Spotify partners with Bookshop.org to sell paper books

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Spotify partners with Bookshop.org to sell paper books

21 April 2026

Spotify members in the United States and United Kingdom will soon be able to buy paper, or physical books, through the music streaming app, by way of a partnership with Bookshop.org, supporters of local and indie bookstores.

With just over seven-hundred-and-fifty million monthly active Spotify users, the partnership will surely be a shot in the arm for authors and book publishers.

It would of course be ideal if the joint venture (I hesitate to say deal, the word seems a little overused at present) more favoured indie and small publishing houses, but sales of any book, by any author, can only be a good thing.

Hopefully Spotify members worldwide will be able to buy paper books through the app eventually.

Buzzfeed facing bankruptcy after AI gamble unravels

19 March 2026

Victor Tangermann, writing for Futurism:

The company reported a net loss of $57.3 million in 2025 in an earnings report released on Thursday. In an official statement, the company glumly hinted at the possibility of going under sooner rather than later, writing that “there is substantial doubt about the Company’s ability to continue as a going concern.”

This is distressing news. I knew a couple of former Sydney based Buzzfeed writers, and even visited the office on one occasion. Numerous media outlets are working with AI agents, but few are allowing them to run the news desk. I’m hoping Buzzfeed is able to work their way through this difficulty.

Get listed in the 2026 Internet Phone Book

14 March 2026

The second edition of the Internet Phone Book is in the works, and publishers of personal websites are being invited to submit their URL.

I was stoked to be included in the inaugural edition, compiled last year by Kristoffer Tjalve and Elliott Cost, and you can still call me on 492.

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Substack reportedly asking Australian users to verify their age

2 February 2026

According to a Reddit thread, that was re-posted at Marginal Revolution, the online publishing platform is requesting users in Australia submit to an age verification process.

Substack, as of the time I type, is not on the list of websites, or services, that Australians under the age of sixteen cannot access, so I’m not sure why Substack would be doing this. If indeed they are.

On a visit to Substack, again, as of the time I write this, I was able to access, and move around the site without hindrance. I was not logged in, but was using an Australian ISP.

Evidently some people are having difficulty though. Possibly age verification only applies to people in Australia who are logging in to gain access. I might try doing this another time.

But Substack is a platform, and who knows, may one day be added to the banned list. This is precisely why online writers should be publishing from their own, independent website, and not a platform.

And this is before addressing the concerns many people have with Substack in the first place.

Microsoft to pay some publishers for content used by AI agents

27 September 2025

David Uzondu, writing for Neowin:

Microsoft is reportedly discussing with select US publishers a pilot program for its so-called Publisher Content Marketplace, a system that pays publishers for their content when it gets used by AI products, starting with its own Copilot assistant.

It’s a step in the right direction, but a lot hangs on the word select. The suggestion here is the majority of publishers, particularly smaller ones, including bloggers, will be excluded. Even if their content has been scrapped, and is being used in AI products.

Reasons to leave Substack, how to leave Substack

5 August 2025

The question is — before giving any thought to some of the objectionable content they host — what are you doing there in the first place? Why would you allow your brand to be assimilated by another?

American economist Paul Krugman’s decision to set up shop on Substack, after he stopped writing for The New York Times, plain baffles me. With a profile as impressive as his, Krugman could just as easily started publishing from his own website, with a ready made audience.

He didn’t need to go to a third party publishing platform. Certainly Substack publishes writer’s posts as email newsletters, but if someone wants to syndicate their work by newsletter, there are other options. Writers can earn money through Substack, some do very well apparently, but high profile writers have a number of ways of generating revenue through their own, self-hosted, websites.

You Should Probably Leave Substack goes through some of the options available to writers who want to leave Substack (and preferably publish from their own website).

12 foot ladder, a website that circumvented paywalls, taken offline

19 July 2025

Emma Roth, writing for The Verge:

The News/Media Alliance, a trade association behind major news publishers, announced that it has “successfully secured” the removal of 12ft.io, a website that helped users bypass paywalls online.

Thomas Millar, the 12 Foot Ladder founder, saw his app as a way of “cleaning” web pages, by disabling scripts that blocked access to non-paying subscribers. The News/Media Alliance, on the other hand, viewed 12 Foot as an illegal tool, that deprived publishers and writers of subscription income.

The near demise, and comeback, of Medium, an online publishing platform

17 July 2025

Tony Stubblebine, CEO of online publishing platform Medium, writing at Medium:

I’m gonna write the wonky post of Medium’s turnaround. I’m not sure if a company is allowed to be this blunt about how bad things were. But it’s very much of the Medium ethos that if something interesting happened to you, then you should write it up and share it. So hopefully this will give some inside info about what happens to a startup in distress, and one way to approach a financial, brand, product, and community turnaround.

Like many online writers I signed up for Medium — which is similar to Substack — a couple of years after its 2012 founding. A few people I knew were publishing there, and I was curious to see what it was about. I’m yet to post anything though.

But Stubblebine’s account of Medium’s ups and downs is, at times, astonishing. Particularly the amounts of money, both as investments, and in debt, that are involved. Of course, there will be plenty of people who’ll call those sums a pittance, but speaking as a boot-strapping independent online publisher, they are incredible.

The lure of publishing your work on a platform such as Medium, lies in the opportunity to be paid for it. And no doubt, some writers posting on Medium do well.

For my part, the prospect of publishing there (or on similar platforms) is tempting, but doing so just isn’t in my DNA. I’ve never liked the idea of assimilating my brand into someone else’s, something I’ve said before. Anything you do on a third-party publishing platform is doable on your own website/blog, if you are prepared to persevere.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t ever post there, and for someone like me, a platform such as Medium might be comparable to a social media channel.

Limit AI use Colleen Hoover, Dennis Lehane, others, ask book publishers

10 July 2025

Colleen Hoover and Dennis Lehane are among American authors who have signed an open letter to book publishers including Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, and Hachette, asking them to extensively limit their use of AI. The authors are requesting no AI generated work be published, and publishing company staff are not replaced, either partly or wholly, by AI technologies.

The authors demands are reasonable, to a degree. Any AI created works of fiction will most certainly contain the literary DNA of previously published writers, given the quantity of novels that have been used to train AI models. I believe though reputable publishers would think twice about publishing books one-hundred percent generated by AI. But I’m not sure the authors’ expectations that the roles of employees be guaranteed is realistic, well intentioned as it is.

AI is here to stay. Attempting to create AI-free sanctuaries in workplaces is pointless. AI will impact on everyone’s work one way or another. What we need to do is adapt. The matter that really needs to be addressed, is the issue of writers’ works being used to train chatbots without permission or recompense. Maybe the letter will draw further attention to this problem.

disassociated is listed in the Internet Phone Book: call me on 492

19 May 2025

A colorful drawing activity is taking place on a table with a yellow book titled

Image courtesy of Ana Šantl.

disassociated has been included in the inaugural edition of the Internet Phone Book, a directory of over seven-hundred personal websites and blogs, compiled by Kristoffer Tjalve, and Elliott Cost.

An annual publication for exploring the vast poetic web, featuring essays, musings and a directory with the personal websites of hundreds of designers, developers, writers, curators, and educators.

You don’t read a great deal of poetry on my website, but Tjalve and Cost offer a definition of poetic in this interview with Meg Miller of Are.na, publishers of the book.

Being a phone directory, each listed website naturally comes with a “phone number”, a three digit code allocated by the authors, a kind of short-cut link, that lets you “call” through, I’m on 492.

As of the time I type, the book has sold out through the publisher’s website (I think another print is in the works), though it is available from selected stockists across Europe, and in South Korea.

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