What if the future of book discovery and purchasing is mobile-first through apps like WeChat which dominates in China? I talk about AI translation, voice-first tech and more with Makoto Tokudome today. In the intro, I mention the UK All Party Writer's Group report into author earnings, and the Alliance of Independent Authors response which stresses the importance of author publishing and “the development of the entrepreneurial, empowered, growth mindset of the successful independent author.“ In marketing news, Google announces at their I/O conference that they will add podcasts to search results and a new podcast app to Android devices. Have you included podcasting as part of your marketing strategy? Do you have audiobooks on Google Play? [Marketing Profs]. Plus, I talk about my experience of Oxford: Decadence, Discipline, and Dreaming Spires on my Books and Travel Podcast. This episode is sponsored by my Patrons, authors who are passionate about the future of publishing and help support my time in producing episodes like this. If you find this information useful, you can support the podcast at www.Patreon.com/thecreativepenn. Makoto Tokudome is an author, language teacher, and coach based in China with an interest in A.I. and voice technologies for authors. His most recent book is The Thoughtful Language Learner. * How Chinese readers find and buy books at the moment, including Douban social network * The dominance of WeChat and mobile payments * How to self publish in China on DangDang through PublishDrive. [My books are slowing getting there! DangDang] * Using Amazon Polly (AI text to speech) to turn your book into an audio podcast * Voice assistants and voice search, as discussed in Talk to Me by James Vlahos. * The potential of AI translation and why Makoto thinks he will be out of a language teaching job in a few years (but why cultural translation will always be needed). * NaNoGenMo: Spend November writing code to generate a novel of 50K or more (in parallel with NaNoWriMo). * GPT2 Text Generator tool. You can play with it at www...