AI as a decision partner

What does 2026 hold for indie authors and the publishing industry? I give my thoughts on trends and predictions for the year ahead.

In the intro, Quitting the right stuff; how to edit your author business in 2026; Is SubStack Good for Indie Authors?; Business for Authors webinars.

If you'd like to join my community and support the show every month, you'll get access to my growing list of Patron videos and audio on all aspects of the author business — for the price of a black coffee (or two) a month. Join us at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn.

Joanna Penn writes non-fiction for authors and is an award-winning, New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author as J.F. Penn. She’s also an award-winning podcaster, creative entrepreneur, and international professional speaker.

You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. 

• (1) More indie authors will sell direct through Shopify, Kickstarter, and local in-person events
• (2) AI-powered search will start to shift elements of book discoverability
• (3) The start of Agentic Commerce
• (4) AI-assisted audiobook narration will go mainstream
• (5) AI-assisted translation will start to take off beyond the early adopters
• (6) AI video becomes ubiquitous. ‘Live selling’ becomes the next trend in social sales.
• (7) AI will create, run, and optimise ads without the need for human intervention
• (8) 1000 True Fans becomes more important than ever

You can find all my books as J.F. Penn and Joanna Penn on your favourite online store in all the usual formats, or order from your local library or bookstore. You can also buy direct from me at CreativePennBooks.com and JFPennBooks.com.

I'm not really active on social media, but you can always see my photos at Instagram @jfpennauthor.

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2026 Trends and Predictions for Indie Authors and Book Publishing 

(1) More indie authors will sell direct through Shopify, Kickstarter, and local in-person events — 

and more companies like BookVault will offer even more beautiful physical books and products to support this.

This trend will not be a surprise to most of you! Selling direct has been a trend for the last few years, but in 2026, it will continue to grow as a way that independent authors become even more independent.  

The recent Written Word Media survey from Dec 2025 noted that 30% of authors surveyed are selling direct already and 30% say they plan to start in 2026. Among authors earning over $10,000 per month, roughly half sell direct. 

In my opinion, selling direct is an advanced author strategy, meaning that you have multiple books and you understand book marketing and have an email list already or some guaranteed way to reach readers. In fact, Kindlepreneur reports that 66% of authors selling direct have more than 5 books, and 46% have more than 10 books. 

Of course, you can start with the something small, like a table at a local event with a limited number of books for sale, but if you want to consistently sell direct for years to come, you need to consider all the business aspects.

Selling direct is not a silver bullet. 

It’s much harder work to sell direct than it is to just upload an ebook to Amazon, whether you choose a Kickstarter campaign, or Shopify/Payhip or other online stores, or regular in-person sales at events/conferences/fairs. 

You need a business mindset and business practices, for example, you need to pay upfront for setup as well as ongoing management, and bulk printing in some cases. You need to manage taxes and cashflow. You need to be a lot more proactive about marketing, as you won’t sell anything if you don’t bring readers to your books/products. 

But selling direct also brings advantages.

It sets you apart from the bulk of digital only authors who still only upload ebooks to Amazon, or maybe add a print on demand book, and in an era of AI rapid creation, that number is growing all the time.

If you sell direct, you get your customer data and you can reach those customers next time, through your email list. If you don’t know who bought your books and don’t have a guaranteed way to reach them, you will more easily be disrupted when things change — and they always change eventually.

Kindlepreneur notes that “45% of the successful direct selling authors had over 1,000 subscribers on their email lists,” with “a clear, positive correlation between email list size and monthly direct sales income — with authors having an email list of over 15,000 subscribers earning 20X more than authors with email lists under 100 subscribers.” 

Selling direct means faster money, sometimes the same day or the same week in many cases, or a few weeks after a campaign finishes, as with Kickstarter. 

And remember, you don’t have to sell all your formats directly. You can keep your ebooks in KU, do whatever you like with audiobooks, and just have premium print products direct, or start with a very basic Kickstarter campaign, or a table at a local fair. 

Lots more tips for Shopify and Kickstarter at https://www.thecreativepenn.com/selldirectresources/ 

I also recommend the Novel Marketing Podcast on The Shopify Trap: Why authors keep losing money as it is a great counterpoint to my positive endorsement of selling direct on Shopify! 

Among other things, Thomas notes that a fixed monthly fee for a store doesn’t match how most authors make money from books which is more in spikes, the complexity and hassle eats time and can cost more money if you pay for help, and it can reduce sales on Amazon and weaken your ranking. Basically, if you haven’t figured out marketing direct to your store, it can hurt you.

All true for some authors, for some genres, and for some people’s lifestyle. 

But for authors who don’t want to be on the hamster wheel of the Amazon algorithm and who want more diversity and control in income, as well as the incredible creative benefits of what you can do selling direct, then I would say, consider your options in 2025, even if that is trying out a low-financial-goal Kickstarter campaign, or selling some print books at a local fair. 

Interestingly, traditional publishers are also experimenting with direct sales. Kate Elton, the new CEO of Harper Collins notes in The Bookseller’s 2026 trend article,

“we are seeing global success with responsive, reader-driven publishing, subscription boxes and TikTok Shop and – crucially – developing strategies that are founded on a comprehensive understanding of the reader.” 

She also notes,

“AI enables us to dramatically change the way we interact with and grow audiences. The opportunities are genuinely exciting – finding new ways to help readers discover books they will love, innovating in the ways we market and reach audiences, building new channels and adapting to new methods of consuming content.”

(2) AI-powered search will start to shift elements of book discoverability

From LinkedIn’s 2026 Big Ideas:

“Generative engine optimization (GEO) is set to replace search engine optimization (SEO) as the way brands get discovered in the year ahead. As consumers turn to AI chatbots, agentic workflows and answer engines, appearing prominently in generative outputs will matter more than ranking in search engines.” 

Google has been rolling out AI Mode with its AI Overviews and is beginning to push it within Google.com itself in some countries, which means the start of a fundamental change in how people discover content online.

I first posted about GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) and AEO (Answer Engine Optimisation) in 2023, and it's going to change how readers find books.

For years, we've talked about the long tail of search. Now, with AI-powered search, that tail is getting even longer and more nuanced.

AI can understand complex, conversational queries that traditional search engines struggled with. Someone might ask, “What's a good thriller set in a small town with a female protagonist who's a journalist investigating a cold case?” and get highly specific recommendations.

This means your book metadata, your website content, and your online presence need to be more detailed and conversational.

AI search engines understand context in ways that go far beyond simple keywords. The authors who win in this new landscape will be those who create rich, authentic content about their books and themselves, not just promotional copy.

As economist Tyler Cowen has said,

“Consider the AIs as part of your audience. Because they are already reading your words and listening to your voice.”

We’re in the ‘organic’ traffic phase right now, where these AI engines are surfacing content for ‘free,’ but paid ads are inevitably on the way, and even rumoured to be coming this year to ChatGPT. 

By the end of 2026, I expect some authors and publishers to be paying for AI traffic, rather than blocking and protesting them. 

For now, I recommend checking that your author name/s and your books are surfaced when you search on ChatGPT.com  as well as Google.com AI Mode (powered by Gemini). You want to make sure your work comes up in some way.

I found that Joanna Penn and J.F. Penn searches brought up my Shopify stores, my website, podcast, Instagram, LinkedIn, and even my Patreon page, but did not bring up links to Amazon. If you only have an author presence on Amazon, does it appear in AI search at all? Do you need to improve anything about what the AI search brings up? 

Traditional publishers are also looking at this, with PublishersWeekly doing webinars on various aspects of AI in early 2026, including sessions on GEO and how book sales are changing, AI agents, and book marketing. 

In a 2026 predictions article on The Bookseller, the CEO of Bloomsbury Publishing noted,

“The boundaries of artificial intelligence will become clearer, enabling publishers to harness its benefits while seeking to safeguard the intellectual property rights of authors, illustrators and publishers.”

“AI will be deeply embedded in our workflows, automating tasks such as metadata tagging, freeing teams to focus on creativity and strategy. Challenges will persist. Generative AI threatens traditional web traffic and ad revenue models, making metadata optimisation and SEO critical for visibility as we adjust to this new reality online.”

(3) The start of Agentic Commerce

AI researches what you want to buy and may even buy on your behalf. Plus, I predict that Amazon does a commerce deal with OpenAI for shopping within ChatGPT by the end of 2026.

In September 2025, ChatGPT launched Instant Checkout and the Agentic Commerce Protocol, which will enable bots to buy on websites in the background if authorised by the human with the credit card. VISA is getting on board with this, so is PayPal, with no doubt more payment options to come.

In the USA, ChatGPT Plus, Pro, and Free users can now buy directly from US Etsy sellers inside the chat interface, with over a million Shopify merchants coming soon.

Shopify and OpenAI have also announced a partnership to bring commerce to ChatGPT. I am insanely excited about this as it could represent the first time we have been able to more easily find and surface books in a much more nuanced way than the 7 keywords and 3 categories we have relied on for so long!

I’ve been using ChatGPT for at least the last year to find fiction and non-fiction books as I find the Amazon interface is ‘polluted’ by ads.

I’ve discovered fascinating books from authors I’ve never heard of, most in very long tail areas. For example, Slashed Beauties by A. Rushby, recommended by ChatGPT as I am interested in medical anatomy and anatomical Venuses, and The Macabre by Kosoko Jackson, recommended as I like art history and the supernatural. I don’t think I would have found either of these within a nuanced discussion with ChatGPT.

Even without these direct purchase integrations, ChatGPT now has Shopping Research, which I have found links directly to my Shopify store when I search for my books specifically.  

Walmart has partnered with OpenAI to create AI-first shopping experiences, and you have to wonder what Amazon might be doing?

In Nov 2025, Amazon signed a “strategic partnership” with OpenAI, and even though it's focused on the technical side of AI, those two companies in a room together might also be working on other plans …

I’m calling it for 2026. I think Amazon will sign a commerce agreement with OpenAI sometime before the end of the year.

This will enable at least recommendation and shopping links into Amazon stores (presumably using an OpenAI affiliate link), or perhaps even Instant Checkout with ChatGPT for Amazon.

It will also enable a new marketing angle, especially if paid ads arrive in ChatGPT, perhaps even integrating with Amazon Ads in some way as part of any possible agreement, since ads are such a good revenue stream for Amazon anyway. 

The line between discovery, engagement, and purchase is collapsing.

Someone could be having a conversation with an AI about what to read next, and within that same conversation, purchase a bookwithout ever leaving the chat interface. This already happens within TikTok and social commerce clearly works for many authors. It’s possible that the next development for book discoverability and sales might be within AI chats. 

This will likely stratify the already fragmented book eco-system even more. Some readers will continue to live only within the Amazon ecosystem and (maybe) use their Rufus chatbot to buy, and others will be much wider in their exploration of how to find and discover books (and other products and services).

If you haven’t tried it yet, try ChatGPT.com Shopping Research for a book. You can do this on the free tier. Use the drop down in the main chat box and select Shopping Research.

It doesn't have to be for your book. It can be any book or product, for example, our microwave died just before Christmas so I used it to find a new one. But do a really nuanced search with multiple requirements. Go far beyond what you would search for on Amazon.

In the results, notice that (at the time of writing) it does not generally link to Amazon, but to independent sites and stores. As above, I think this will change by the end of 2026, as some kind of commerce deal with Amazon seems inevitable.

(4) AI-assisted audiobook narration will go mainstream

I've been talking about AI narration of audiobooks since 2019, and over the years, I’ve tried various different options.

In 2025, the technology reached a level of emotional nuance that made it much easier to create satisfying fiction audio as well as non-fiction. It also super-charges accessibility, making audio available in more languages and more accents than ever before.

Of course, human narration remains the gold standard, but the cost makes it prohibitive for many authors, and indeed many small traditional publishers, for all books. If it costs $2000 – $10,000 to create an audiobook, you have to sell a lot to make a profit, and the dominance of subscription models have made it harder to recoup the costs. 

Famous narrators and voice artists who have an audience may still be worth investing in, as well as premium production, but require an even higher upfront cost and therefore higher sales and streams in return.

AI voice/audio models are continuing to improve, and even as this goes out, there are rumours on TechCrunch that OpenAI’s new device, designed by Jony Ive who designed the iPhone, will be audio first and OpenAI are improving their voice models even more in preparation for that launch. 

In 2026, I think AI-narrated audio will go mainstream with far-reaching adoption across publishing and the indie author world in many different languages and accents.

This will mean a further stratification of audiobooks, with high quality, high production, high cost human narrated audio for a small percentage of books, and then mass market, affordable AI-narrated audio for the rest.

AI-narrated audiobooks will make audio ubiquitous, and just as (almost) every print book has an ebook format, in 2026, they will also have an audio format.

I straddle both these worlds, as I am still a human audiobook narrator for my own work. I human-narrated Successful Self-Publishing Fourth Edition (free audiobook) and The Buried and the Drowned, my short story collection. 

I also use AI narration for some books. ElevenLabs remains my preferred service and in 2025, I used my J.F. Penn voice clone for Death Valley and also Blood Vintage, while using a male voice for Catacomb. 

I clearly label my AI-narration in the sales description and also on the cover, which I think is important, although it is not always required by the various services. 

You can distribute ElevenLabs narrated audiobooks on Spotify, Kobo Writing Life, YouTube, ElevenReader, and of course your own store if you use Shopify with Bookfunnel.

There are many other services springing up all the time, so make sure you check the rights you have over the finished audio, as well as where you can sell and distribute the final files. If they are just using ElevenLabs models in the back-end, then why not just do that directly? (Most services will be using someone's model in the back-end, since most companies do not train their own models.)

Of course, you can use Amazon’s own narration. 

While Amazon originally launched Audible audiobooks with Virtual Voice (AVV) in November 2023, it was rolled out to more authors and territories in 2025. If your book is eligible, the option to create an audiobook will appear on your KDP dashboard. With just a few clicks, you can create an audiobook from a range of voices and accents, and publish it on Amazon and Audible.

However, the files are not yours. They are exclusive to Amazon and you cannot use them on other platforms or sell them direct yourself.

But they are also free, so of course, many authors, especially those in KU, will use this option. I have done some for my mum's sweet romance books as Penny Appleton and I will likely use them for my books in translation when the option becomes available.

Traditional publishers are experimenting with AI-assisted audiobook narration as well. 

MacMillan is selling digital audiobooks read by AI directly on their store.

PublishersWeekly reports that PRH Audio “has experimented with artificial voice in specific instances, such as entrepreneur Ely Callaway’s posthumous memoir The Unconquerable Game,” when an “authorized voice replica” was created for the audiobook. The article also notes that PRH Audio “embrace artificial intelligence across business operations—my entire department [PRH Audio] is using AI for business applications.”

And while indie authors can’t use AI voices on ACX right now, Audible have over 100 voices available to selected publishing partnerships, as reported by The Guardian with “two options for publishers wishing to make use of the technology: “Audible-managed” production, or “self-service” whereby publishers produce their own audiobooks with the help of Audible’s AI technology.”

In 2026, it’s likely that more traditional publishers — as well as indie authors — will get their backlist into audio with AI narration.

(5) AI-assisted translation will start to take off beyond the early adopters

Over the years, I've done translation deals with traditional publishers in different languages (German, French, Spanish, Korean, Italian) for some fiction and non-fiction books.

But of course, to get these kinds of deals, you have to be proactive about pitching, or work with an agent for foreign rights only, and those are few and far between! There are also lots of languages and territories worldwide, and most deals are for the bigger markets, leaving a LOT of blue water for books in translation, even if you have licensed some of the bigger markets.

I did my first partially AI-translated books in 2019 when I used Deepl.com for the first draft and then worked with a German editor to do 3 non-fiction books in German. While the first draft was cheap, the editing was pretty expensive, so I stopped after only doing a couple. I have made the money back now, but it took years.

In 2025, AI Translation began to take off with ScribeShadow, GlobeScribe.ai, and more recently, in November 2025, Kindle Translate boosting the number of translated books available.

Kindle Translate is (currently) only available to US authors for English into Spanish and also German into English, but in 2026, this will likely roll out to more languages and more authors, making it easier than ever to produce translations for free.

Of course, once again, the gold standard is human translation, or at least human-edited translations, but the cost is prohibitive even just for proof-reading, and if there is a cheap or even free option, like Kindle Translate, then of course, authors are going to try it. If the translation gets bad reviews, they can just un-publish.

There are many anecdotal stories of indie success in 2025 with AI-translated genre fiction sales (in series) in under-served markets like Italian, French, and Spanish, as well as more mainstream adoption in German.

I was around in the Kindle gold-rush days of 2009-2012 and the AI-translation energy right now feels like that. There are hardly any Kindle ebooks in many of these languages compared to how many there are in English, so inevitably, the rush is on to fill the void, especially in genres that are under-served by traditional publishers in those markets.

Yes, some of these AI translated books will be ‘AI-slop,' but readers are not stupid.

Those books will get bad reviews and thus will sink to the bottom of the store, never to be seen again. 

The AI translation models are also improving rapidly, and Amazon's Kindle Translate may improve faster than most, for books specifically, since they will be able to get feedback in terms of page reads. 

Amazon is also a major investor in Anthropic, which makes Claude.ai, widely considered the best quality for creative writing and translation, so it's likely that is used somewhere in the mix.

Some traditional publishers are also experimenting with AI-assisted translation, with Harlequin France reportedly using AI translation and human proofreaders, as reported by the European Council of Literary Translators’ Associations in December 2025. 

Academic publisher Taylor and Francis is also using AI for book translation, noting:

“Following a program of rigorous testing, Taylor & Francis has announced plans to use AI translation tools to publish books that would otherwise be unavailable to English-language readers, bringing the latest knowledge to a vastly expanded readership.”

“Until now, the time and resources required to translate books has meant that the majority remained accessible only to those who could read them in the original language. Books that were translated often only became available after a significant delay. Today, with the development of sophisticated AI translation tools, it has become possible to make these important texts available to a broad readership at speed, without compromising on accuracy.”

(6) AI video becomes ubiquitous. ‘Live selling’ becomes the next trend in social sales.

In 2025, short form AI-generated video became very high quality. OpenAI released Sora 2, and YouTube announced new Shorts creation tools with Veo 3, which you can also use directly within Gemini. There are tons of different AI video apps now, including those within the social media sites themselves. There is more video than ever and it’s much easier to create.

I am not a fan of short form video! I don't make it and I don't consume it, but I do love making book trailers for my Kickstarter campaigns and for adding to my book pages and using on social media.

I made a trailer for The Buried and the Drowned using Midjourney for images and then animation of those images, and Canva to put them together along with ElevenLabs to generate the music.

But despite the AI tools getting so much easier to use, you still have to prompt them with exactly what you want. I can’t just upload my book and say, “Make a book trailer,” or “Make a short film.” 

This may change with generative video ads, which are likely to become more common in 2026, as video turns specifically commercial. 

Video ads may even be generated specifically for the user, with an audience of one, maybe even holding your book in their hands (using something like Cameos on Sora), in the same way that some AI-powered clothing stores do virtual try-ons. 

This might also up-end the way we discover and buy things, as the AI for eCommerce and Amazon Sellers newsletter says about OpenAI’s Sora app,

“OpenAI isn't just trying to build a TikTok competitor. They're building a complete reimagining of how we discover and buy things …”

“The combination of ChatGPT's research capabilities and Sora's potential for emotional manipulation—I mean, “engagement”—could create something we've never seen before: an AI ecosystem that might eventually guide you through every type of purchase, from the most considered to the most impulsive.”

In 2026, there will be A LOT more AI-generated video, but that also leads to the human trend of more live video. 

While you can use an AI avatar that looks and sounds like you using tools like HeyGen or Synthesia, live video has all the imperfect human elements that make it stand-out, plus the scarcity element which leads to the purchase decision within a countdown period.

Live video is nothing new in terms of brand building and content in general, but it seems that live events primarily for direct sales might be a thing in 2026. Kim Kardashian hosted Kimsmas Live in December 2025 with a 45 minute live shopping event with special guests, described as entertainment but designed to be a sales extravaganza. 

Indie authors are doing a similar thing on TikTok with their books, so this is a trend to watch in 2026, especially if you feel that live selling might fit with your personality and author business goals. It’s certainly not for everyone, but I suspect it will suit a different kind of creator to those who prefer ‘no face’ video, or no video at all!

On other aspects of the human side of social media, Adam Mosseri the CEO of Instagram put a post on Threads called Authenticity after Abundance. He said, 

“Everything that made creators matter—the ability to be real, to connect, to have a voice that couldn’t be faked—is now suddenly accessible to anyone with the right tools.”

“Deepfakes are getting better and better. AI is generating photographs and videos indistinguishable from captured media. The feeds are starting to fill up with synthetic everything. And in that world, here’s what I think happens.
Creators matter more.” 

It’s a long article so just to pick a few things from it: 

“We like to talk about “AI slop,” but there is a lot of amazing AI content … we are going to start to see more and more realistic AI content.” 

I’ve talked to my Patreon Community about this ‘tsunami of excellence’ as these tools are just getting better and better and the word ‘slop’ can also be applied to purely human output, too. If you think that AI content is ‘worse’ than wholly human content, in 2026, you are wrong. It is now very very good, especially in the hands of people who can drive the AI tools.

Back to Adam’s post: 

“Authenticity is fast becoming a scarce resource, …The creators who succeed will be those who figure out how to maintain their authenticity [even when it can be simulated] …”

“The bar is going to shift from “can you create?” to “can you make something that only you could create?”

He talks about how the personal content on Instagram now is: “unpolished; it’s blurry photos and shaky videos of people’s daily experiences … flattering imagery is cheap to produce and boring to consume. People want content that feels real… Savvy creators are going to lean into explicitly unproduced and unflattering images of themselves. In a world where everything can be perfected, imperfection becomes a signal. Rawness isn’t just aesthetic preference anymore—it’s proof. It’s defensive. A way of saying: this is real because it’s imperfect.”

While I partially love this, and I really hope it’s true, as in I hope we don’t need to look good for the camera anymore I would also challenge Adam on this, because pretty much every woman I know on social media has been sent sexual messages, and/or told they are ugly and/or fat when posting anything unflattering. I’ve certainly had both even for the same content, but I don’t expect Adam has been the target for such posting! But I get his point. 

He goes on:
“Labeling content as authentic or AI-generated is only part of the solution though. We, as an industry, are going to need to surface much more context about not only the media on our platforms, but the accounts that are sharing it in order for people to be able to make informed decisions about what to believe. Where is the account? When was it created? What else have they posted?” 

This is exactly what I’ve been saying for a while under my double down on being human focus. I use my Instagram @jfpennauthor as evidence of humanity, not as a sales channel. You can do both of course, but increasingly, you need to make sure your accounts at places have longevity and trust, even by the platforms themselves. 

Adam finishes:

“In a world of infinite abundance and infinite doubt, the creators who can maintain trust and signal authenticity—by being real, transparent, and consistent—will stand out.”

For other marketing trends for 2026, I recommend publicist Kathleen Schmidt’s SubStack which is mostly focused on traditional publishing but still interesting for indies. In her 2026 article, she notes:  

“We have reached a social media saturation point where going viral can be meaningless and should not be the goal; authenticity and creativity should.

She also says, “In-person events are important again,” and, “Social media marketing takes a nosedive… we have reached a saturation point … What publishers must figure out is how to make their social media campaigns stand out. If they remain somewhat uninspired, the money spent on social ads won’t convert into book sales.”

I think this is part of the rise of live selling as above, which can stand out above more ‘produced’ videos. 

Kathleen also talks about AI usage.

“AI can help lighten the burden of publicity and marketing.”

“A lot of AI tools are coming to market to lessen the load: they can write pitches, create media lists for you, send pitches for you, and more. I know the industry is grappling with all things AI, but some of these tools are huge time savers and may help a book more than hurt it.”

On that note … 

(7) AI will create, run, and optimise ads without the need for human intervention

Many authors will be very happy about this as marketing is often the bane of our author business lives!

As I noted in my 2026 goals, I would love to outsource more marketing tasks to AI. I want an “AI book marketing assistant” where I can upload a book and specify a budget and say, ‘Go market this,’ then the AI will action the marketing, without me having to cobble together workflows between systems. Of course, it will present plans for me to approve but it will do the work itself on the various platforms and monitor and optimize things for me.

I really hope 2026 is the year this becomes possible, because we are on the edge of it already in some areas.  

Amazon Ads launched a new agentic AI tool in September 2025 that creates professional-quality ads. 

I’ve also been working with Claude in Chrome browser to help me analyse my Amazon Ad data and suggest which keywords/products to turn off and what to put more budget into. I’ll do a Patreon video on that soon. 

Meta announced it will enable AI ad creation by the end of 2026 for Facebook and Instagram.

For authors who find ad creation overwhelming or time-consuming, this could be a game-changer. Of course, you will still need a budget!

(8) 1000 True Fans becomes more important than ever

Lots of authors and publishers are moaning about the difficulty of reaching readers in an era of ‘AI slop’ but there is no shortage of excellent content created by humans, or humans using AI tools. 

As ever, our competition is less about other authors, or even authors using AI-assisted creation, we’re competing against everything else that jostles for people’s attention, and the volume of that is also growing exponentially. 

I’ve never been a fan of rapid release, and have said for years that you can’t keep up with the pace of the machines. So play a different game. 

As Kevin Kelly wrote in 2008, If you have 1000 true fans, (also known as super fans), “you can make a living — if you are content to make a living but not a fortune.”

[Kevin Kelly was on this show in 2023 talking about Excellent Advice for Living.]

Many authors and the publishing industry are stuck in the old model of aiming to sell huge volumes of books at a low profit margin to a massive number of readers, many of them releasing ever faster to try and keep the algorithms moving. But the maths can work for the smaller audience of more invested readers and fans.

If you only make $2 profit on an ebook, you need to sell 500 ebooks to make $1000, and then do it again next month.

Or you can have a small community like my patreon.com/thecreativepenn where people pay $2 (or more) a month, so even a small revenue per person results in a better outcome over the year, as it is consistent monthly income with no advertising. 

But what if you could make $20 profit per book? 

That is entirely possible if you’re producing high quality hardbacks on Kickstarter, or bundle deals of audiobooks, or whole series of ebooks. You would only need to sell to 50 people to make $1000.

What about $100 profit per sale, which you can do with a small course or live event? 

You only need 10 people to make $1000, and this in-person focus also amplifies trust and fosters human connection. 

I’ve found the intimacy of my live Patreon Office Hours and also my webinars have been rewarding personally, but also financially, and are far more memorable — and potentially transformative — than a pre-recorded video or even another book.

From the LinkedIn 2026 Big Ideas article:

“In an AI-optimized world, intentional human connection will become the ultimate luxury.” 

The 1000 True Fans model is about serving a smaller, more personal audience with higher value products (and maybe services if that’s your thing). As ever, its about niche and where you fit in the long long long long long tail.

It’s also about trust. Because there is definitely a shortage of that in so many areas, and as Adam Mosseri of Instagram has said, trust will be increasingly important. 

Trust takes time to build, but if you focus on serving your audience consistently, and delivering a high quality, and being authentic, this emerges as part of being human.

In an echo of what happened when online commerce first took off, we are back to talking about trust. Back in 2010, I read Trust Agents: by Julien Smith and Chris Brogan, which clearly needs a comeback. There was a 10th anniversary edition published in 2020, so that’s worth a read/listen. 

Chris Brogan was also on this show in 2017 when we talked about finding and serving your niche for the long term. That interview is still relevant, here’s a quick excerpt, where I have (lightly edited) his response to my question on this topic back in 2017:

Jo: The principle of know, like, and trust, why is that still important or perhaps even more important these days?

Chris: There are a few things that at play there, Joanna. One is that the same tools that make it so easy for any of us to start and run a business also allow certain elements to decide whether or not they want to do something dubious. And with all new technologies that come, you know, there's nothing unique about these new technologies.

In the 1800s, anyone could put anything in a bottle and sell it to you and say, this is gonna cure everything. Cancer — gone. And the bottle could have nothing in. You know, it could be Kool-Aid. And so, the idea of trying to understand what's behind the business though, one beautiful thing that's come is that we can see in much more dimensions who we're dealing with. We can understand better who's the face behind the brand. 

I really want people to try their best to be a lot clearer on what they stand for or what they say. And I don't really mean a tagline. I mean, humans don't really talk like that. They don't throw some sentence out as often as they can that you remember them for that phrase. 

But I would say that, we have so many media available to us — the plural of mediums — where we can be more of ourselves.

And I think that there's a great opportunity to share the ‘you’ behind the scenes, and some people get immediately terrified about this, ‘Ah, the last thing I want is for people to know more about me,’ but I think we have such an opportunity. 

We have such an opportunity to voice our thoughts on something, to talk about the story that goes behind the product. We were all raised on overly produced material, but I think we don't want that anymore. We really want clarity, brevity, simplicity. We want the ability for what we feel is connection and then access. 

And so I think it's vital that we connect and show people our accessibility, not so that they can pester us with strange questions, but more so that you can say, this person stands with their product and their service and this person believes these things, and I feel something when I hear them and I wanna be part of that.”

That’s from Chris Brogan’s interview here in 2017, and he is still blogging and speaking at writing at ChrisBrogan.com and I’m going to re-listen to the audiobook of Trust Agents again myself as I think it’s more relevant than ever. 

The original quote comes from Bob Burg in his 1994 book, Endless Referrals,

“All things being equal, people will do business with, and refer business to, those people they know, like and trust.”

That still applies, and absolutely fits with the 1000 True Fans model of aiming to serve a smaller audience.

As Kevin Kelly says in 1000 True Fans,

“Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum bestseller hits, blockbusters, and celebrity status, you can aim for direct connection with a thousand true fans.”

“On your way, no matter how many fans you actually succeed in gaining, you’ll be surrounded not by faddish infatuation, but by genuine and true appreciation. It’s a much saner destiny to hope for. And you are much more likely to actually arrive there.”

In 2026, I hope that more authors (including me!) let go of ego goals and vanity metrics like ranking, gross sales (income before you take away costs), subscribers, followers, and likes, and consider important business numbers like profit (which is the money you have after costs like marketing are taken out), as well as number of true fans — and also lifestyle elements like number of weekends off, or days spent enjoying life and not just working! 

OK, that’s my list of trends and predictions for 2026. Let me know what you think in the comments. Do you agree? Am I wrong? What have I missed? 

The post 2026 Trends And Predictions For Indie Authors And The Book Publishing Industry with Joanna Penn first appeared on The Creative Penn.