Book Publishing in 2025—The Year in Review
As we reach the end of 2025, it's worth taking a look back at the year in book publishing. The industry continues to undergo massive disruption. New technologies, shifts in format adoption, alternative routes to publication, and legal cases all create new challenges and new opportunities for self-published authors. So let's dive into the headlines and our key takeaways from book publishing in 2025!
TAKEAWAY #1: Audio became a must-have format. It was another year of strong growth for audiobooks. Revenue for this format is projected to reach $2.2 billion in the US by the end of 2025, with the global market forecast to hit $8.32 billion. Interestingly, sales of this format appear to be augmenting, rather than cannibalizing, book sales of other formats. In other words, according to the data, the audiobook format is creating new audiences for authors and publishers, rather than purely compelling current audiences to switch to audio. This revelation was a major theme at this year’s Audio Publishers Association Conference (APAC).
Even as the number of listeners continues to grow, the cost and time to produce an audiobook is shrinking dramatically. New technologies like AI-narration have made audiobooks accessible and affordable even for self-publishers. Bublish launched its AI-narrated audiobook program in 2024 and saw strong growth in 2025. This is not surprising, given that AI-narrated audiobooks are 80% less expensive to produce and can be completed in just a couple of weeks.
Though we still offer human-narrated audiobooks, the quality of AI-narration continues to improve and unlike many publishing platforms, Bublish offers top-tier distribution of AI-narrated audiobooks to Audible (KDP/Amazon), Apple Books, Audiobooks.com, Baker & Taylor, Barnes & Noble, Bibliotheca, Google Play, Kobo, Overdrive, and Spotify, a growing force in the audiobook world. You can learn more about Bublish’s AI-narrated audiobook program via this link.
TAKEAWAY #2: Copyright protection shifted. A class-action lawsuit brought by authors, Bartz v Anthropic, became an important legal bellwether for copyright protection in 2025. The lawsuit asked the court to determine whether Anthropic’s AI training of its Claude chatbot on 7 million books constituted fair use. The judge ruled that it was fair use—meaning legal—but that Anthropic’s downloading and copying of pirated works for its training library was not legal. The two sides settled out of court for $1.5 billion due to copyright infringement around the pirated works.
Authors and publishers are expected to receive about $3,000 per title, though this amount could change before everything is finalized. To be eligible for the settlement, the judge ruled that a book must have been registered with the US Copyright Office within five years of publication before being downloaded by Anthropic.
Though the Anthropic ruling is an alarming wake-up call for authors and publishers, more lawsuits around AI training and copyright infringement are at hand, and may lead to further clarification of the courts’ views on this matter. If you are a self-published author, it’s important to follow these cases. You can learn more about the Anthropic settlement at The Authors Guild website.
In the development of our own proprietary AI tools here at Bublish, we have committed to NOT use our authors’ books for AI model training without clear consent. We encourage all authors to fully understand the terms around use of all intellectual training before engaging any publishing or marketing company.
TAKEAWAY #3: AI and other technologies began to level the playing field for indie authors. Even though self-publishing continued to grab market share from traditional publishers in 2025, the big New York publishing houses can still put hefty budgets behind their books. This can make it challenging for talented new independent voices to break through.
Self-publishing has always been a David versus Goliath scenario. But AI is starting to level the playing field for indie authors. A growing number of highly effective and very affordable AI tools, services, and resources are emerging to help self-publishers compete. Bublish is on the cutting edge of this shift. We now offer AI audiobook narration, AI language translation, and AI Book Positioning with more AI tools and services forthcoming in 2026. These AI offerings allow indie authors to expand their reach and create exciting new monetization opportunities for their titles.
Additionally, print-on-demand and direct-selling opportunities continue to converge. Two of Bublish's distribution partners (IngramSpark and Lulu) now offer integrations that enable authors to sell books directly to their readers without having to purchase inventory in advance. We've been adding these plug-and-play automations to the websites we build for authors for the last 18 months. This is game-changing, especially for authors with large and devoted followings on social media.
Over time, these new tools and emerging technologies will give the best and the brightest—no matter how they are published—an optimal chance to publish high-quality books that find their audience. We expect these developments will help more authors build more profitable careers doing what they love.
