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Articles by Millicent Weber
From cloning romance authors to YouTube piracy, AI is transforming audiobooks
News on AI and audiobooks is coming thick and fast. Australia-based audiobook producer Bolinda recently announced it will create a “bespoke” AI clone of romance bestseller Barbara Cartland’s voice, in partnership with her estate. (She died in 2000.) Two days later, Spotify announced a tool (created by synthetic voice company ElevenLabs) that will allow self-published authors to create audiobooks voiced by AI on its platform and publish them anywhere.
From cloning romance authors to YouTube piracy, AI is transforming audiobooks
By Millicent Weber, ARC DECRA Fellow and Senior Lecturer in English, Australian National University Pirate versions of bestselling books are swamping YouTube. Barbara Cartland’s voice will be cloned for her audiobooks. And audiobook giants are embracing AI voices. Read complete article © The Conversation -
From cloning romance authors to YouTube piracy, AI is transforming audiobooks
News on AI and audiobooks is coming thick and fast. Australia-based audiobook producer Bolinda recently announced it will create a “bespoke” AI clone of romance bestseller Barbara Cartland’s voice, in partnership with her estate. (She died in 2000.) Two days later, Spotify announced a tool (created by synthetic voice company ElevenLabs) that will allow self-published authors to create audiobooks voiced by AI on its platform, and publish them anywhere.
November 2025, no. 481
In this special issue of Australian Book Review, we look at the future of the book in Australia. What do the rise in audiobooks, Silent Reading Clubs, and Gen Z’s preference for physical books tell us about where we are heading? To support the book industry now, Alice Grundy champions a new book bounty; and Julienne van Loon, Bronwyn Coate, and Millicent Weber argue that we must learn to quantify the cultural value of a locally produced book.
How to value a book
How might we measure the value of a locally produced book? Or, in a more collective sense, how might we put a value on a local books and literary sector, one that is distinct from the larger English-language markets of the Northern Hemisphere and attentive to our own regional and cultural ways of being, doing, and belonging? What does value mean in the context of the local book? And on whose terms might it be expressed?
What is the value of Meanjin? We’ve done some calcuations - and it’s not about money
This month, the board of Melbourne University Press (MUP) announced it would abruptly discontinue 85-year-old Australian literary journal Meanjin. The reasons? “Purely financial.” Our research considers the value of local books and writing, using measures other than money. Drawing on recent arts and cultural value scholarship, we’ve taken a closer look at publicly available data on Meanjin.
Spotify’s audiobook bundle has reduced music royalties
Audio streaming giant Spotify, one of the world’s largest audio platforms, entered the audiobook market last October, offering its premium subscribers 15 hours per month of free audiobook listening. But audiobook bundling has led to reduced royalties for songwriters.
Spotify’s audiobook bundle has reduced music royalties. The music industry is fighting back - and authors have questions too
By Millicent Weber, ARC DECRA Fellow and Senior Lecturer in English, Australian National University Over a third of Australians read audiobooks. Spotify’s audiobook offering means more choices for listeners – but those who make both music and books are concerned about the impact on incomes. Read complete article © The Conversation -
Spotify’s audiobook bundle has reduced music royalties. The music industry is fighting back - and authors have questions too
Audio streaming giant Spotify, one of the world’s largest audio platforms, entered the audiobook market last October, offering its premium subscribers 15 hours per month of free audiobook listening. But audiobook bundling has led to reduced royalties for songwriters.
Printer problems: what remains of our printing industry and why it matters
If you don’t work in publishing, you might not have caught the news halfway through last year that the last two major book printing companies in Australia have become one. Opus’Ovato, while not technically forming a monopoly (as Ovato was in liquidation when the acquisition occurred), has left Australian publishers with really only one option if they want to print large runs of commercial books domestically.
Authors are resisting AI. But they have an advantage: we read to form relationships with writers
The first waves of AI-generated text have writers and publishers reeling. In the United States last week, the Authors Guild submitted an open letter to the chief executives of prominent AI companies, asking AI developers to obtain consent from, credit and fairly compensate authors. The letter was signed by more than 10,000 authors and their supporters, including James Patterson, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Franzen and Margaret Atwood.
Authors are resisting AI, but they have an advantage: Readers form relationships with writers Original
The first waves of AI-generated text have writers and publishers reeling. In the United States last week, the Authors Guild submitted an open letter to the chief executives of prominent AI companies, asking AI developers to obtain consent from, credit and fairly compensate authors. The letter was signed by more than 10,000 authors and their supporters, including James Patterson, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Franzen and Margaret Atwood.
Authors are resisting AI with petitions and lawsuits. But they have an advantage: we read to form relationships with writers
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Authors are resisting AI with petitions and lawsuits. But they have an advantage: we read to form relationships with writers
The first waves of AI-generated text have writers and publishers reeling. In the United States last week, the Authors Guild submitted an open letter to the chief executives of prominent AI companies, asking AI developers to obtain consent from, credit and fairly compensate authors. The letter was signed by more than 10,000 authors and their supporters, including James Patterson, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Franzen and Margaret Atwood.
Authors are resisting AI with petitions and lawsuits. But they have an advantage: we read to form relationships with writers
Annie Spratt/Unsplash, CC BY The first waves of AI-generated text have writers and publishers reeling. In the United States last week, the Authors Guild submitted an open letter to the chief executives of prominent AI companies, asking AI developers to obtain consent from, credit and fairly compensate authors. The letter was signed by more than 10,000 authors and their supporters, including James Patterson, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Franzen and Margaret Atwood.
we read to form relationships with writers
The first waves of AI-generated text have writers and publishers reeling. In the United States last week, the Authors Guild submitted an open letter to the chief executives of prominent AI companies, asking AI developers to obtain consent from, credit and fairly compensate authors. The letter was signed by more than 10,000 authors and their supporters, including James Patterson, Jennifer Egan, Jonathan Franzen and Margaret Atwood.
Dark Emu has sold over 250,000 copies – but its value can't be measured in money alone
Bruce Pascoe’s Dark Emu, first published in 2014, represents that rare bird in small press and independent publishing in Australia: a long-term sales success. Dark Emu attempts to debunk the idea that pre-European Aboriginal people were purely “hunter-gatherers”. Indeed, it suited settler-colonists, Pascoe argues, to fail to recognise Indigenous agricultural practices as organised, intelligent land management.
On audiobooks and literature in the post-digital age
Audible Australia’s 2019 advertising campaign combined political satire with a quintessentially Australian brand of self-mocking. It used this lens to poke fun at Australian speakers and Australian slang – public figures like Magda Szubanski, and popular (and popularly derided) vernaculars. Think ‘yeah, nah, nah, yeah’.
Playful Twitter accounts and the socialisation of literary institutions
Playful Twitter accounts and the socialisation of literary institutions Millicent Weber, Beth Driscoll Abstract Humour serves a variety of purposes on social media, from aesthetic content creation and social interaction through to corporate and institutional branding. Playful social media accounts tap into existing knowledge while building and consolidating networks.
At the intersection of writers festivals and literary communities
Literary festivals are complex beasts. They’re simultaneously social spaces, cultural projects and political platforms. As providers of entertainment, drivers of tourist revenue and exercises in government branding – think ‘Melbourne: City of Literature’ – they cop flak for their commercialisation. Nevertheless, these festivals do work hard to build audiences for writers from marginalised backgrounds, and to program events that critique inequalities in contemporary publishing.
A fortune built on slavery: the Bright Family Papers and their journey from UK to Melbourne
In 1818, the young, wealthy, and fashionable British parliamentarian Richard William Meyler suffered a stroke while fox hunting. Meyler died intestate, and as a result, his extensive family estates in England and Jamaica were inherited by his closest male relative: his second cousin once removed, Richard Bright. The ensuing legal battle between Richard Bright and branches of the Meyler family in Wales and Cheshire spanned five lawsuits and eleven years.
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