Tag: traditional publishing

I, Robot Author

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I was just reading about the second serious scandal concerning AI generated fiction being published by experts in the world of publishing.  In the last scandal Hatchette bought a self-published book because the author managed to attract a very large number of readers on her own.  After they republished the book, it was discovered that there was a lot of very obvious AI generated content in it.

In the present scandal a prestigious contest that accepts fiction from amateurs living in the countries of the British Commonwealth had three of the five winners flagged by readers as being AI generated by a capable software used for this function.

Here’s a sample of the text:

“Wilfred’s rum-shop leaned into the road like a rotten tooth. Inside, boards blackened by smoke and sweat, the air sweet with cane and forgetting. Coins meant for rice or kerosene slid across the counter and came back white rum hot as apology. One drink opened the chest, two turned fear into courage’s cheap cousin, three steadied the hand enough to write the future in invisible ink.”

Okay, what the hell does “white rum hot as apology” mean?  It doesn’t mean anything.  It’s AI slop that it thinks sounds “poetic.”

Now five “Experts” picked this gibberish and declared it worthy of a prestigious award.  Why?  Well, the only thing I notice that both scandals include are woke publishing “experts” selecting the work of minority writers without bothering to see if it’s any good or even written by human beings.

The most hilarious aspect of the latest scandal is that the contest judges refuse to admit that they’ve been made to look like fools and the stories are still up on their site as the winners.

I watched a YouTube video by a young woman who considers herself a seasoned editor and although she agrees that the text is extremely unlikely not to be AI slop she does add the obligatory warning that we should remember that minority writers must not be singled out as more highly suspect just because they always seem to be the ones whose work slips through the editors who are afraid of being called racists if they look too closely at their work and find it’s not very good.

I guess it’s not enough that the publishing world gives precedence to any writer who isn’t a straight white man.  Now they add robots as long as they’re not straight white male robots or at least not working under one of their names.  Well, be that as it may, today I officially began work on the sequel to my book.  I began the outline by writing out a bunch of plot lines to choose between.

Plot Threads

  • Update on Bogey and his life
  • Update on Grace and her boys
  • President Chastain’s crises
    1. Constitutional Convention
    2. Seceding States
    3. Potential Military Insurrection
    4. Personal Problems (health)
    5. Relations with Connors’ Group
  • Connors’ crises
    1. Disaffected Groups with His Organization
    2. Relations with federal and state officials
    3. Connors’ indecision and doubts
    4. Disagreements with Cutter and others
    5. Personal Problems (Grace, Bogey)
  • America’s Crisis of Instability
  • World’s Crisis of Instability
  • Technical Instability

So that’s a lot of stuff.  I’m not sure all of these will be included but it’s always best to start with the kitchen sink and pare it back.  Well, take that Chat GPT.

Ay, There’s the Rub

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Lately there has been an enormous storm of controversy about AI being used in fiction writing.  Recently it came out that a self-published story that became quite popular was subsequently picked up by a major publishing house and re-issued with the full weight and authority of this powerhouse including professional editing and a new cover.  But then someone looked closely at the self-published edition and saw that not only was it significantly different from the professionally published edition but that the original was obviously a product of AI.  Now, that caused a firestorm and the publisher withdrew the book permanently.

But a cloud of questions swirl around the affair.  Surely the editors who revised the self-published edition must have recognized that they were dealing with a product of AI writing.  Why would they have purchased this title.  It’s assumed the reason was because the book had already found a ready audience and so the motive was monetary.  But there are other factors.  The authoress Mia Ballard is African American and Native American.  In other words, in the world of intersectional identity bingo she was a three-fer!  And so, she was exactly the kind of person that Hachette wanted for their imprint.  But there still remained the fact that she got a bot to write her story.  And that someone blew the whistle on her.  Of course, she claimed that it was an editor who added the AI sections and what she had written was her own.  Oh boy, that’s gonna be a bunch of lawsuits (or it’s just talk that won’t go anywhere).

Of course, the editors are defending themselves by saying that AI detection programs are far from infallible and so they aren’t to blame.  But supposedly the content was pretty obviously terribly written.  Of course, that really makes it interesting that the self-published book was such a hit on Goodreads with over four thousand reviews.  And that would once again jibe with the idea that the “bio” of the writer was one of the big reasons the book was so popular.

The whole scandal seems to show just what a mess the publishing industry has gotten itself into with identity politics becoming the most important factor by which authors and storylines are selected by big publishing houses for their imprimatur.  I guess the same problem is playing out with books that Hollywood is suffering from with their heavy-handed woke propaganda pictures.  People are staying away in droves and the monetary losses have finally gotten so severe that they’ve been forced to drop most of the woke plot elements just to lure paying customers back to the theaters.

Well, now that I’ve had a taste of what it’s like to self-publish a book I can say that a large part of the satisfaction in writing a book has to be because the author enjoys his creation.  Other than the one in a million phenom that finds the sweet spot in the self-publishing universe everyone else is talking to a small audience and in my opinion the only real failure is if you know that your book isn’t good enough for you yourself to read it for pleasure.

But how soon before AI slop is better than Shakespeare?  Ay, there’s the rub.

Grammata-Euphoria

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All this Charlie Kirk media madness and the manhunt have depressed the hell out of me.  We live in a madhouse surrounded by awful, depraved people.  So I needed a break.  So I’m writing about something lighthearted instead.  My apologies.  I’m sure on Friday more horrible things will occur to drag me back into the madhouse.

Publishing a book.

Step two complete!  I sent off my manuscript to the one traditional publisher that I’m confident isn’t ideologically opposed to the political position of my protagonist.  Now I’ve got to write a “query letter” and send it out to a bunch of agents to see if any want to represent me.  And I have to make a list of publishers that will take submissions without agents.  Once I’ve done all that, if no one bites then I have to self-publish it and then I have to market it (advertise, announce it on social media, run a Kickstarter, hire a skywriter to put my message over Manhattan, and get a Superbowl commercial).

Well anyway, that will keep me busy for a while.  Based on all the advice for new writers that I’ve read, I intend to disseminate my story for free to all of my friends and try to get as much good word of mouth and favorable reviews as I can when it’s ready to launch.  After all, I don’t want hundreds or thousand of readers and dollars.  I need millions and billions!  Like the holy texts, my book should be in every home in the first and second world.  And dammit why not the third world too?  Surely, I can squeeze the little bit of hard currency that they would normally buy food with and divert it into my coffers.  Yes, yes.  That sounds right.

Well anyway Larry Correia started a monthlong Kickstarter for his new book on Ark Press and within about 24 hours he had $150,000 collected.  And what has he got that I haven’t got (beside thousands of devoted fans)?  Unfortunately, that is exactly what he has that I don’t.  Ah, the trials and tribulations of the unknown author.  There should be a “Tomb of the Unknown Author.”  It could be right past the colonnade of heroic sculptures of Homer, Moses and whoever wrote George Burns’ jokes.  It should have an eternal flame that’s a large hibachi using charcoal brickettes as fuel.  Some residue and aroma from a nice porterhouse steak would be fine and possibly a meat thermometer somewhere nearby.

You know I did learn that writing a story really is just for yourself.  I found parts of the work where I said, “Now that’s exactly how it should be.  Dammit, the writer nailed this perfectly.”  And of course, I know I’m talking to myself but it’s immensely satisfying when the words evoke exactly the emotion you’re reaching for.

Of course, the tricky part is knowing (or hoping) that the scene will elicit that same response from someone or better still, many someone-s who will let the world know just what a genius the author is.  I guess the definition of a great writer is when the whole world (mostly) is moved by what you write in the way you wanted them to feel.

Alright, that’s enough grammata-euphoria.  I’ll only report back when something interesting (publication or a book deal) is imminent.  Until then we can concentrate on the latest hideous atrocities on the streets of our cities and Trump’s latest poke in the eye to the Left and its minions.

Does Fiction Publishing Still Exist?

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Selling intellectual property has changed radically in the last thirty years.  We used to buy books at a book store.  We bought music at a record shop.  And we rented or bought movies at a video store.  And then we bought all these at a Walmart or an electronics store (well, maybe not the books).

Now we stream movies and pay by the minute or the month and listen to music more or less for free and books are just this thing that exists on Amazon as a free service or a minor expense.  And the marketing and advertising of these works is some inexplicable algorithm that somehow links up people to the things that would appeal to them.

Now, the only way a musician can make any money is by live concerts that people pay to attend.  But no one would pay to attend a reading of a chapter of a book.  So maybe very soon books will cease to exist as a commodity.

And I guess that’s just the way it will be.  Now I’ve been trying to finish up a novel (and fixing the last ten percent of the book has been much harder than writing the first ninety percent).  And when I attempt to market it, I’ll try it on some traditional publishers and if that doesn’t work, I’ll probably self-publish it on Amazon.  I have noticed that lately some authors try to start a “go fund me” campaign to drum up the support for the book before it’s released.  But I’m not sure how that would work for a new author.

I guess pretty soon I’ll know as much about it as anyone else.  But isn’t it interesting that now that technology allows for avoiding all the obstacles that the “gatekeepers” of traditional publishing provided, that the real problem would be the “needle in a haystack” reality of many millions of self-published books thrown together in an endless slush pile with no way to stand out to a jaded reading public.

Well, they say that Americans have always made the best salesmen.  It wouldn’t surprise me to find out that self-promotion is the real talent behind entertainment.  Hollywood was successful because they could get millions of eyes on their product.  I’m sure the same applies to selling books, movies and music.  It’s just that it’s a field I never got involved in.  Engineering is product that has to be sold but I was always just the product.  I was never one of the sellers except when I would be sent out with the marketing team to convince the buyers that we knew what we were doing and could provide them with the services and hardware that they wanted.  Books on the other hand need fancy covers with somewhat-undressed women and weapons of war and starships to attract the buyer’s attention and get him to plunk down his electronic money.

I’ve seen some marketing going on by some of the people I follow on X and YouTube and it all feels very tiring but maybe that’s because at heart I’m a very lazy guy and hawking product is hard work (at least for me).

And maybe this is all a transitory situation and eventually some more efficient way to link readers with new books that match their tastes will appear among the AI gods.

Well, just some musings.

Guest Contributor – Tregonsee – 01JUN2025 – Future of Entertainment

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There was a concept a while back of Narrowcasting (as opposed to broadcasting) where you would aim for certain smaller markets via directed media like the internet. To some degree we see this happening with youtube and tiktok. The monetization would be direct from the consumers and perhaps via pre subscription schemes.

It seems that Hollywood got the narrow part but not the monetezation part. In an analogy to the misquote of Pauline Kael they don’t know anyone that voted for Donald Trump. Their audience is boomers who grew up in the late 1950s and early 1960s and are nostalgic for their college days and the protests against the Establishment. The boomers have not processed that they are now the Man. Meanwhile, Hollywood keeps churning out $200-400 million blockbusters aimed at that tiny (perhaps 5-20%) market demographic. Hollywood depends on the old 80s-2000s mix of movie theater, marketing of merchandise and resales for income. The thing is their little stunt of 2020 killed the theater, the Merch was for kids (or perhaps grand kids) which the boomers do not have, and residuals on the various streaming platforms residuals are bupkus compared to VHS/DVD sales. The big Studios are like the last of the dinosaurs standing around in a swamp in Louisiana on the day of the KT boundary impact saying “Hey Ralph whats that pretty light in the south it isn’t sunrise yet…” They’re dead they just haven’t figured it out yet, and the mammals are crouching in a variety of holes trying not to be eaten.

 

Comment by photog:  I guess I’m waiting for the mammals. It’s a lonely vigil but, “Ya gotta keep da faith.”

 

reply by Tregonsee:

Indeed Photog I’m rooting for the mammals too. Like the Mammals of the Tertiary (now called Paleogene) it may take a while for the producers to get organized. In publishing the transition seems well under way. Most Authors of more plot based SciFi either are at Baen or publish independently. Even giant authors like Brandon Sanderson (Mistborn, Way of Kings, etc.) are tending to eschew the big 5 publishing houses.

Music has been going to self publishing too. What it takes to have a GOOD studio is probably 2 orders of magnitude

Part of it is that for visual SciFi even though special effects are easier than 20-40 years ago (e.g. I’ve heard tell of a copy of the Death Star run in star Wars done totally with effect in CGI in a couple days that is VERY close to the original that took weeks in physical models) it still takes time and money. You still need actors and good ones are expensive unless you’re doing something they want to take a chance on. And even doing minimal sets things get expensive fast, and acting to things and characters that aren’t there on green screen is really hard to pull off believably even for first rate actors. The other part is that the current media seems to fight these efforts tooth and nail.

All that said there are signs things are improving. A movie called Flow (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(2024_film) about a black cat and an odd bunch of animals in a post apocalyptic world got the 2024 Golden Globe and Oscar for long form animation. This was published by a 6 person group out of Latvia. I love animation and even though the premise is straight up green nude eel catastrophe the story and animation rival the best of Classic Disney or Studio Ghibli

 

Fingers Crossed

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I’ve been following a minor drama going on between some science fiction authors about a new publisher called Ark Press.  Most of the controversy centers around whether this new publisher is being funded by billionaire Peter Thiel and whether he originally was trying to buy another publisher Baen Books.  Baen is almost the only science fiction publisher that isn’t horribly woke.  So, from my point of view, both Baen and Ark are both the best fit for publishers I would submit my Sniper novel to.  And that’s not to say I think either one would be a slam dunk to buy my book.  But I think they are the only traditional publishing choices that are even possible.

Eventually I found a YouTube video where the main editor of Ark Press (D.J. Butler) answers a bunch of questions about Ark Press and some misinformation about the relationship between Ark and Baen.

It’s quite long and probably not that interesting to anyone who’s not writing a non-woke science fiction novel.  But I was very excited to find out there are two possible publishers I can offer my book to.

But the more generally interesting thing about Ark Press is that someone like Thiel who is a pretty heavy hitter, is getting involved in publishing conservative science fiction books.  This is exactly what I’ve been bloviating about for ten years.  This is what Andrew Breitbart was talking about way back.  Culture is upstream of politics and we are completely shut out of the culture because the institutions (book publishers, record companies, movie studios) are 99% controlled by the Left.  Literally 99%.

Hearing that someone with extremely deep pockets is dipping his toes in genre publishing is miraculous.    It’s as if all the howling I’ve done in the wilderness wasn’t in vain.  And then there is the synergism.  Peter Thiel was the guy who turned JD Vance onto the Trump train.  And he’s an old friend of Elon Musk.  The two of them were start-up partners on PayPal.  If Thiel were to persuade Musk that some of his books were very popular with young adults maybe as a lark Musk might buy some broken down movie studio like Paramount or Warner Brothers for a song and strip it down like he did Twitter and make some movies that people actually want to see.  Just imagine.

As you can probably tell I’m pretty excited about all this stuff.  Of course, it will probably lead nowhere if the people running Ark and Baen can’t recognize the obvious genius displayed in my Sniper story.  But right now, it’s fun thinking about it both from a personal angle and from the larger considerations of the wider culture.  I mean, come on!  Every boy in America used to be a science fiction/fantasy fan.  Star Wars, Star Trek, The Lord of the Rings, Marvel, DC, you name it.  It took Disney and the girl bosses they hired a whole generation to kill that excitement with the awful female-centric drivel that currently passes for science fiction/fantasy.  It’s as obvious as daylight that if publishers and movie studios produced what boys used to pay to read and watch, boys would pay to read and watch it again.

So here we are.  At the dawn of a new golden age of science fiction publishing.  It can’t be a coincidence that it is happening just as Donald Trump has declared the beginning of the American “Golden Age.”  Well, I haven’t been using any booze or drugs so maybe there is a reasonable chance that some of this may resemble reality.  If not, it was fun thinking about.  Fingers crossed.