Thursday, September 21, 2023

Being Human


 

In Publishing News Today

Artificial Intelligence and the misuse of it take centre stage. Another week another lawsuit. This time it’s the big guns taking on AI. Authors Guild has a class suit with John Grisham and G.R.R. Martin among the plaintiffs. They allege that their work was used to train AI. They know this because suddenly there appears to be extra books in their popular series which they didn’t write. I wonder how AI would finish the Game of Thrones series? Apparently you can now find out as it’s on the internet somewhere. Of course going and looking just plays into the scammy nature of the person who decided to use AI to write these books and make a quick buck.

Stephen Fry is crying foul over AI Narration. He was alerted to an historical documentary that he supposedly narrated. Except he didn’t. He suspects AI was trained on his audio narration of the Harry Potter books and then unleashed. AI can de-age actors and now they can mimic voices that even the original owner has problems believing it’s not him in an alternate universe. We are teetering on the edge of Deep Fake becoming ubiquitous unless we get some rules up pronto. Which is why we have all the lawsuits.

 

Over at The New Publishing Standard, Mark Williams is looking at upcoming book fairs and reminding the western publishing powerhouses that they may think they have the biggest book fairs but things are about change. Sharjah is positioning itself to be all things book in the foreseeable future. This is an interesting take. Can publishing equal the revenue that oil and gas bring in to Sharjah?

 

Publishing Perspectives has a run down on the latest news from Frankfurt as they gear up for the big Frankfurt Buchmesse starting on October 14. A record number of booths has been booked.

 

Publishers Weekly has data on the book challenges so far this year and yes they are increasing and they are all aimed at books by and about people of colour and LBTGQ identifying. Where will it end… historians could tell you. 

 

The Guardian has a great article written by Kathleen Rundell on Diana Wynne Jones. Diana was like a beautiful fountain in the desert of books when I was growing up. She had big ideas and her books were and are amazing.  Every author will relate to the story of the Charmed Life manuscript.

 

Kris Rusch has an interesting post on platform this week. With the meltdown of the writers original water cooler many wordsmiths are fleeing to pastures new. Then you risk losing all that work of building up your readership /business on a new platform which will be disrupted in time. So is there a win /win situation for writers?

 

The Alliance of Independent Authors has a comprehensive post on slow release strategies for authors… You don’t have to release a book a month for a writing career. The SPA girls podcast recently had a great episode on reverse engineering a bestseller. Can you do it? 

 

Rachel Toalson has a great post on Writer Unboxed about writing sprints. She used ten minute sprints to write a book. Even if your life is chaotic you can find ten minutes. Read Rachel’s post for how chaotic life can get. She has great tips for finding moments of time to write.


Mythcreants has a good post on the value of critique and why it is important for writers. If you don’t critique you don’t learn.

 

James Scott Bell has a great post on the Killzone blog about bleeding on the page. There are so many adages out there for writers. Some of them are untrue. However emotion from the writer is never wasted in a story.

 

 

In The Craft Section,

Writing and Time management- Story Empire


Acting vs reacting in your writing career- Colleen Story


Is your protagonist too comfortable- Australian Writers Center


What are antagonist proxies- K M Weiland – Bookmark


Why a manuscript critique is a critical step- C S Lakin- Bookmark

 

 

In The Marketing Section,

5 unique book marketing ideas- Rachel Thompson


Book signings that wow- Rochelle Melander


Strategies to secure reviews on Amazon- Penny Sansevieri- Bookmark


Author Success tips – Judith Briles- Bookmark

 

To Finish,

Jim Denney writing on Anne R Allen’s blog sums up the ideas in this weeks blog post. Yes AI is here, it’s out of the box it’s only going to get more powerful. Yes the AI tools are useful for shortcuts and editing and marketing and prompts but in the end AI is not human. Only a human can write emotion and connect with reader on a deeper plane. The future for writers in an AI world is to be more human and mine the human condition. 

After all, an AI can’t bleed. 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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Thursday, September 14, 2023

Panning For Gold


 

In Publishing News this week,


Last week I updated my post as the news that Amazon was changing its AI policies started filtering out. So this week to expand on this is Mark Williams - exactly what does it say at the surface level on the website. 

For a more in depth discussion go to Joanna Penn’s podcast and listen to the first 15 minutes. Joanna breaks it down and looks at all the sub pages and why they are there for uploading an AI assisted book. (Stay to listen to the super interesting talk about audio drama) 

Remember Grammarly is an AI. Gmail uses AI. All those chat bots are AI. AI is a tool. Amazon wants to know how much the AI tool is being used. If it generates the whole story and has an AI generated cover then it might fall in the scam bucket. Especially if it rips off name author styles. At the beginning of the year there were howls of dismay over AI…now many big author societies are holding workshops on how to use it and Shutterstock and Adobe are adding it to their design services. It’s great that the biggest marketplace for books is doing something proactive about AI books.

 

Meanwhile, another group of authors are suing AI. In the end the courts will decide. So far they haven’t been ruling in the authors favour.

 

While the TV writers are on strike - TV is getting annoyed that it is taking so long to fix, so they are going ahead without the writers. This did not have good consequences for the host of the National Book Awards, who was dumped after her TV show evicted fans who wore strike buttons.

 

A few months ago the court ruling came out against the Internet Archive and its attempt to digitise back list copies of books. Libraries are in a bind when they cannot offer digital copies to patrons of books in print. What To Do. The New York Public Library may have the answer. An interesting twist that could be a win/win for everybody.

 

Where have all those YA books gone laments one YA author in Publishers Weekly. Have the teens stopped buying books or can’t they afford them? What happened to mass market books first? Is it only adults that can afford the glossy big hardbacks with the bevelled edges and spot colour illustrations being marketed today? Today I saw a new YA book series released with different glossy treatments for each country, along with bevelled pages, foil and spot illos. The writer has a good point!

 

How many social media platforms are you on? With the disintegration of Twitter by the owner there is a rush to find the next best thing. But where should you spend your time? Where are the writers hanging out now? Kris Rusch is struggling with whether Social Media is worth it anymore. 

 

Insecure Writers has a timely reminder on those little scams that can become big ones. Things like identity theft and book promotion scams. Colleen Story has a post on 4 reasons a writing business will fail.

 

Daniella Levy has a great post on How to Take Criticism and Turn it into Growth. If you have been critiqued lately and it has left some bruises- this is a good reminder. Sometimes the harshest critic can be yourself- so read this post.

 

The super amazing Katie Weiland has a knock it out of the park post on plotting that got me thinking. Where should you begin to plot your story? Sometimes it is not clear. Stories springboard in different ways. There is no gold star for starting at the beginning. Brilliant post.

 

In The Craft Section,

Use and abuse of lampshading- Jami Gold- Bookmark (and also read the companion piece.)


Mastering foreshadowing- Jerry Jenkins- Bookmark


How to write a grump readers will love- Sharon Peterson- Bookmark


10 tips on sexual tension- Lucy Hay- Bookmark


The role of failure and conflict in a character arc- Becca Puglisi- Bookmark

 

 

In The Marketing Section,

Author marketing 3 best practices- Draft2Digital


Maximising your author website with blogging- J Alexander Greenwood- Bookmark


5 unique bookmarketing ideas- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark


How to choose the best kindle ebook categories- updated – Dave Chesson- Bookmark


Email market glossary for authors- Sandra Beckwith

 

To Finish,

I often link to Joanna Penn’s podcast because it is informative and interesting. There are other great podcasts that I listen to and recommend. SPA Girls- Great weekly writing craft show. Sacha Black, ALLI podcasts etc. They are great for when you are doing mindless chores.  Recently the dream team Angela and Becca posted their must have writing craft books. If you are looking for that early NaNoWriMo gift for yourself check out the list.

 

 

Maureen

@craicer

 

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If you like the blog and want to shout me a coffee, hit the coffee button up top or here. I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Pic Photo by Matt Seymour on Unsplash

(Arrowtown in NZ where you can still do this.)

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