Writers and publishers are criticising a startup that plans to publish up to 8,000 books next year using AI.
The company, Spines, will charge authors between $1,200 and $5,000 to have their books edited, proofread, formatted, designed and distributed with the help of AI.
Independent publisher Canongate said “these dingbats … don’t care about writing or books”, in a Bluesky post. Spines is charging “hopeful would-be authors to automate the process of flinging their book out into the world, with the least possible attention, care or craft”.
“These aren’t people who care about books or reading or anything remotely related,” said author Suyi Davies Okungbowa, whose most recent book is Lost Ark Dreaming, in a post on Bluesky. “These are opportunists and extractive capitalists.”
They’re extractive capitalists.
And?
If readers buy and enjoy these books then that’s an increase in human happiniess. If they don’t it’ll all soon go away.
And?
Posted on Bluesky. LOL. The new hangout of woke whingers.
“The company will charge authors”
Fools and their money. Real publishers pay the authors.
As Bernard Woolley would say: That’s one of those irregular verbs, isn’t it? I earn money fairly, you get paid, he is an extractive capitalist.
Those basterds selling typewriters, automating the process of flinging books out into the world, with the least possible attention, care or craft, putting proper pen-and-ink writers out of business.
This is aimed at the self publishing market. Tim Newman, one time commentator here and blogger, wrote a fair bit about his experience, frustration mainly, and the costs of self publishing.
Any author who proves to by any good will be picked up by the capitalist bastards in the publishing industry and given advances.
‘Typewriters’, jgh? What an old fashioned concept!
As an enthusiastic reader, I’ve yet to hear of Suyi Davies Okungbowa but I suspect I probably wouldn’t be in the market for any of her ouvre, no matter how it arrived on the shelf.
Julia, I get confused with all this tranny stuff, but you have to bear in mind that with the Okungbowa ilk, Suyi actually appears to be the name of a bloke…
Suyi Davies Okungbowa is surely a creation of Steve’s.
First thought: It’s just vanity publishing.
Read Guardian article: The company claims it, “isn’t self-publishing” or a vanity publisher but a “publishing platform”.
“[T]hey ARE a vanity publisher,” wrote Deidre J Owen, co-founder of “independent micropublisher” Mannison Press. And that is somehow a different thing?
Honest question, written from a point of ignorance – what do modern publishers actually DO?
Apart from gatekeeping ofc.
what do modern publishers actually DO?
Cry about Trump on Bluesky and waste company money on unsellable crap written by the likes of Suyi Davies Okungbowa and other Scrabble winning names.
Can’t find the blokes’ name in the Council Library, Steve.
So I probably won’t take a chance at seeing whether I could stand his books.
Review of one of Osasuyi Okungbowa’s “Son of the Storm”.
Fetid
Dingoes
Kidney’s
I mean, it gets better:
While I always love to see characters who identify outside the binary represented, as is still often the case, Son of the Storm plays into the idea of gender having a certain look. There is never an exchange of pronouns, they are always known immediately, even of strangers. They use they/them pronouns for people who look of “indeterminate gender”, people who all seem to be bold, and during a sex scene, body parts that are described are limited to “arms” and “legs”, shying away from the fact that non-binary/intersex people have a penis, or tits or a vagina just as everyone else, and rather leaving with the idea of featureless bodies, and that of a “third” gender.
This is why you never let your children go to a sci fi convention.
A very big part of this story and its characters is the topic of race. I highly recommend reading reviews by BIPOC and especially biracial reviewers as well, as I, a white person, obviously can’t say much about that aspect of the book
But I can: N
This is the blog of super queer space witch C, also known as Crini (pronounced like “green-y”) [she/they]
I’m a German who very much hates the German language which quickly made me start reading everything in English.
As a fellow queer (disaster bi to the core, aro/ace, and genderqueer) I do my best to support and promote diverse books, especially queer science fiction and fantasy, with those being my favorite genres.
We either bombed Germany too hard, or not enough.
Bboy – are you sure your local library isn’t a racist Nazi hub? Check if they have dangerous far right literature, such as Donald Trump’s The Art of the Deal.
@jgh
Quill & ink, please!
As a fellow queer (disaster bi to the core, aro/ace, and genderqueer)
What the actual? I fear ‘not enough’ Steve.
I had a look at the reviews. Amusingly, there are some criticising the book for basic failings of plotting and characterisation. When not writing race-obsessed fantasy or bleating in the Guardian, the author is a professor of creative writing….
Hold on a sec. The process of publishing is a cost paid for out the money the reader pays for the book, the remainder going to the author.
These idiots in favour of being paid less? I wish I could find people like this to work for me.
Have read a bit more about this bloke (thanks, Grist) and it looks like he writes the sort of in-vogue progressive fantasy bollocks beloved by the team at ‘Reactormag’. I prefer my literature not to come with a side order of colonial guilt and soft-porn cominglings that don’t enhance the plot.
Steve
Cry about Trump on Bluesky and waste company money on unsellable crap written by the likes of Suyi Davies Okungbowa and other Scrabble winning names.
My head hurts as I just fell off my chair – what would ‘Okungbowa’ get in Scrabble??
In fairness reading his author page I have seen far more objectionable works in the Guardian in particular. Seems to be Classic Nigerian in that Trans people aren’t represented as they ‘belong in hell’ so that’s a positive for sure.
I must also confess to buying for my son his classic: ‘ Minecraft: The Haven Trials’
As For BlueSky – seems to be the embodiment of the ‘Bachman Turner Overdrive’ number of repute. I am guessing ‘We ain’t seen nuthin’ yet’ as various non entities continue to flounce off Twitter/ X.
I’ve not heard of “cominglingus” before, unless I missed it in the Kama Sutra
My side bar currently shows two fluid vaguely suited characters in a cloudy scrub setting and the words: cANALi – Inner Beauty – Scopri Di Piu.
Going to click the link just so Tim gets 0.01p.
My brother has self-published four books – deeply technical (and, he’d be the first to admit, wholly uninteresting to 99.9% of the population) tomes on his areas of interest (he’s an engineer). He’s told me how easy it is – you submit a PDF to Amazon, it turns it into a book format and lets you know about technical stuff like ‘gullies’, starting new chapters on a right-hand page, and whether your proposed illustrations will fit properly. When you’re happy, you press publish and it’s available on Amazon as a download, or you can even request a printed version for ~£5 + whatever the author chooses to charge. His best-seller has sold 30 copies, he’s not expecting to retire on the proceeds!
BiW: “I’ve not heard of “cominglingus” before, unless I missed it in the Kama Sutra”
Coupla pages stuck together I dare say.
@ Van Patten
Depends on whether you can get it onto a double or treble-word square but also whether you can score any cross words – although the most likely score is zero if someone spots that it is a “proper name”
Many writers benefit from an editor, who proofs and reviews for things like readability and word misuse. They pay them to do that, and good editors make good money, and better books.
If AI can do that cheaper and better, why not?
The rest – formatting and sizing and covering etc. – well, I’ve seen more than a few self-published works that could have used help there.
So far as I can see, if you exclude the “let’s make this more woke!” efforts, it seems like a profitable and utile scheme.
@bobby b As long as your average reader can effortlessly pick out writtings touched by “AI”..
It’s a Trap for the Gullible and Wannabe’s.
You forget the most important part of the work of an editor: Having a sense for what *sells*.
What the public currently wants and is willing to put $$ down for.
What the publishers currently want to see. ( which may not be the same thing as above…)
Which market a writers’ brainfart may be good for, and how things should be shuffled/emphasised to match those markets.
And there is no “AI” capable of doing that. Nor will there be in the near future.
If there was, we’d have solved the World Economic Problems with it already.
Because writing, and selling books to punters, works on the same economic principles as any other commodity/luxury.
Steve
Yes!! The library DOES have a copy of Trumps’ The Art of the Deal. But since I’m a lazy Nazi, I doubt if I’ll bother to read it.
Must admit though, that the stuff you and JG have so kindly given us about Okungbowas’ books means I really can’t be bothered to try them.
Spines are going to do the same thing as any other publisher – *except* gatekeep what can be published.
Thus the gloss of being published goes away. Hence the whining by authors who get an ego-boost by being one of the ones to get past the bouncers into the club. Like Bluechecks whining about Musk selling it. They used to be able to pretend they were ‘notable’.
Grikath, if Spines can get their operating costs down to less than the fee to ‘edit and publish’ – then they don’t have to care what sells, as long as punters keep buying their service.
If its sufficiently automated then they can mostly just sit back as the money trickles in.
Those who are on X should check out @Devon_Eriksen_
He has … opinions … on publishers.
Actually, he has opinions on lots of things. Which I suspect readers here may appreciate.
Suyi Davies Okungbowa is a Nigerian fantasy, science fiction and speculative writer and academic.
Says it all, but WTF is a “speculative writer”?
@Asiaseen: All the “What if?” stuff that doesn’t class as regular fantasy or science fiction.
All too often “Alternate Reality” where the author’s personal (political) fetish became mainstream, with all the usual self-pleasuring and tittillation. Political/social Mary Sue.
You see it regularly in the stuff the Guardian publishes as “Columns” and in the reports about expected take in tax raids as well.
All those people have followed the same type of “Creative Writing” seminars.