Is Substack a smart marketing tool for indie authors? In this episode, Orna Ross explores the platform's strengths for marketing fiction, poetry, and nonfiction books—including reader community, discoverability, and subscription options—alongside weaknesses like limited e-commerce, conflicting priorities, and the risks of building on a venture-backed platform whose goals may shift over time. She concludes that Substack offers a powerful combination of features for authors who want to balance creativity with visibility, but is not a substitute for a solid book-selling strategy.

In this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi Member Q&A podcast, hosts Michael La Ronn and Sacha Black discuss what happens when Amazon or Google Play suddenly terminates author accounts, including how ALLi can help advocate on members' behalf.

In these times when so much in the world seems quite so eyebrow-raising, it can be dangerous to look through the literary news on April Fools' Day. I had to double-check the Guardian's article about the New York Times book reviewer dropped for using AI to write a book review (but a March 31 publication date suggests it's real).