PUBLISHING

All 3 entries tagged with PUBLISHING.

The literary world isn’t prepared for AI by Gaby Del Valle

None of this, however, explains the uncanny quality of AI-generated work, or what distinguishes bad LLM-produced prose from bad human writing. When I ran Nazir’s story through Pangram, an AI- and plagiarism-detection software, it came back as 100 percent AI-generated. According to Pangram, the most obvious tells were Nazir’s use of triads; the word “stubborn,” which is six times as likely to appear in AI-generated text than that made by humans; and the phrase “as if it had,” whose appearance is five times as likely. But here we have another list of three, written by me, a human.

They run their own writing through Pangram, and it came back as human written. But these tools are not deterministic. You can’t say for sure, that’s the point.

I for example am almost afraid to use em-dashes anymore, lest it be determined that AI wrote these words. It did not.

But it is an exciting time for sure. I read a piece yesterday comparing the SaaS industry to the Music industry, and how the SaaS disruption had already happened to the Music industry. The main point was how music creators are content creators now, who create content with music.

I think a similar point exists for writing as well. It’s all trust. And also, what’s the point. Writing does many things including clearing up your thoughts, if AI does it, you don’t get any benefits.

Micro

Last Call for Mass Market Paperbacks by by Jim Milliot, with Sophia Stewart

The consolidation of the wholesaler market coincided with the rapid increase of e-book sales. According to the 2012 StatShot report (produced that year by AAP and BISG), mass market paperback sales were running neck and neck with e-book sales in 2011 at about $1.1 billion, but the two formats were on markedly different trajectories: from the prior year, mass market paperback sales tumbled by about $500 million and e-book sale soared by roughly $1 billion.

Micro

Everything I Know about Self-Publishing by Kevin Kelly

You are expected to bring your audience.

So when an author today pitches a book to an established publisher, the second question from the publishers after “what is the book about” is “do you have an audience?” Because they don’t have an audience. They need the author and creators to bring their own audiences. So, the number of followers an author has, and how engaged they are, becomes central to whether the publisher will be interested in your project.

About promotion:

The short version: it is not hard to produce a book. It is much harder to find the audience for it and deliver the book to them. At least 50% of your energy will be devoted to selling the book. This is true whether you publish or self-publish.

The rule of thumb in publishing is that how well a book sells in its first two weeks determines whether it is a bestseller or not. You want to concentrate most of the sales as pre-sales – either on a crowdfunding platform, or on your own, or as pre-sales for a publisher. One way or another this promotion job will be your job, and can end up being at least half of your total effort on a book.

Micro