Audio has been the mainstay of the news of late, so of the two stories to round out the week, I'll start with the ear-related one. As the headline of this article in TechCrunch so informatively puts it, Americans now listen to podcasts more often than talk radio.

On this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Dan Holloway reports on ElevenLabs’ new end-to-end audiobook creation and distribution platform aimed at indie authors. He also examines Audible’s new “Read and Listen” feature, which allows users to switch between ebook and audiobook formats, and explores what this growing format convergence could mean for author royalties and reader expectations.

Social media stories in the news have tended to center on TikTok (whether that be BookTok-related items or anything and everything to do with the erstwhile-planned ban in the US, whether it would happen, what it would mean, how it is avoided, and so on).