The Leanpub Podcast feat. Special Guest Dan Holloway, Looking Back on the Book Industry in 2024

Episode Details

In this episode of the Leanpub podcast, host Len Epp speaks with Dan Holloway, host of the Self-Publishing News podcast, for a comprehensive review of the book industry in 2024. They delve into critical developments, including the expanding role of AI in publishing and its impact on authorship, content creation, and reader engagement.

Holloway also highlights evolving trends in author incomes, emphasizing challenges and opportunities for independent authors in a competitive digital landscape.

Key controversies discussed include the WordPress dispute involving WP Engine, as well as the Internet Archive’s ongoing legal battles and their implications for digital lending and copyright law. The conversation also touches on the cultural phenomenon of cozy literature and its resurgence as a top genre in 2024, reflecting readers’ desires for comfort and familiarity amidst global uncertainty.

Looking ahead to 2025, Holloway offers predictions for the industry, including further disruptions from AI, the continued transformation of traditional publishing models, and the rise of ethical considerations in digital media. The episode provides valuable guidance for authors, publishers, and readers navigating a rapidly evolving landscape.

This interview was recorded on January 2, 2025.

The full audio for the interview is here: https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/leanpub_podcasts/FM309-Dan-Holloway-2025-01-02.mp3. The Frontmatter podcast is available on our YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/leanpub, in Apple Podcasts here https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/frontmatter/id517117137, and almost everywhere else people listen to podcasts.

About the Guest

Dan is an Administrator at Oxford University by day, and an innovator, researcher, creative consultant, coach, campaigner and communicator by calling. He is also a blogger and the host of the Self-Publishing News podcast with the Alliance of Independent Authors.

Clips From This Episode of the Leanpub Podcast

Book publishing legend Mike Shatzkin | A tribute

AI, Authors & Controversy | The Future of Publishing

AI is Killing Journalism | Ad Revenue Crisis!

AI and Self Publishing | Is There Room for Creativity

Accessibility Compliance | The Fight For Inclusivity

Transcript

This podcast episode was transcribed using AI tools. AI tools may summarize or skip sections and do occasionally “hallucinate” content, so please read this transcript as a useful way of engaging with the episode, but not as a word-for-word record!

Len: Hi, I’m Len Epp from Leanpub, and in this episode of the Leanpub podcast, I’ll be interviewing Dan Holloway. Based in Oxford, Dan is an administrator by day and an innovator, researcher, creative consultant, coach, campaigner, and communicator by calling. He is also a blogger and the host of the self-publishing news podcast with the Alliance of Independent Authors. You can follow him on Twitter at Agnese Kaz Shoes and check out his website at selfpublishingadvice.org.

In this interview, we’re going to talk about what Dan’s been up to since he last appeared on the podcast last year, when we did another sort of year-in-review episode, many of the developments and controversies in the world of books, publishing, and self-publishing in 2024, and what Dan sees coming for us in the industry in 2025. So thank you very much, Dan, for being back on the Leanpub podcast for a year-in-review episode.

Dan: Thank you. It’s always good to be here. As I always say, I always feel really unprepared because it’s been such a long… It’s been a big news year. It feels like I’ve completely forgotten anything to do with January or even probably anything to do with November.

Len: Yeah, I’ve been reviewing your posts from the year, like your podcast episodes, and that’s your accompanying posts from the year. So hopefully, with the help of the headlines and the links, we’ll be able to jog your memory for anything. But for anyone watching or listening, Dan does publish quite regularly. They’re really good sort of 10- to 15-minute segments about what’s going on in the book publishing world. It’s a really great way to sort of keep up with things.

Just before we get going, I was wondering if you could just take a moment, I mean, all that aside, what have you been up to this year or last year?

Dan: Oh, what have I been up to? So I’ve been writing books, funnily enough. I’ve been writing books about creativity. As you know, creativity is my thing. So I have… I’m sure you can see that creative thinking card game is still going strong. So I have a company that teaches creativity to people, and I’ve written a book about creativity, which I have here. It’s called The Monk, the Mushroom, and the MRI, which is probably the title is the best thing about the book. So if you don’t like the title, don’t go there. If you do, then you might be interested.

Also in creative thinking, I was really lucky. I won the Creative Thinking World Championships. It was the fifth time. This was really good fun. I do recommend anyone who’s interested in creative thinking come along. It’s held in London every August. It’s an absolutely wonderful way to spend an afternoon, just getting your mind bent out of shape by really strange questions, which should appeal to any author.

Len: That’s fantastic. What else have you been doing?

Dan: A lot of running and a lot of weightlifting, which is, I think, probably the same as what I was doing last time we spoke. I think I saw you posted that on Blue Sky. You can deadlift one and a half times your body weight now.

Len: That’s amazing!

Dan: Yeah. That doesn’t feel… Since I lost a lot of weight, that’s a lot less impressive, which means it’s still only just about 115 kilos, which is not a huge amount, but it’s good. It’s good to stay strong at 50-something. It feels like it’s actually doing my bones good.

Len: Keeping your brain and your body strong—that’s a feedback effect there as well.

Dan: Yeah. Which is one of the secrets to… If there’s secrets to health to be spoken about on podcasts, that’s one of them: keep your brain and your body healthy, and you’ll be doing well. Which is interesting because the Creative Thinking World Championships is part of the Mind Sports Olympiad, which is now sort of semi co-sponsored by ASICS, the running shoe manufacturer, as part of their Healthy Mind and Healthy Body initiative. So, yeah, people are starting to realize this.

Len: Oh, that’s fantastic to hear. A little bit of a step beyond just invoking competitive sports and things like that for what you should be thinking about in a running shoe.

Dan: Ooh, yeah, that’s a controversial topic. That’s more controversial than AI and writers: what you should think about in a running shoe.

Len: It definitely is. But we’ll be covering how controversial AI continues to be in the book publishing world for sure. I mean, there are so many touchpoints. The hard part will be to try to maintain some coherence about it. But before we do that, one selfish thing I want to talk about.

One thing I wanted to ask you about—and hopefully this is something you’ll remember—is sometime ago, I started seeing something about, I think from Nate Hoffelder, posts or tweets or what have you about WordPress. There was a big WordPress controversy this year, which mattered for authors, particularly for self-published authors because WordPress is such a popular platform for their author websites. And in fact, there are people like, I believe Nate, who had a business making author websites and stuff like that. So there were people on that level as well. And I didn’t dive that deep into it. There was something about the founder, Matt Mullenweg, kind of appearing to have his head up his ass a little bit.

Dan: It looks like if you’re reading Nate, then you’ve got that impression.

Len: Yeah. Okay. So could you—do you remember what that was? And can you maybe clarify for the rest of us a little bit about what the nature of the controversy was?

Dan: Yeah, I will. I might have a bit… It was basically a disagreement between WordPress and WP Engine, who are the main company who look after WordPress websites. It’s the main place where you go with your WordPress website is through WP Engine. WordPress stopped giving access to a lot of its plugins to people whose websites were being hosted by WP Engine.

This seemed to be something to do with the takeover by Automattic, as I remember. Matt Mullenweg runs—am I completely missing the point when I say he runs Automattic?

Len: No, I think that’s right.

Dan: The sort of the founder of WordPress, and he didn’t really like what was happening with WP Engine. I’m trying to… Yeah, let’s… Yeah, I’m searching through for the story because I wrote quite a lot about this, and it was a really interesting and really bizarre… It seemed to come and go very quickly is the other thing I remember about it.

Dan: Yeah, here we go. It was a story of the unrighteous war between WordPress and WP Engine. WP Engine was trying to save server space—that’s what it amounted to. They were trying to cut down the functionality of WordPress sites to make them leaner, which would appeal to you.

Len: Ha!

Dan: And Matt Mullenweg decided that he didn’t like this. This was taking away the ethos of WordPress, and so he stopped giving them access to a load of functionality and plugins. That meant that anyone who was being hosted through WP Engine couldn’t use the kind of functionality they needed, especially for sales and shopping carts and so on.

Len: Right.

Dan: I think it’s kind of been sorted out. Am I right in thinking it’s been… They gave each other deadlines, the deadlines came and went, and nothing really happened, is my understanding.

Len: Yeah, it feels like it definitely isn’t the controversy that it was, for sure, one way or another. For anyone sort of watching or listening, the reason these things can be so… take the form that they do is that, say, a company… There’s a platform—in this case, it’s WordPress, but just think of a generic kind of platform that people can build things on.

You get these companies that go and build things on those platforms. Those companies that have built on the platform can become very successful in their own right. They can have huge fan bases, and in this case, people whose creativity, hobby, or livelihood might depend to some extent… They might have paid a lot of money for that third-party service’s use of that platform.

Then, basically, when the platform itself kind of comes down on those third-party creators, the people affected can feel very kind of like Monty Python “foot of God” came down on you. That can be very scary, not only in itself, for whatever the particular thing is, but because it seems arbitrary. It’s just this great reminder that if you don’t run the platform, you don’t run the business.

Dan: Yeah, it’s like things that run on Linux—when the central Linux committee decided they wanted to do something different, that affects pretty much everything.

Len: Yeah, and if you have the creator of the platform still involved, they can be very, very opinionated about what it was meant to be for and what it should be used for going forward. The thing about it is, they’re not always wrong either.

Dan: Yeah.

Len: He’s a figure of his own sort of ill repute in his own way, but Henry Ford’s old thing—if I asked people what they wanted, they’d say a faster horse. When the big platform founder might come down, it might be along those lines of, “You guys think what you want is a million widgets, but this is actually creating some kind of spaghetti code underneath everything. Why should we spend all of our time supporting these weird, strange edge cases that you’ve developed for us that you’re asking us to fix?”

But I think, if I remember correctly, it was sort of the other way around. He was asking them to do a bunch of stuff, something along those lines.

Dan: Yeah. They wanted to simplify. He wanted them… He said the value of WordPress is different. They were being commercial, I think, trying to save server power to do their stuff.

Len: Right.

Dan: And it was because they were getting more commercial. Wasn’t it tied to a potential IPO or something like that even? Because a lot of this stuff happens when you get potential IPOs coming up, and companies suddenly realize they have to make money.

Len: I didn’t go that deep into it, but that would definitely sound like the kind of thing that would set off alarm bells too if you’re the sort of protective creator of a platform as well, that you don’t want the tail wagging the dog kind of thing and you don’t want getting taken over that way.

Dan: Yeah.

Len: Well, that’s very good. We’ll have links to articles in the notes for everyone to find them. That was the first controversy I wanted to ask about because it was the one that sort of puzzled me the most in a sense.

Dan: I think it got blown up because it coincided with conference season as well. This happens a lot in the tech world. Matt Mullenweg was at a TechCrunch conference, so it got a lot of coverage on TechCrunch because he was there sitting in front of a TechCrunch audience basically badmouthing the people who were the everyday users of WordPress. That didn’t sit well.

Len: Right.

Dan: These tech CEOs can do that, and I don’t think they often realize what they sound like.

Len: Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Dan: Yeah.

Len: So that reminds me—to go on to another controversy, and not really maybe understanding how you’re going to come across—this will be our first kind of AI-related thing: NaNoWriMo had a controversy this year. Maybe I can prime the pump if you don’t remember that one.

Dan: I do! I remember that one very well, although again, it kind of fizzled out once it actually began.

Len: Yeah. For anyone unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s in November, and it’s been around for a while. It’s funny that it became mired in this kind of controversy because it was all about fun, basically. The idea was to set yourself the challenge of writing a 50,000-word novel in November.

Grow a mustache too if you want to, if you’re into Movember, but you could also spend that time writing a 50,000-word book. Anyway, they had to address AI one way or another, and I think they allowed the use of it, but then they came up with this really poorly conceived PR attempt to kind of cut off criticism in advance, if I recall correctly—or maybe it was in response to criticism—where they basically invoked accessibility or something like that and privilege.

Dan: Yes. It’s a really interesting one. I tried to stay really neutral in the column, which is something I often get into trouble for. It’s good to get into trouble from people on all sides of an argument because that usually means you’re staying fairly neutral.

AI in general reminds me a lot of another thing that there’s been a lot of controversy around this year, which is the Internet Archive. There’s always controversy around the Internet Archive because you have this sort of alignment between really progressive left and right-leaning libertarianism.

It’s a really odd alignment, which goes down this sort of accessibility and autonomy route. Both sides get really surprised that they’re aligned with each other because they’d never normally get into bed with each other in a million years. They would do anything to stay clear of each other, but they find themselves almost…

If you think about the way politics is fracturing—it’s not the same in America as the UK, but you have the center-right, center-left, and then you’ve got the progressive left and the libertarian right. You almost feel like there’s this pincer movement, and the center parties are the ones who are being squeezed out. It kind of felt like that.

It’s an alliance that I’ve seen before, as I say, around the Internet Archive and something that was in the news just this week: the UK Supreme Court upholding the decision against pirating websites like Library Genesis.

These sorts of cases tend to bring out, as I say, the radical accessibility campaigners on one hand and the radical libertarians who join with them. That kind of makes both sides suspicious. It’s like, “Oh, actually, do I really want to be involved in this cause? Because if I’m aligned with this person, and I hate this person, what am I doing?”

It kind of felt like that with NaNoWriMo—that there are these two parties, and both of them were nervous because they felt like they were saying the same thing.

Len: Right.

Dan: It sounds strange sometimes when writers—and I know why they do it—but a lot of writers seem to jump against the accessibility cases, but only in certain cases.

There are things, I’m sure you have them in the US—I think Nate curates his local one, so I’m sure you do—called Little Free Libraries. These little post-box-type things on street corners where people put books and swap books. These are absolutely great, and writers love them.

And yet, repositories of PDFs where billions of people can download them, who would never otherwise get access to books—writers hate them. That feels really strange to me, looking in and trying to be neutral as a journalist.

It feels as though, when writers complain about people talking about them denying their privilege, it’s like, “Do you not quite see what this looks like?” You’re saying this lovely little thing your artsy, crafty local community is doing is great, but when millions of people on the other side of the world want to do the same thing, you’re up in arms about it and say, “That’s awful.”

You need a more nuanced argument. Otherwise, it just looks as though this is literally the embodiment of privilege.

Len: That’s so well said. It reminds me of another kind of, just to throw another complication into the mix, specifically when it comes to the issue of accessibility. It’s one of those issues that people who actually don’t have any interest in it at all will appropriate and then deploy to serve other ends.

Len: So I’m thinking very locally about where I live in Victoria, British Columbia. There’s a place called Clover Point. It’s by the ocean, and it’s a beautiful kind of promontory. At some point, maybe in the ’50s or ’60s, people had different notions of progress, and they decided to pave it all with asphalt and make it into a parking destination—a parking lot—cutting in half a beautiful oceanside trail.

Anyway, a couple of years ago, people finally decided to put up some bollards and secure 90 meters of it for people to walk around on and have picnics, sit on benches, and look at the ocean.

A lot of the people who regarded this as a terrible injustice because it was their favorite parking spot invoked accessibility. They said, “The problem with pedestrianizing this ugly parking lot is accessibility. We’re really worried about accessibility.”

It was very bad faith. But accessibility, in particular, is one of those issues that people operating in bad faith will appropriate and deploy as a cudgel to get their way in something else.

When I looked at the NaNoWriMo thing, it seemed like there was a little bit of suspicion around whether people really meant what they said about accessibility. Were they really concerned, or was it just something they were saying because they knew it was a defensive move they could make?

Dan: It’s a really interesting one. I think a lot of writers from richer economies champion democracy and the democratization of technology—up to the point where it then radically democratizes something in a way that takes their money away.

It kind of feels like… I very much side with the NaNoWriMo organizers on this, which makes me really unpopular with my writing community. Likewise, my stance on the Internet Archive makes me really unpopular with writers whenever I actually tell them what it is.

Len: Why don’t we talk about that? This was on my list of things to bring up.

The Internet Archive basically purchased a bunch of paper copies of books, created digital versions of them, and were lending them out one at a time, corresponding to the physical copies they owned. Then the big publishers and authors’ groups objected to this in quite dramatic fashion, calling it piracy.

Dan: Yes. Basically, one of the interesting things is that in spring 2020, at the start of COVID, the Internet Archive positioned itself as the National Emergency Library. I’m sure you remember that.

This was seen as an absolutely fantastic thing—almost universally. Then people realized what they were actually doing. What they were doing is something they call Controlled Digital Lending, which is exactly what you said.

It’s like, “We buy a physical copy, we make a digital copy from that, and then we lend out the digital copy.”

This goes very deep into something that was breaking at the start of the pandemic: the series of legal cases between publishers and libraries over the charging for eBooks and how publishers made money out of libraries lending eBooks.

There were arguments over metered licensing and eBooks expiring after a certain number of loans. Publishers were convinced libraries were losing them money on their bottom line, and there were arguments over whether they actually were.

The popularity of libraries grew during the pandemic, which almost fed an existential sense of threat among publishers.

The Internet Archive’s Open Library, which was a small and relatively uncontroversial thing before the pandemic, suddenly became this big bête noire. It was part of the Electronic Frontier Foundation campaign, run by Brewster Kahle, who’s a big proponent of that.

Again, it wants to get knowledge into people’s hands. Publishers point out that someone needs to be paid for that. That’s a perfectly reasonable thing to point out. Knowledge will dry up if the people who create it don’t get paid for it. Otherwise, it’ll just become a pastime of the rich, which is what it was back in the early days of novels.

We need to pay people who create knowledge, but we also need to make sure the fruits of that labor are put into as many hands as possible. Both sides demonize each other, which doesn’t help.

The Internet Archive lost its case. That was the big news this year.

Len: Right.

Dan: It’s not so much that they lost, but their appeals ran out. They decided not to make the final appeal. There’s an undisclosed agreement between them and the publishing industry.

This feels like an issue that isn’t going to go away because several of the stories in the last couple of years boil down to the same issue: What is a book?

When you’re talking about Controlled Digital Lending—is a physical book and a digital copy of that book one book, or are they two books? Is a book the words, or is it specifically the physical or digital representation of those words?

This came up with audiobooks a few years ago. Audible was going to introduce automatic captions for their audiobooks to make them more accessible. It never came to pass because publishers were absolutely up in arms.

They said, “We’ve sold you the rights to the audio, but not to the eBook. What you’re doing is making unauthorized eBooks in exactly the same way the Internet Archive was found to be making unauthorized eBooks.”

Dan: What’s really interesting this year is one of the stories I covered about 11 Labs, a big AI voice narration project. They’ve developed technologies to turn eBooks into audiobooks really straightforwardly.

These products are now being bolted onto platforms everywhere. If you have an e-reader or if you buy an eBook, you can bolt on this feature, and it will turn it into an audiobook for you.

No one in the publishing world seems to be batting an eyelid at this. That feels really strange to me, considering how much fuss was made over the separate rights issues previously.

Len: That is curious.

Dan: Do people think the flood has reached such an extent that we can’t hold back the tide?

Len: It’s an interesting question. There’s a segment of the book industry that thinks when these things come along—like converting text into voice—it’s a solved problem now, or it will be soon, and it will become a commodified service.

The production and availability of audiobooks, in general, are things people will have to accept as part of the landscape.

Dan: Which is really interesting because people are still fighting it when it comes to taking a physical book, scanning it, and lending it. The publishing industry has always sounded as though it doesn’t understand technology, and that doesn’t help.

Len: My go-to example for this kind of thing is when Disney executives were shown a VCR for the first time. Apparently, they walked into a room where Pinocchio was playing on a VCR, and they said, “Oh my God, anyone can just walk into the room and watch this for free?”

It’s one of those moments where you realize that the business side of certain industries, at its core, is about restriction and control. That’s their model, and they want as much free regulation and enforcement as possible.

Dan: Yeah.

Len: In this context, enforcement is often copyright, which is why you get these interesting alignments between the progressive left and the libertarian right.

Dan: Exactly.

Len: Speaking of money, let’s move on from these controversies. One really interesting thing that came out this year was the Written Word Media author survey about how authors are making money now.

There were a lot of interesting numbers in there, and we could segue into another controversy about a venture capitalist-funded publishing outfit. But let’s start with the survey.

Dan: Yes, that survey was fascinating. First, it was great to see data on indie authors, which we don’t often get.

The most striking thing to me was that there were enough respondents in the “more than $20,000 per month” category for it to be a meaningful data set. That’s incredible.

Yes, most authors earn less than $100 a month, but there’s a significant portion—around 4 or 5 percent—earning between $5,000 and $10,000, $10,000 to $20,000, and even more than $20,000 per month.

Len: That’s amazing.

Dan: The other thing that isn’t surprising but is a good reminder is how many books these incomes are based on.

A lot of people think they can write one book and make their fortune. Most people earning less than $100 a month have written fewer than ten books. In every other income bracket, people have written more than ten books.

Once you get into the $1,000-a-month bracket, authors have written more than 30 books. At the top levels of income, authors have 50 or 60 books in their backlist.

This isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. It’s about building a product line. Each book contributes to the bottom line, and over a large backlist, it adds up to a significant income.

Len: That’s a really well-put explanation. It’s interesting to see how, for independent authors, a middle class of writers is emerging. You don’t have to be a superstar or land a massive advance.

You can work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, independently, and make a decent living as an author. That’s a fact of life now. It requires creativity and grinding, but it’s achievable.

Dan: Exactly. It’s like running any small business. You invest time and effort, and if you’re strategic, it pays off.

The survey also highlighted something important about marketing.

The average number of hours spent on marketing was 32 per month—essentially one day a week. That leaves the other four days for writing. Most authors in the higher income brackets are outsourcing other tasks, spending an average of $700 a month on marketing.

For the income they’re generating, that’s a reasonable investment.

Len: Definitely. Also, for people who don’t like marketing, I’d say: if it starts working, you might start liking it.

When you see a direct connection between your marketing efforts and your income, it stops feeling abstract. It becomes part of the job, like any other aspect of running a business.

Dan: That’s exactly it. Once you see that connection, it’s easier to understand that marketing is just another part of the process.

It’s also worth pointing out that if you don’t like marketing or aren’t good at it, there are services and platforms to help. You don’t have to do it all yourself.

Len: That’s a great point. Let’s shift gears a little bit and talk about AI again.

There was a company you talked about in your podcast this year—one that seemed like a classic case of venture capitalists misunderstanding the book industry. Could you remind us about that?

Dan: Yes, this was a company pitching AI services for book production. They claimed that to self-publish a book takes 6 to 18 months after finishing the manuscript and costs five figures.

Then, they positioned themselves as the solution, saying they could reduce costs to $1,200–$5,000 per book and shorten the timeline.

The problem is that the numbers they used were absurdly inflated. Most indie authors don’t spend anywhere near $10,000 to publish a book. In fact, the Written Word Media survey shows that successful indie authors typically spend between $1,500 and $2,500 per book.

Len: That’s a huge disconnect.

Dan: It really is. What’s concerning is that venture capitalists, including big names like Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz, believed these inflated figures. They invested millions based on this pitch.

It highlights a broader issue: the tech industry doesn’t understand publishing, and the publishing industry doesn’t understand tech. It’s frustrating to see money thrown at ideas that fundamentally misunderstand the market.

Len: That’s a great observation. It’s also a reminder of how different industries can fail to bridge gaps in understanding.

Switching topics slightly, you mentioned in your podcast some of the deals happening between AI companies and publishers. Can you tell us more about that?

Dan: Yes, some AI companies started making deals with major publishers this year. These deals allow the AI companies to use the publishers’ books for training their models, in exchange for compensation.

What’s upset many authors—particularly traditionally published authors—is that these deals were often made without consulting them.

For example, Macmillan struck a deal, and their authors claimed they hadn’t been told about it or given a say in how their work was used or how the revenue was split.

Len: That’s a major issue.

Dan: Absolutely. It’s not just about fairness; it’s about transparency. Authors deserve to know how their work is being monetized and whether they’re getting a reasonable share.

Len: You also mentioned that this isn’t limited to books. News publishers have been making similar deals.

Dan: Yes, that’s true. News media companies have been striking licensing deals with AI companies as well, largely because their ad revenue is drying up.

But the irony is that these AI tools will likely reduce ad revenue even further. They pull traffic away from original sources, and that creates a vicious cycle for news organizations.

Len: That’s a tough situation. Speaking of AI, I think you said earlier that there’s been some movement on the issue of licensing and authors being compensated.

Dan: Yes, there was a survey conducted by a licensing society in the UK. It found that about half of authors would be open to licensing their work for AI training, provided they were given a say in the terms.

Interestingly, most authors surveyed valued their work for AI purposes at around $1,000–$2,000 per license. It seems like a number that’s emerging as a kind of informal benchmark.

Len: That’s fascinating. Did you also mention something about Wiley and their approach to AI partnerships?

Dan: Yes, Wiley launched an AI partnership program this year. Academic publishers like Wiley are especially attractive to AI companies because their content drives high-quality search results.

At the same time, Harvard released a free, open-source data set for training AI. It’s meant to help smaller companies compete with the larger players by providing access to quality training data.

Len: That’s an interesting development. The academic publishing world is already so contentious when it comes to who gets paid for research and who benefits from it.

Dan: Exactly. Most academic research is publicly funded, yet academic publishers charge institutions to publish and access that research. Now they’re also selling it to AI companies, keeping the profits, and perpetuating the same issues.

Len: It’s a tricky problem. On the one hand, you want innovation—like finding a cure for cancer—but on the other hand, there’s the question of how to fairly compensate contributors and ensure equitable access.

Dan: That’s the challenge. The stakes are incredibly high, and there’s no easy answer.

Len: Speaking of access, let’s talk about the EU’s new eBook accessibility rules coming in 2025. What do publishers and authors need to know?

Dan: Starting in June or July 2025, all eBooks sold in the EU will need to meet certain accessibility standards.

This includes things like navigable tables of contents, meaningful hyperlinks, adjustable font sizes, and other features that make eBooks accessible to everyone.

Len: That’s a big change.

Dan: It is, but it’s not as daunting as it sounds, especially for indie authors. Most indie platforms already encourage or enforce these best practices.

Traditional publishers might face bigger challenges, as many are unprepared. In a recent survey, only about 25% of European publishers said they were ready for these changes.

Len: That’s concerning.

Dan: It is. But for indie authors, the key is to ensure that your eBooks are formatted properly and follow standards like EPUB 3. If you do that, you’ll be fine. Len: That’s good advice for indie authors. It’s definitely something to stay ahead of, especially if you’re selling in the European market.

Dan: Absolutely. And the great thing about being an indie author is that you have control over your work. If you know about these rules ahead of time, you can make the necessary adjustments.

Traditional publishers, on the other hand, may not even notify their authors about these changes, and even if they do, there’s often little an author can do to address it.

Len: It’s another example of how being an indie author can actually put you in a better position.

Dan: Yes, and it’s worth noting that platforms like Amazon have already pushed indie authors toward better practices because of their own requirements, particularly around things like tables of contents.

So for most indies, these new accessibility rules shouldn’t be too disruptive.

Len: That’s a relief to hear. Let’s shift gears for a moment. What are your predictions for the book publishing industry in 2025?

Dan: Predictions are always tricky, but I’ll give it a shot!

First, I think the “cozy trend” will continue. We’ve seen a huge rise in the popularity of cozy mysteries, lighter reads, and escapism in general.

This makes sense because the world has been pretty dark lately, and people are looking for comfort in their entertainment.

Len: That’s a great observation. What else do you see happening?

Dan: The second prediction is about TikTok. I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen, but TikTok has been a huge driver for the book world, especially with trends like BookTok.

If TikTok faces bans or restrictions, particularly in the U.S., it could have a massive impact on how authors connect with readers.

Len: That’s a big “what if.” Do you think it’s likely?

Dan: It’s hard to say. TikTok has weathered a lot of scrutiny so far, but the political landscape is unpredictable.

Even if TikTok remains, I think we’ll see more authors and publishers looking for alternatives or diversifying their platforms.

Len: What’s your third prediction?

Dan: I think we’ll continue to see a trend toward physical books, particularly high-quality, well-designed editions.

Books as objects—deluxe editions, special covers, beautiful typography—are becoming more popular. It’s tied to aesthetics and the idea of books as something to treasure, not just read.

Len: That’s an interesting trend. Do you think this is being driven by social media, like BookTok?

Dan: Partly, yes. Social media has made books more visible as lifestyle accessories. The “dark academia” aesthetic, for example, celebrates books as part of a certain lifestyle.

But beyond that, people seem to value the tangible, especially in a world that’s increasingly digital.

Len: That’s a fascinating shift. Are there other factors at play?

Dan: I think so. There’s also the idea of collaboration. More authors are working with artists to create unique covers, illustrations, or companion pieces for their books.

It’s an exciting way to make books stand out and create something special for readers.

Len: That’s great advice for authors looking to differentiate themselves.

Dan: Definitely. And as a writer, it’s incredibly rewarding to collaborate with artists and create something that feels truly unique.

Len: Those are some solid predictions. Before we wrap up, I wanted to touch on a more somber note: the loss of Mike Shatzkin this year.

Dan: Yes, Mike was a towering figure in the publishing world. He was someone I turned to when I first started in indie publishing. He felt like a mentor, even from a distance.

Len: He was on this podcast a couple of times, and it was always a pleasure to talk to him. His insights into the industry were invaluable.

Dan: Absolutely. He had this incredible ability to dig deep into a topic and make it fascinating. He was the epitome of long-form analysis.

Len: His blog, The Shatzkin Files, is a treasure trove for anyone interested in publishing.

Dan: It is, and his loss is deeply felt. He contributed so much to our understanding of the industry.

Len: It’s a reminder of the impact one person can have.

Dan: Very much so. He’s left behind a legacy that will continue to influence and inspire.

Len: Dan, thank you so much for taking the time to do this year-in-review episode. It’s always a pleasure to have you on the podcast.

Dan: Thank you, Len. It’s been an absolute pleasure as always.