Welcome to Episode 15 of Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast.
In this episode, I chat about some of the things I learned from meeting other indie authors at the London Book Fair, my thoughts on Meta's AI scandal and how it's affecting indie authors and other creators, and as always, share some of the books by indie authors that I've been enjoying recently. Tune in for all of this, plus find out which indie author will be joining us next week! Listen Here:Show Notes:
Here are all the links included in this episode.
Read the transcript:
Welcome to episode 15 of Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast.
I'm excited to be back with you, albeit a few days later than usual, and I'll explain why in a minute. Today, we have a packed episode covering everything from big tech screwing over authors and new indie book recommendations. Plus, I'll be revealing our next indie author guest. Before we get into all of that, don't forget to hit subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on, so you never miss an episode. And if you enjoy the show, please consider recommending it to your book loving friends, because let's be honest, who doesn't need more indie books in their life? So, get comfy, open your book tracking app or TBR journal, and let's dive into today's episode. First things first, let me explain why this episode is a bit late. I do have a couple of very good reasons. The first boring reason is that I've been under the weather recently, which you might hear in my voice because I'm still not fully recovered. So, that slowed me down a bit. But on a much more interesting note, we've had a puppy. For those of you who've listened to the podcast for a while, you might remember that my 11-year-old German Shepherd passed away last year. It was a rough time and I'm still nowhere near over losing her. I'm not sure I ever will be, to be honest, but my partner and daughter were desperate to welcome another dog into the house. So, we recently adopted a 10-week-old ball of fluff in the form of a German Shepherd puppy. My partner settled on the name, Dio. But honestly, he's pure black and looks so much like a bat that I keep calling him my little bat boy, and I think Cassian might be a more fitting name. If you've read A Court of Thorns and Roses, you'll know what I mean, and trust me, his energy matches Cassian's too. This guy is huge for his age and he's a whirlwind of energy. So, so far, it's just been training cuddles and pure chaos. But worth it as the little monster is adorable. If you want to see the little terror, I'll be posting a photo of him on my Instagram @myendlessshelf. I'd love to know if you have any pets with book related names, so do let me know on any of the podcast or social channels. You can also get in touch through YouTube comments and by writing to [email protected]. I'll drop all of the links into the show notes. Another exciting thing that happened recently was having the opportunity to head to London to attend the Alliance of Independent Author's Member Party at the London Book Fair earlier this month. It was an amazing experience filled with networking, catching up with fellow indie authors, and discussing some really important things affecting indie authors at the moment. Some of the big conversations revolved around the effects of AI on writers, and I'll be talking more about that soon, the rise of direct sales and self-fulfilment for authors, the recent Amazon KDP changes I mentioned last month, and lots more. So, it was a really insightful and fun evening, and I left feeling really inspired. If you're an indie author and you haven't looked into ALLi yet, I highly recommend checking them out. They have tons of free resources if you're not able to join, and additional support and networking for members. For full disclosure, I am a member, and I do work with them also. Now, before we get into the usual reading updates and indie book recommendations, I just wanted to cover something that's been all over the news and social media this week. Since many of you have probably heard something about this already, I'm going to keep it short so you can skip over it if you're not interested. But for those who are wondering what I'm talking about, you might not have heard yet that Meta, which is Facebook, Threads, and Instagram's parent company, has been found out for training its AI on pirated books. So, to put it in the simplest terms, one of the richest companies in the world has chosen to knowingly steal work from authors on the basis that it had already been stolen by someone else, instead of compensating authors for their work. To top it off, they've stolen work by creatives to create a tool that's designed to take creative jobs and livelihoods. So, all in all, a completely dick move, especially when they knew what they were doing. If you haven't read the official findings yet from The Atlantic, feel free to take a look because it is astounding, honestly. One of the internal communications literally states that Meta felt that purchasing the rights for books to use to train their AI was "unreasonably expensive", which is laughable for a company with that much money. They flat out knew it was wrong, and they did it anyway. So, naturally it's made pretty much every author I know of understandably furious, and I'm sure you'll have seen one or two posts of authors venting on various social media platforms, blogs, newsletters, et cetera. The sad thing is that this story is just one piece of a much bigger problem, which is the way AI is being used to strip away opportunities from real, hardworking creatives. We're seeing AI-narrated audiobooks, replacing human narrators. AI generated art replacing illustrators, and AI-written books creeping into bestseller lists. For authors, artists, and creators, this isn't just an inconvenience, it's a direct threat to their livelihoods. Creatives everywhere who've spent years honing their craft, only to be told that a machine trained on stolen work can replace them because it's cheaper. Look, I get it. We don't all have unlimited budgets, you know, like big tech corporations, for example, but I do believe there's a difference between not being able to afford something and choosing not to pay a person, just because AI is cheaper. At the end of the day, what are we sacrificing? Creativity, authenticity, human connection. Honestly, forgive me if there's something I'm missing here and some reason why AI is being used to do creative jobs, but I'm just not seeing a justifiable reason to put creators’ livelihoods at risk, and to saturate media with AI-produced content if the only justification is cheaper cost. I understand that AI has its uses and that it can make things easier for a lot of people. I'm all for AI and other technologies being used to better people's lives, but when we're sacrificing human creativity and emotion, and risking human jobs for something that doesn't think or feel, something that doesn't need to worry about putting food on the table, it seems to me that we're giving up something really bloody important and exceptional for something very mediocre. But onto happier topics, I've been diving into some really fantastic books written by humans lately. The first one I want to talk about is A Captured Cauldron by R.K. Ashwick. I've talked about this book a few times because I read the first one, A Rival Most Vial last year, and really fell in love with the characters. This time, we're back with Ambrose and Eli, but we get the POV of another character, Dawn, who's Ambrose's best friend and wandmaker of Roseman Street where the story is set. This one took a completely different turn than the last one, but since it's a sequel, I really don't want to give too much away, other than to say that I loved every minute of this immersive, cozy fantasy and can't wait for book three. Also, thanks to the Right Here, Write Queer podcast, I've been listening to the first two chapters of the Oak King Holly King audio book by Sebastian Nothwell. This was the book that crossed me over from 2024 to 2025, so I have read it, but I'm loving the narration by Gary Furlong, and I'm enjoying hearing how he's bringing the characters to life. You can check out those two chapters for free through the Right Here, Write Queer Podcast, and then I think it's available to buy pretty much everywhere. I also read 10 Ways to Accidentally Fall in Love by Emmy Sanders. This was a silly, laugh out loud mm romance that had me chuckling and rolling my eyes, in a good way, at the OTT gym-bro style, language and behaviour from the main character, as he completely fails at being a wingman for his new gym buddy, and well, you'll have to read it to find out what happens next. And I finally finished Phantasma. If you remember from the last episode, I'd only just started it and felt like it was very similar to Caraval. But I have to say, since reading it, it's so much steamier than Caraval. If you read Caraval but wanted more steam, Phantasma will give you that. It was definitely an interesting read, and I thoroughly enjoyed how the different levels of hell or sins were portrayed during the game. It really was like Caraval meets the Hunger Games, but more adult. I was also able to check off another two books on the Dungeons and Dragons 2025 Reading Challenge over on The Storygraph. With Phantasma, I was able to check off the necromancy and the dark arts prompt, since the main character was a necromancer. And with A Captured Cauldron, I checked off the tavern prompt since the book has multiple POVs and it is a cozy fantasy. Also, while it doesn't start with the main characters meeting in a tavern, they do start in a bakery and there's a tavern in the story. So, I'm giving it that one. So, I'm up to five of those prompts checked off now. But what about you? How are your reading goals going so far this year? Please do let me know. With it being such a busy month, I haven't really added many new books to my TBR, so I could do with your help here. If you have any recommendations for me for books written by indie authors in the romance, fantasy, and paranormal genres, do send them my way. As always, you can reach me at [email protected] or on Threads and Instagram @myendlessshelf. If you tuned into the last episode, you might remember that I mentioned Split Fiction, which was a video game that had caught my eye. Well, my partner and I played it over the last month, and honestly, it was even better than I expected. I'll be completely transparent here, I'm not the best when it comes to time challenge style games, and there were a number of times where I got really mad because I struggled to do something, most notably the pinball machine level, which felt just incredibly difficult, but the story and the gameplay was just brilliant. The way the game explores storytelling and friendship, while feeding off the tension between writers and big tech that's just so relevant to everything in the industry right now, was just really compelling. Since it's a couch co-op, it also gave me another excuse to just hang out with my partner while we battled crazy creatures, machines, and villains. If you enjoy narrative driven games and ever-changing gameplay, I'd highly recommend that you check this one out. Before I finish up today's short catch-up episode, I'm really excited to announce that our next indie author guest is Ira Ribbon, author of The Demon of Elderstay. Ira will be joining us next week to talk about how Dungeons and Dragons influenced her world building and character creation. She'll also be sharing her thoughts on the Meta AI scandal, and giving us a sneak peek into what she's working on next. If you're a fan of dark fantasy with a touch of humour, you won't want to miss this conversation. That's all for this episode of Turn the Page: The Indie Book Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. I'll be back next month with more indie book recommendations and another fantastic indie author guest. Until next time, happy reading and keep turning the page.
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