Zeitgeist: Mystery Thriller Suspense K-Lytics Report
Kindle trends show that techno thrillers are up 49%. Find out what this says about current readers and publishers.
17 Days Left: How to Claim Your $3,000+ From Anthropic’s $1.5B AI Copyright Settlement
This week’s highlights: Authors have only 17 days left to claim up to $3,000+ per book in the $1.5B Anthropic AI copyright settlement. YouTube’s revenue now surpasses Disney, confirming the creator economy’s dominance, a trajectory indie authors are mirroring. Amazon ended its Book Club and excluded authors from new AI ad tools.
Zeitgeist: Hormonal Birth Control May Quietly Change What Romance Readers Crave in Male Heroes
Prescription medications are changing women’s preferences, from who they find attractive to what kind of heroes they want to read in their fiction.
How I Fight Off Copyright Trolls Targeting My Blogs
This article walks through several real-world encounters with copyright trolls targeting my blogs, how their schemes work, and the practical defenses I used to fight them off without paying. It also shows how DMCA registration, good licensing hygiene, AI tools, and...
Zeitgeist: AI Could Trigger an English Language Reset Like the Norman Conquest
AI and tools like ChatGPT and Grammarly are fundamentally transforming the English language. This deep dive explores how AI writing is changing us.
Zeitgeist: White House Uses Video Game Hype to Market War to Young Men
The Trump administration is selling the war very differently from past conflicts.
Iranian Drones Destroy Amazon Data Centers, Amazon.com Goes Down
Week Ending March 6, 2026 In this week’s Author Update, we unpack how world events are impacting your author business, Audible’s aggressive response to Spotify, why Substack may be quietly hurting your Google rankings, and whether Apple’s new $600 laptop could be a...
Reader Magnets Are Dead? Why Most Reader Magnets Fail
Discover strategies to create a good reader magnet that will engage readers and boost your newsletter subscriptions.
Your Author Toolbox: Part 2
Discover the best tools for writers to streamline your author business, or turn podcasts into optimized blog content with the powerful Novel Marketing Patron Toolbox suite.
Zeitgeist: Romance Dominates Kindle But Shows Signs of Maturing
Highlights of the romance genre based on the new k-lytics report.
The Indie Whale Reader: How to Reach Readers Who Devour 100 Books a Year
Traditional publishing posts a December surge in the latest AAP StatShot, even as the broader market stays flat. We unpack new 2026 reader data, major AI-driven layoffs at Block, Spotify’s audiobook charts, Julia Quinn’s Kickstarter success, podcast growth, and key AI updates from Google and Cloudflare.
Zeitgeist: AI as Metaphor: Corporations, Pagan Gods & the Managerial State
For the past 40 years, AI villains in fiction have been metaphors for the soulless managerial state that stripped human agency throughout the 20th century.
How to Become a Professional Writer With Joanna Penn
Learn the mindset and approach to create a sustainable professional author business that appeals to readers and builds your career.
Zeitgeist: Conservative Art
Why do conservative and Christian authors struggle with creative fiction while Tolkien and C.S. Lewis created timeless classics? This video explores the critical difference between identity-based storytelling and character-driven narratives that resonate with readers.
Indies Win! Harlequin to Close Historical Romance Line
Supreme Court tariffs ruling, Harlequin exits historical romance, BookFunnel adds digital signings, and major AI shifts from ElevenLabs, Perplexity Pro, and Google’s new Web MCP reshaping audiobook production and SEO.
