Business and marketing updates for authors: August 21, 2026

The publishing experts we follow have plenty of business and marketing advice and news to offer.

Here are the ones that we thought were can't-miss for our authors:

• Dodge the three cash traps that kill author businesses: If you're interested in crowdfunding or selling merchandise, be sure to check out what Joe Solari says about the realities of how the finances work in those scenarios (Alliance of Independent Authors).

• Is selling books directly to readers worth it?: Amy Cornell unpacks the important questions that authors must consider when deciding on whether to make direct sales, beginning with a reminder that setting up the online storefront is the easiest part of a more complex endeavor (Author Marketing Experts).

• Amazon book optimization case study: On a similar note, Penny Sansevieri shares the strategies she used when making an author's book page easier for readers and retail systems to understand (Author Marketing Experts).

• Anthropic adds watermarks to Claude's AI-generated text: Dan Holloway weighs in on what he thinks the realities of this digital "fingerprint" will actually be for authors (Alliance of Independent Writers).