the counterintuitive idea that some friction — a signed limited edition, a serialized novel released chapter by chapter, a live human conversation — is actually worth keeping, because it creates connection, commitment, and differentiation in an age of one-click AI con...

On this episode of Self-Publishing with ALLi, Dan Holloway examines three interconnected stories about how books get discovered and sold. He reports on the launch of the UK's first BookTok bestseller list, powered by Nielsen BookScan, and what its romance- and romantasy-heavy lineup reveals about how viral book conversations actually work. He also looks at two striking examples of subscription boxes driving books to the top of the charts — including Goldsboro Books' GSFF box and the fantasy service Fairyloot — and closes with the question of whether the special edition and deluxe edition market may have reached its peak, drawing a sh...

On the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Joe Solari draws a lesson from Jeff Bezos's early years at Amazon — when Wall Street was calling it amazon.bomb and Bezos kept building anyway — to make a case for why indie authors need to stop watching their competitors and start watching their readers. Using the philosopher René Girard's concept of mimetic desire, Joe explains how author communities, for all their value, can quietly install somebody else's North Star in your publishing business without you even noticing. He offers two practical tools to counter this: a one-page North Star document that anchors your publi...