I started in publishing back in 2007. One thing I’ve noticed in the intervening years is that publishing has always been in a state of flux, and the rate of change is accelerating.
- Stories that resonate with readers are changing.
- The way authors create stories is changing.
- How authors turn their stories into books is changing.
- How readers buy books is changing.
- How readers read books is changing.
A few months ago, the pace of change went through the roof. So far this year, about every ten days, a new AI model has come out that is better than all the previous models. O3 was the best, then Deep Search was the best, then Grok 3 was the best, then GPT 4.5 was the best, then Claude 3.7 was the best, then Gemini 2.5 was the best, then Deep Search had an update, and it was the best again, then Llama 4 came out and claimed it was the best, but it cheated on the benchmarks.
We’ve had several years’ worth of AI advancements, and it’s only April!
Technologies we thought were years away are already here. These changes will impact how you market and sell your book and what kind of competition your book will have at the bookstore.
Meanwhile, Novel Marketing focuses on the timeless elements of writing and marketing. While the industry and technology change continually, people have remained the same for thousands of years.
Since we focus on the reader, most of our episodes are timeless. This is why our old episodes are so popular. Most weeks, Novel Marketing has more downloads of our old episodes than of our new episodes.
Our goal with Novel Marketing from the beginning was to have an evergreen podcast, which is why I rarely discuss current events. Typically, we record one AI episode and one current events episode per year. I almost never talk about the constant changes at Amazon, even though those have a big impact on authors.
The downside of this evergreen approach is that I’ve left my listeners on their own to sort out publishing news. The result is that they find a lot of sensationalistic hearsay that spreads on author Facebook groups.
So, I asked myself, “How do I connect my audience with reliable publishing news while maintaining the evergreen nature of the podcast?”
I follow the news closely; some would say too closely. I also study history, which often gives me a different perspective than you may hear on the left or the right.
So, we decided to launch a brand-new show called Author Update. On Author Update, we talk about publishing news. If Amazon is rolling out a new feature, we’ll talk about it. When Audible announces new royalty rates, we’ll break them down. If Scrivener announces a new version, we’ll discuss the new features.
But we don’t just talk about publishing news. We also talk about how general news will impact you as an author.
- How will tariffs impact paper book prices?
- How would a Chinese blockade of Taiwan impact book printing in the US?
- How is the zeitgeist changing, and what does that mean for which kind of books will sell next year?
- What do the Hollywood hits and flops tell us about which books will sell?
We want our audience to be aware of the times so that they know what to do.
During the show, we also answer questions from our live studio audience. If you have a question, consider tuning in live to Author Update. We’ve found that having a room of live fact-checkers makes the show more fun and more accurate. Additionally, if you put ten authors in a room, you are bound to get a dozen perspectives, which will lead to fascinating conversations.
I cohost Author Update with Jonathan Shuerger. Jonathan worked in marketing and production at a traditional publisher and has launched hundreds of books. He is an indie author himself, works with indie authors on a contract basis, and is a no-nonsense Marine with his own perspective. I tend to have a more strategic bird’s-eye perspective, while Jonathan has a more grounded tactical perspective.
Author Update airs live on YouTube on Fridays at 4:00 PM Central, and the replay is available on YouTube. It’s also available on your favorite podcast app. That’s right! Author Update is now a podcast. You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. We also have a website at AuthorUpdate.com.
There won’t be a live episode this week because we’re taking Good Friday off. So we will have twice the news to cover next week.
The show is in its early days, and I would love to get your feedback on how to make it better. Viewers have asked us to make it a podcast as well as a YouTube show, and we have!
To give you a taste of what the show is like, this week’s episode of Novel Marketing will be the most recent episode of Author Update:
Author Update: April 11 Episode-Amazon Series Recap
Today we’ll be talking about
- Amazon AI-Powered Search
- Tariffs
- The New “Read Sample” Option on Amazon
- The Economy
- China’s American Book Ban
- How to Sound Smart
- And much more!
Amazon Adds New AI-Generated “Series Recap” Feature to Kindle Software
Readers will be able to take advantage of an optional Series Recap feature to help them catch up on a series’ details before starting subsequent books. Amazon says they’re using GenAI tech and Amazon moderators to create the recaps. There seems to be a bit of a snag as to whether Amazon can create a product from an author’s work to benefit their platform. Publisher’s Lunch asked how they’re approaching acquiring the rights to even create the recaps, but as of yet, there has been no response.
What do you think about having an AI-generated series recap that would potentially update a reader on a series they haven’t touched in a while?
Thomas: I’m not a lawyer, but an AI-generated recap sounds like a derivative work. Copyright law protects your rights to intellectual property and to derivative works. If you write a story about Conan the Barbarian, nobody else can write a story about him without the character creator’s permission.
It seems to me that publishing this on the website attached to the book could be considered a derivative work. Amazon will likely force authors to opt into it. The easiest way to do that is to hide checkboxes everywhere.
For example, I recently got a new iPhone. When I was setting it up, I was specifically looking for the option to disable “Hey Siri” because I don’t like my phone listening to me all the time. But it slipped right past me while I was looking for it. I opted in when I didn’t want to. So, I had to go into the settings and find it to disable it. I don’t want it listening to me all the time. There’s a special button on the iPhone to talk to Siri if I want to.
I suspect Amazon will get around the legal issues by requiring an opt-in
How will this impact authors?
Some authors are concerned readers will skip earlier books in the series and rely on the AI summary to get them up to speed. AI is getting good at summarizing, but it’s not going to be as good as reading the original book.
Jonathan: YouTube influencers and reviewers could find the series recap useful. If they’re reading the latest book in a series, this tool could help them quickly catch up on the context. But honestly, the best books already include an author-created summary of previous books that are built right into the book’s first pages.
Thomas: Some do, but some don’t. This could be beneficial for authors who are writing a series and readers who are reading the series in real-time. It’s kind of annoying for somebody who’s binging a series that’s been already created, but if it’s been two years since I read the last Dresden book, I want a reminder of what happened in the last book.
For books I really like, I’d probably reread to get up to speed. It could help in that way. I hope there’s an easy way to skip it. I think, in general, this will be a net benefit for authors.
Preorders Now Have a “Read Sample” Option on Amazon
In a great move for debut authors, Amazon has added “Read Sample” functionality to preorders on their site, allowing readers to sample up to 10% of a book. That means when you put a book up for preorder on Amazon, readers will have the opportunity to read a sample.
It should work as an additional trust badge for converting traffic into preorders. The sample will be auto-generated by Amazon from the file provided to it.
Jonathan: This could be a benefit for debut authors who want to give people a free snapshot of the book before it’s live.
Thomas: Whether this new setup is opt-in, opt-out, or always active will make a difference. But if it’s always active, you’ll want to avoid uploading an early draft just to start the preorder process. Readers may end up seeing and judging your book based on a version that isn’t final, which means you’re not putting your best foot forward.
What if the recap is wrong?
Viewer Question from Jayna: What happens if the recap is inaccurate, and readers decide not to read the other books based on this dumb summary? I’ve seen AI get things like this really wrong or just wrong enough.
Jonathan: If readers see this tool get it wrong enough times, nobody will listen to it.
Thomas: They’ll likely build a feedback mechanism into it where you can correct it. Rufus is Amazon’s AI that summarizes product reviews. There’s a button you can click to complain about inaccuracies.
Check your Amazon pages for your book and the Kindle summaries. If there is an issue, file a complaint so it will update and fix itself.
Jonathan: If you have enough reviews, Rufus will generate an AI summary of them. It also asks whether it’s helpful or not. They’ll probably enact something similar.
Thomas: In the comments, Talina is saying that this feature is currently only available for books you’ve already purchased, which is another way around the legal implications. I wouldn’t be surprised if they expand this beyond books you’ve already purchased, but that does solve several problems.
Jonathan: Amazon does want to sell books, so if somebody’s not going to buy the book because they can read the recap, that doesn’t benefit Amazon.
Amazon AI-Powered Search Poised to Upend Industry Norms
Thomas: One of the benefits of living near Austin, Texas, is that many of my friends work at major tech companies. I won’t say which ones. At birthday parties for our kids, we sometimes end up talking about new technologies that haven’t been released yet.
At one of these gatherings, a friend who works at a large tech company mentioned their upcoming AI-powered search. He said it would be significantly better than the current version. It’s faster, smarter, and more intuitive.
Now, I’m going to start speculating about Amazon. I believe Amazon is either already testing or will soon roll out something similar. You may have already seen early signs of this with Rufus, their chat-based assistant. Soon, readers might be able to chat with Rufus about the kinds of books they like. Rufus could even review their past book reviews, pick up on specific preferences, and then recommend new titles that match those tastes.
What makes this especially exciting is that it could become a highly effective, AI-driven discovery tool that works entirely on Amazon’s end. For authors, it’s a potential sales booster that requires no additional effort. This type of search wouldn’t rely on the traditional search bar but instead on AI that understands the content of books (tropes, themes, and reader feedback) to deliver personalized book recommendations. Keep an eye out for it.
Jonathan: In Minority Report, there’s a scene where someone walks through a shopping mall in the future, and holograms pop up to greet them by name, referencing their purchase history: “You bought this before. Why not try this? It’s on sale today.” The recommendations are personalized, generated by AI, and incredibly effective. When I saw that, I thought, “Oh, we’re definitely headed in that direction.” People absolutely want that kind of personalized experience.
From my background as a Marine, I learned the importance of studying a target’s pathway, understanding why someone makes the decisions they make, and why they choose certain routes or take specific actions. The same logic applies to how readers find books on Amazon.
Traditionally, a reader’s path to discovery has gone through natural language search. They type something into the search bar like “best book of 2025” or “best progression fantasy LitRPG by a queer feminist.” That keyword search becomes the reader’s starting point. Amazon then builds a discovery path based on that request, using a hierarchical structure to match content with the query.
But with AI, this process is changing entirely.
Instead of the reader initiating a search, AI will soon create the path for them. It will analyze their purchase history, browsing habits, and past preferences and then generate a discovery experience based on those behaviors. This shifts the entire model from users telling Amazon what they want to Amazon predicting what they’ll want next based on what they’ve already done.
Thomas: This kind of AI-powered recommendation system will create an even bigger moat around Amazon, keeping readers inside its ecosystem. Amazon has access to detailed purchase history that competitors like Barnes & Noble don’t. Barnes & Noble doesn’t have that data, and they also don’t have a team of AI engineers building features like this. They’re not making that kind of investment.
Amazon, on the other hand, is developing its own large language model internally. Right now, it’s garbage but it exists. Plus, Amazon is a part owner of Anthropic, the company behind Claude, which is a strong AI model. So Amazon has multiple options when it comes to leveraging AI, and it’s unclear which one they’re using to power Rufus.
Either way, this kind of AI-driven personalization will make it much harder for readers to leave Amazon, especially if Amazon is doing a great job recommending books they genuinely want to read.
Is GPT outperforming Google Search?
In the comments, Robin mentioned she’s taking a college class on AI, and her professor said ChatGPT is already outperforming Google Search. In my experience, Grok’s Deep Search is even better. Since I started using it, I’ve almost stopped using Google entirely. When you ask Grok a question and activate Deep Search, it scans dozens or even hundreds of web pages, synthesizes the information, and gives you a detailed report.
What’s more, it cites its sources so you can find the exact piece of information you need and go straight to that specific page.
This represents a major shift in how we think about search engine optimization. At AuthorMedia.com, we’re increasingly creating content not just for human readers but for AI.
At Author Media, we’re asking ourselves, “Is this blog post version of a podcast episode meant for humans or for AI Thomas?”
If it’s for humans, it should be shorter, more direct, and to the point. But if it’s designed to help AI Thomas answer book marketing questions more effectively, then it needs to be longer, more in-depth, and more substantive.
As a company, we’re figuring out how to navigate that.
Jonathan: You have to consider all the tools currently available to authors, like Publisher Rocket. Most of these tools are built around an NLP (natural language processing) keyword model. They’re designed to help your book show up in search results but not necessarily to help it get recommended by an AI that’s using a different algorithm to build discovery pathways.
What authors will need to learn now is how to get Amazon to recommend their books using a new set of tactics. Previously, the debut author’s strategy was to get people onto a mailing list with a lead magnet and then drive them to buy your book on Amazon. The idea was to “shock” the Amazon algorithm using the specific keywords you gave readers so Amazon would learn how to categorize and recommend your book.
However, if keywords are no longer the driving factor, then the entire targeting strategy changes. The tactics have shifted. Now, your book needs to be recommended by AI based on what readers have already been reading, not what they’re typing into a search bar.
Thomas: Well, the AI will still be using keywords and the data sets to make recommendations. It’ll pull from all that search and keyword data because the keyword data is a synthesis of the book. It has the 100,000 words of the novel, but it helps to have that keyword layer to give it context. So it’s not making keywords unimportant, but it is opening another battlefield, so to speak, in terms of how to phrase your book for readers.
Jonathan: We do have a potential danger coming, and it’s similar to the problem Hollywood has faced over the past 15 years. The industry has become focused solely on producing what makes money, which is why we keep getting sequel after sequel and remake after remake. They keep walking the same well-worn paths.
This AI will likely be optimized for sales, not for discovery. It will keep recommending the same types of books that have already sold well, reinforcing what’s already popular instead of helping readers discover something new.
If that doesn’t change, it will be especially difficult for debut authors to break in. Without a system that supports discovery, new voices may be overlooked.
It’s like that story about the sheep in the forest. One sheep starts walking in a circle, and the others just follow the one in front of them. If the system is designed to follow what already works, it may end up going in circles.
Thomas: Large language models are terrible at predicting the future, while humans are pretty good at it. We can see a trend, forecast that trend into the future, and run probabilities. Humans do it automatically.
For example, when I see my small children put a cup at the edge of the table. I can see the future. That cup, which is perfectly stable on the edge of that table, is not going to be perfectly stable there for long.
Large language models are inherently backward-looking. They generate text by making word-by-word predictions based on existing data, but they can’t track or project trends into the future.
I noticed this while working on my zeitgeist episodes. I often have AI running alongside me for fact-checking and research, but I found it to be pretty useless in those episodes. Even when I primed it with the Strauss and Howe generational theory and explained the concept of the turnings, it still struggled. The model understands the theory well and can articulate it clearly, but when it comes to applying that theory to future scenarios, it just doesn’t perform as well.
New Patron Tool: Coloring Page Maker
Thomas: My goal is to release a new patron tool with every episode of Author Update. The latest tool is a coloring page maker. You can paste in a scene from your book and choose the type of coloring page you want to create, whether it’s for toddlers, kids, or adults. The tool will generate a custom coloring page based on your content.
You can use this multiple times each month with different scenes, especially if you’re interested in creating an entire coloring book based on your book. If you’re thinking, “But I write for adults. They don’t color,” you might be surprised. Coloring books are very popular among adults.
If you bundle several pages together, it could make a great reader magnet that readers can print at home.
To learn more about this and other tools, check out our growing Patron Toolbox, with dozens of tools designed to make your author life easier.
How is AI search changing Amazon ads?
Jonathan: Building on the previous topic, this may help explain why some authors are reporting rising costs when using Amazon ads. It’s happening even in niche categories that used to be relatively inexpensive. Now, in some cases, ad costs have doubled.
Just last week, I was running an ad campaign for someone, and one keyword suddenly jumped from 65 cents to $4. There was no clear reason for the spike, and I didn’t catch it right away. I had to turn off that keyword because Amazon was feeding most of the impressions through it.
I suspect Amazon is quietly transitioning to an AI-driven system behind the scenes. It looks like AI is now controlling how keywords are assigned and how ads are displayed. Rufus, Amazon’s AI assistant, seems to be having more influence on the process, and it’s changing how Amazon Ads work in the background.
That brings me to a fun line I came up with: “The time of SEO is over. The time of the AI has come.”
Thomas: It’s true. Instead of humans visiting my webpages, AIs are visiting my webpages and summarizing those pages for humans. In fact, Gemini summarized my post on the Brandon Sanderson Crop Rotation Method as if it were some general theory, but I’m the only person who’s ever written about that.
As Economy Shifts, Generational Divides Widen
While stock portfolios are taking hits and retirement accounts are draining, those of retirement age are finding little sympathy from millennials and Gen Zers. Social media is full of Boomers and Gen X’ers asking for some consideration, but GenZers are delighted to respond with familiar advice from Boomers, such as, “Update your resume. Work an entry-level job. Don’t buy coffee. Save up and get a used car. Don’t eat the avocado toast.”
The younger generations are pushing back, essentially saying, “You ruined the economy for us.” They’re frustrated that they can’t afford to buy a home, in part because older generations sold their properties to corporations buying with cash. As a result, younger people are stuck renting and working jobs that feel like dead ends.
There’s a growing sense of tension and resentment between the generations as this financial crisis continues to unfold.
How will that generational tension affect how we create fiction that will speak to our particular audiences?
Thomas: This deeply affects the craft of your story, specifically, the kinds of challenges your characters face and the tropes that will resonate with your audience. For example, if you’re older, you might see Homer Simpson as a loser. That was the perception when The Simpsons first aired. Homer was an underachieving joke.
But many younger viewers today see Homer as aspirational. He owns a home. He earns enough for his wife to stay home. They have two cars, go on vacations, and live comfortably on a single income. For most young people, that lifestyle feels completely out of reach. They want to be as well-off as Homer Simpson.
This reflects a growing generational divide. Boomers often talk about how financially difficult things are, yet many of them are asset-rich. They own property and investments that have appreciated significantly over time.
This divide also shows up in how different generations view the stock market. I’m 39 years old, and I don’t plan to retire anytime soon, so I actually want stock prices to be low. When the market dips, the small amount I invest each month buys more equity. I use Edward Jones to invest in ETFs, and when prices are down, that same monthly contribution gives me a larger slice of the companies I’m investing in.
From a financial perspective, the only two times you care about stock prices are when you buy and when you sell. Everything else is just noise. Since I’m still buying, low prices are good for me.
However, for someone near or in retirement who is now selling their portfolio, high prices are far more favorable. This creates a natural tension between generations. Younger people are contributing to Social Security while 10% of their wages are being diverted to fund retiree benefits. That money is going directly from younger workers to older recipients.
How do you reflect this generational tension in your fiction?
First, be mindful of what your characters complain about. For example, if a character complains about property taxes, younger readers might roll their eyes. They’d love to pay property taxes, but they don’t own a home. Their property taxes are baked into their rent, which they pay to a corporate landlord like BlackRock because they can’t afford to buy.
The safest route is to write for your own generation, but if you want your story to have a broader impact, it should resonate beyond your generation. The best way to do that is to listen. Talk with people from other age groups. Learn about their hopes, dreams, and frustrations. This will help you write stories that connect across generations and make your fiction more powerful and relevant.
Jonathan: Don’t make the same mistake some politicians made during COVID who came across as tone-deaf. They’d say, “I’m suffering just like everyone else,” while standing in front of a giant, expensive ice cream freezer. It showed they were out of touch with the people they were trying to relate to.
Make sure that when you speak or write, you’re genuinely connecting with your audience. Know who you’re talking to, and make sure your message resonates with them.
Sound Quality a Major Factor in How Intelligent You Present
Scientific American reports that you are more likely to agree with someone you would otherwise disagree with if the quality of their sound is good. The reporter said that when faced with one interviewee with whom he disagreed and one with whom he agreed, he found himself more amenable to the disagreeable one simply because he used a good microphone and had a good sound. The other used a laptop mic and had terrible ambient sound.
Thomas: I have a whole episode called Watch This Before Your Next Podcast Interview. Having a real microphone in front of you makes a huge difference.
Using a bad mic is similar to showing up in clothes with holes or smelling bad. Being poorly dressed and smelling bad doesn’t necessarily indicate stupidity, but people naturally have a bias. You’re more likely to trust and believe someone who’s well-dressed and smells good.
The same applies to audio quality. A poor-sounding microphone creates a negative impression, even if the content is good. Fortunately, investing in a quality microphone doesn’t cost much. These days, you can get an excellent microphone for a surprisingly low price, and many plug directly into your computer.
I highly recommend checking out the episode I did on microphones. It’s only 15 minutes long. You’ll hear my wife and I test a variety of microphones because some mics sound better with male voices and others with female voices.
In general, I recommend dynamic microphones over condenser microphones for both men and women. Dynamic mics are better suited for real-world environments. They pick up less background noise like road noise, pet noise, and kid noise. Condenser mics, on the other hand, pick up everything. One of the most popular condenser microphones is the Blue Yeti, and it’s often the culprit when people struggle with noisy recordings.
If you already have a Blue Yeti, you can make it work better by throwing away the little plastic stand that comes with it. Then, spend about $20 on a microphone arm from Amazon. Mount the mic so it’s about four fingers away from your mouth.
A good mic arm lets you position the microphone close. The closer the mic is to your mouth, the lower you can set the volume or “gain.” The lower the gain, the less background noise the mic will pick up, whether it’s traffic, pets, or kids.
Check out my comprehensive podcast gear guide, featuring different price points for equipment at Podcast.parts.
Tariffs Don’t Apply to Books Entering America, Just the Ones Leaving
Jonathan: According to the American Booksellers Association, US tariffs have exemptions for “printed books, brochures, leaflets and similar printed matter in single sheets, whether or not folded.” In short, the new tariffs don’t apply directly to books but may still raise book prices as the price of paper and fuel rises.
China, on the other hand, has an 84% tariff on American books.
China is also reducing film imports, which they were already doing. Several Marvel movies were not allowed to play in China. While most of the stock market is up today, Disney is down, partly out of fears of further movie bans.
How much of a price hike should we consider when pricing our books to handle the costs?
Thomas: This is a significant update and correction from last week’s discussion on tariffs. Last week, we explored tariffs on a rhetorical level, focusing on how trade wars unfold. Heads of state like Xi Jinping or Donald Trump, or their spokespeople, make bold statements announcing tariffs. These announcements prompt immediate market reactions. A few days later, a press release, executive order, or equivalent document provides the details and reveals carve-outs or exemptions.
For example, consider the US embargo on Cuba, which supposedly prohibits all trade. In reality, we sell billions of dollars worth of goods to Cuba because food and medicine are exempted. As a result, we flood Cuba with wheat from Kansas, corn from Nebraska, and other American agricultural products. Tariffs often work similarly.
Last week, we assumed books would face tariffs since we lacked specifics on the tariff proposal. We noted that certain books, like Bibles, are primarily printed in China, and high-end books often come from there as well.
Now, with the details of Trump’s tariff proposal in hand, we know that books from China are entirely exempted. Meanwhile, China imposes massive tariffs on American books and selling them there has always been challenging, even without tariffs. China’s strict controls on freedom of speech make it difficult to get American books onto Chinese bookshelves or through the Great Firewall of China.
The Great Firewall of China is a system of blocks at all internet connections between Chinese and non-Chinese computers, severely censoring content. Users in China encounter error pages where others would not. They lack access to the full internet, relying instead on a heavily censored version with restricted search engines. Historically, the primary way to bypass the Great Firewall was by using a VPN, one of the few legitimate uses of such tools. However, recent reports indicate that China now blocks most VPNs, meaning they can no longer be used to circumvent the Great Firewall.
China isn’t just imposing massive tariffs on American books; they’re also sharply reducing imports of American films. I’ve been monitoring the stock market, and nearly every stock I track in my app is up, except for Disney and Netflix. Everything else is in the green, though Meta just slipped into the red alongside Disney. Disney and Netflix are both being hit by the news that China is tightening restrictions on Hollywood films.
This isn’t new for Disney. China’s restrictive practices, like high tariffs on American books, blocks on certain books, and limits on American films, have been ongoing for years. The Chinese Communist Party tightly controls which movies can be shown in China. For instance, the Marvel movie Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was designed with a Chinese hero for the Chinese market. The CCP blocked it entirely, reportedly because an actor acknowledged Taiwan as a country, offending someone in the Party. That led to the film being banned, along with several other Disney movies.
As a result, many Disney films can’t be shown in China. Some still circulate through pirate networks, which don’t generate revenue but at least allow stories and ideas to spread in the Chinese market.
Grok 3 API Is Live
Authors using tools like Straico and T3 Chat will be able to access Grok 3. In terms of API pricing, Grok 3 costs less than GPT 4o, the same as Claude 3.7, and more than Gemini 2.5.
Thomas: Grok 3 is the AI developed by xAI, the company behind X (formerly Twitter), making it Elon Musk’s AI. Until recently, it wasn’t available through platforms like Straico or T3 Chat. This morning, xAI opened the Grok 3 API, expanding access to Grok 3 across more services, which is exciting news. This also sheds light on its pricing structure.
When you use tools from the Patron Toolbox, each use incurs a cost. Your patronage helps cover these expenses, with some funds supporting those tools. Different AI models have varying prices based on the computational power required.
Grok 3 comes in two versions: the standard Grok 3 and a lighter, more affordable version called Grok 3 Light. The light version is typically used for free interactions. In terms of pricing, Grok 3 is cheaper than OpenAI’s GPT-4o, matches the cost of Claude, and is slightly more expensive than Google’s Gemini 2.5, which remains the most affordable option by a significant margin.
Aethon Books Farming Web Fiction to Find New Bestsellers
Jonathan: An article came out on Fandom Pulse reporting that Aethon has been combing Royal Road and other web fiction purveyors for new authors to add to its stable. Two series in particular stand out: Iron-Blooded by Reece Brooks and Reborn as a Dark Lord by Timothy Long. Both had significant Royal Road followings and were acquired by Aethon Books for a full release. There may be a new way to be discovered if you write fiction that serializes well.
Is this a new way to be found or discovered?
Thomas: I don’t think so. I’m very suspicious of Aethon Books. I want to be excited about them, but I haven’t heard whether they have any budget for advertising or marketing. It seems like they’re hoping their right-of-center stance and “based” branding will attract attention on its own. While that might generate some buzz, most people aren’t constantly thinking about politics.
Most readers just want a good story. They’re turned off by overly political content, regardless of whether it leans left or right. They’re tired of novels preaching at them. I believe most readers want engaging stories, not political messaging.
If Aethon wants to be truly successful, it needs to invest in advertising like Amazon ads, Facebook ads, and other forms of direct-to-consumer marketing. If they can figure that out and do it profitably, I think they have a strong shot at success. But without that, I don’t believe political positioning alone will carry them.
That said, I do think their Larry Correia book shows promise.
Larry Correia Announces New Progression Fantasy Series with Aethon, Baen Books Hit Hardest
Larry has announced his new Academy of Outcasts progression fantasy series will be with Aethon Books. It seems like a death blow to Baen Books.
Jonathan: In my opinion. Aethon is kind of the new Baen Books. Baen Books got traction by serving unreached readers.
Thomas: They were the home for military sci-fi if you wanted to read space marine fiction, a genre that is conservative-leaning and male-leaning.
Jonathan: Aethon seems to be gobbling up Baen’s market share.
Larry Correia also has a series coming out with Ark Press.
I think this is because Baen has not modernized its audience acquisition or brand growth, preferring to let heavy hitters like Larry Correia and David Weber subsidize lesser-known authors who don’t get marketing attention. With this announcement, however, I can’t see how Baen Books can continue with this business model for much longer unless they do some rapid modernization.
Thomas: Using your successful authors to subsidize less successful ones is actually standard practice in publishing. But what Baen wasn’t doing was direct reader acquisition. They weren’t investing in acquiring new readers for their authors, not even for Larry Correia or their other top authors.
It seems they viewed marketing as an expense rather than an investment. This is a common mindset in publishing houses run by editorial people with English or literary backgrounds. They love books and tend to believe the answer to every problem, whether marketing or financial, is simply to publish more and better books.
But that’s not the answer from a business perspective. The real solution is more and better readers. You have to invest in reaching readers and start viewing marketing as an investment, not just a cost.
This is a mistake many indie authors make, too. They treat marketing as an expense to minimize rather than an investment to maximize. But if you can market profitably, if you’re acquiring readers for less than they’re worth to you, you’re in a strong position.
For example, if you earn $3.50 per new reader and it only costs you $3 to acquire one, you’re profitable. In that case, you want to buy as many readers as possible. Run as many ads as you can because each one adds value. Once someone becomes a reader, future books cost far less to sell. Amazon might even email them saying, “Your favorite author, Author Jones, has a new book in the series you love. Click here to buy.” And just like that, they’re in.
That’s the mindset I didn’t see from Baen. I didn’t see a willingness to invest in marketing or in acquiring readers. It looked like they were expecting success to come purely from the books themselves.
Jonathan: They were focused on maximizing the value of their existing list and seemed to be relying on that alone to sustain themselves. When I looked into them a while back, I asked, “What’s your process? How did you become successful?” But as I dug deeper, I thought, “This approach isn’t going to work for very long.”
I’ve been doing a lot of research on direct reader acquisition and the costs involved. Right now, acquiring a reader through advertising typically costs between $12 and $18, depending on the platform you’re using and the genre you write in.
Last week, we cautioned against using Advantage Plus in Meta ads. I dove deeper into it this week, trying to figure out what the optimal budget is to make Advantage Plus work effectively.
It turns out you need to be spending somewhere between $500 and $750 per week for Advantage Plus to perform well. If your reader acquisition cost is $12 to $18, you’ll need a deep series to recoup those costs. For example, when I sell a paperback directly, I make about $8. That doesn’t even cover the cost of acquiring that reader unless they also buy book two. Then, I might make a total of $22, which will start to make the math work.
So, what should you be looking at? If you’re working with a small budget, I strongly recommend not using Advantage Plus. You’ll just burn through your money, and the AI won’t have enough data or “fuel” to learn your audience. Instead, you’ll want to rely on more detailed, manual targeting methods that are better suited to limited budgets.
Thomas: AI needs big data to function effectively, and getting that data requires spending big money. AI doesn’t perform well with small data sets. This is where humans have the advantage. We’re able to make surprisingly good decisions based on very limited information. We’re often wrong, but we give ourselves room to be wrong, and those mistakes usually come at a low cost.
However, with AI, especially when using it for reader acquisition, the cost of being wrong is much higher. If you’re expecting the AI to magically find readers for you, you’ll need a much larger upfront investment. Often, you have to spend several thousand dollars just to see if it will work, and if it doesn’t, that money is gone.
That’s why it’s so important never to spend money on advertising that you can’t afford to lose. If you need that money for your mortgage, don’t risk it. Only invest in advertising with money you can afford to spend and potentially lose.
Female Aslan?
Thomas: Some folks in the chat have wanted us to talk about female Aslan.
For those of you who don’t know, Netflix has approached Meryl Streep to be the voice of Aslan for their skin-walker Narnia series.
Big corporations often take beloved intellectual properties, wear them like a skin suit, and turn them into puppets for their own agendas. The Narnia books, with Aslan the Lion, are explicitly Christian, unlike Lord of the Rings, which has an implicitly Christian worldview influenced by Norse mythology and other elements. Tolkien’s work makes sense when you understand his perspective, but Narnia is different. Aslan is Jesus.
Even non-Christians enjoy Narnia, but its core fandom is Christian, and they won’t embrace a female Aslan. Aslan has a mane, and fans will likely be offended at a female Aslan.
Some companies might see this as an opportunity, hoping to stir up enough anger for free PR. Outrage sparks discussions on shows like this one, and everyone wants to talk about it. This can lead to “hate watches,” where people watch just to criticize, but those views still count.
On platforms like YouTube, our live audience leaves friendly comments and engages positively in the chat. We love you all to pieces, and we appreciate every listener. But the replay viewers can be mean, nasty, and politically opposed. Some deliberately misunderstand us, posting long rants to “debunk” what they think they heard. Those comments, though, boost engagement, which draws more viewers to our videos. That’s why I don’t delete the negative ones.
This might be the strategy here to provoke Christians to maximize buzz, banking on the idea that there’s no such thing as bad PR. But I don’t think this approach works anymore. Gender-bending is now often associated with low quality, and I doubt this plan will work. I wouldn’t be surprised if they back off.
All the press has been about Meryl Streep being approached for the role, but she has not yet accepted it. Leaking that news feels like a test to gauge how angry people will get.
Personally, I don’t have a Netflix subscription, I haven’t since the Cuties controversy, and I have no intention of watching. I didn’t trust Netflix to handle Narnia well before, and nothing they’ve announced has changed my mind.
Jonathan: I have another theory: it’s about desecrating the temples of your enemies. If someone is ideologically opposed to the original message of the Narnia series, they might see a financial loss as worthwhile if it means they can defile its “holy ground.”
Thomas: This could also be a “stealing their gods” situation. I was reading Titus Livy, and when Rome was just beginning to assert itself, long before it became a great power, it started warring with neighboring Latin towns. After defeating their closest rival in a major battle, they sent their priests to appeal to Juno, the goddess of that town, asking her to come to Rome.
Then, they held a grand procession, removing the statue of Juno from her temple in the defeated town. With sacrifices, rituals, and Roman religious practices, they brought Juno to Rome and installed her in a new temple built for her. They declared, “Now she’s our goddess. She’ll fight for us.” If anyone wanted Juno’s blessing, they had to align with Rome. It was a religious act. The rival town’s temple was left empty, its idol was stolen, and Juno was now enshrined in Rome’s temple.
But here’s the thing: you can’t steal Aslan.
EPIC Indie Sale Has 300 Participants
Over 80 indie speculative authors with 150 books got together for the EPIC Indie Spring Promo Sale. Organizer M.S. Olney was kind enough to talk with me on Substack’s chat and reports that hundreds of books just from his trackable affiliate links have sold in the sale, not counting what authors are making from direct links. He says he started the EPIC Indie Sale to “raise awareness of indie authors, their books, and get them sales!” He had his own book in the sale, Heir to the Sundered Crown (affiliate link), available for $.99 for a limited time.
So check out the EPIC Indie Sale. It may be something you want to try to get into later. Consider subscribing to the EPIC Indie Substack, and you’ll be notified when he puts out a call for books.
If you want me to do AdWords or targeting for you, go to my Substack and let me know if I can give you a hand.
First Q&A for the First Email Challenge
Thomas: We had an incredible turnout for the First Email Challenge. Nearly 500 people joined the challenge. Registration for that is still open. You won’t get the emails, but you can race through the challenge.
Featured Patrons
Joy Cleveland, author of Lucy in Bloom (Affiliate Link)
Lucy Bloom is content in her routine, but when the charming new pastor, Nathan Moss, arrives with his infectious warmth and sparkle, Lucy is forced to question everything she thought she knew about love and safety. With humor, heart, and a touch of divine intervention, this contemporary Christian romance unfolds the transformative power of love and faith, urging readers to believe in the beauty of new beginnings.
You can become a Novel Marketing Patron here.
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