Hello, friends!

As a warning, if I disappear for a few weeks, please do not be alarmed. My wife was due to give birth on July 7th. Hopefully, while you read this (I’m typing it out a few days before that due date), we’re at home with our newborn, givinag her all the love she deserves, while I give my wife all the rest she deserves by playing Mr. Mom for two weeks with our toddler. (With how active and attention-hungry our toddler is, I’ll be lucky to breathe, eat, or sleep in that time.)

However, our first child was born exactly two weeks after the predicted due date, so maybe we won’t have our newborn until closer to July 21st… Who knows? Babies don’t care about schedules.

Grendel Press followed me on X a little while ago; after researching them a but I ended up sending them Inner Demon as a submission. Based on their own timeline on their website, I’m probably going to self-publish Inner Demon before they even look at my manuscript—in which case I’ll need to remember to withdraw it—but you never know. They might move more quickly than predicted, or I might take longer finishing Hazel Halfwhisker draft 1.5 than I expect. Either way, this will probably be my last swing to get experience working with a publisher, at least with this book.

Other than the Baen rejection, none of the other small presses that I’ve reached out to have gotten back to me. The clock is ticking.

Bloggyness Review—Witchy Eye

Witchy Eye (DJ Butler) is a fantasy novel set in an alternate-history USA, sometime in the 1800s. The main character is an “Appalachee” girl named Sarah who has much more going on in her blood and her ancestry than one might first expect.

In general, I would recommend this book, and not just because you can get the ebook for free from Baen’s online store. I had a lot of fun with it. The world is wildly creative, simultaneously drawing from an impressive depth of history (and consistently twisting it in unexpected ways) while always feeling like its own world. The book can’t go into detail on all of its alternate-history aspects—otherwise it would be an encyclopedia, not a novel—but you learn just enough to be able to put things together on your own… provided you have the historical knowledge to understand some of the references—which I didn’t always, but what I didn’t understand didn’t hurt my enjoyment. In short, Witchy Eye has a world that feels ridiculously deep and lived-in, just drenched in history, cultures, and peoples.

The characters were also interesting. The cast centers around our protagonist, Sarah, who is the titular “Witchy Eye.” I don’t want to spoil too much about her here—revelations about who she really is play a big role in the story—so I’ll just mention that I found her to be a solid core. That said, though her role in the story was absolutely essential, I read the book mostly for the characters around her, primarily Calvin Calhoun—a young Appalachian native who is much smarter than his accent makes him sound—and Sir William (aka “Bad Bill”)—a none-too-bright but extremely competent ex-soldier, among other things. (In fact, I often found myself wishing the book had much more Calvin in it. Sir William was probably featured pretty close to the perfect amount.)

A storytelling element that I found mixed were transcribed character accents. Most books describe a character’s accent and then write out what they have to say in an English dialect that feels very standard; in Witchy Eye, yuh jist gonna git ‘zactly wut them characters be sayin’ spelled more-n-less how they pr’nunce it, suh. (That was written from memory, not an exact reproduction of any one transcribed accent in the book.) At first I found this device interesting and immersive—I enjoy playing with such things myself when I write, to an extent—but there were accents that were written unintelligibly enough to hurt my comprehension, so it was a mixed bag.

I struggled a bit with the direction the plot went, but I think that was simply because of unmet expectations, not because the book went in bad directions. This book was sold to me much more focused on Appalachia and Appalachian magic than it ended up being; Sarah and her crew are only in the Appalachian mountains for a few chapters, then they rush off toward French New Orleans to fulfill her destiny, a journey full of political intrigue and warring factions. Had I better expectations going into things, I might have taken this path a little more warmly, but I still generally liked it, and I’m still open to reading the sequels.

On a related note, what did not work well for me was the magic. Perhaps reading too much Sanderson has ruined squishier systems for me, but I really struggled with Witchy Eye‘s squishy, squishy magic system. Have you read Eragon? Witchy Eye does something similar, where to cast a spell you have to speak some words and energy (or “mana”) drains from your body to fuel it. There’s a few differences—for one, you don’t need to learn another language to cast magic in Witchy Eye (thought it helps, and magic is often cast using Latin), and, for another, creating strong metaphorical connections between the target of your spell and what you want your spell to accomplish plays an important, though not totally required, role. Even with these rules, I still rarely felt that I had something concrete enough to hold on to for solving problems with magic to really click with me, which I didn’t usually find to be an issue in the similar system of the Eragon books. It got especially troublesome at the end when Sarah started using her magic frequently; multiple times I thought she was at the utter end of her rope, that casting even a single, simple cantrip more would kill her… but then she kept going, kept casting more spells. I was left without any sense of what danger she was really in when using magic.

As a final note, and this could be a positive or a negative depending on your preferences, Witchy Eye is a little trope-y—enough for me to recognize it, and I usually don’t consciously note tropes while reading for pleasure. You have the wizened mentor who teaches the main character just enough and then sacrifices himself; you have the young, farmer-equivalent hero at the center of something bigger than she could have imagined (the twist being that the foretold hero’s a girl this time, not a boy, but she’s still the Chosen One); stuff like that. Nothing bad, but also nothing revolutionary. For me, the retelling of these archetypes didn’t have enough of its own identity to really stick out.

Again, there’s a lot of good in this story—particularly in relation to the worldbuilding—so I’d recommend it. (If DJ Butler ever wanted to write a TTRPG campaign setting in the world of Witchy Eye, I think I’d itch to give that a try.)

Discussions—Artists VS AI

|| Long Preface

I’m going to preface this discussion by stating that I am not anti-AI. Period. I’m also not particularly pro-AI, as I choose not to use it. I am AI-neutral (AI defined as generative language models, anyway), with strong feelings about certain responses toward AI and certain uses of AI.

Here’s the thing: new technology always brings with it disruption. New technology is generally developed with the intent to do some good—I repeat, generally—but no matter the intentions of the inventor, technology itself is neutral, and its users can choose to use it for good, constructive purposes or selfish, degenerate, or destructive purposes. That’s just how it works. I would rather have new technology, new inventions, with the temporary disruption and uncertainty they bring, than have progress and development halted by stopping new developments because they might be scary (or some other nonsense). The former mindset is what brought us our modern world, and all its precious wonders; the latter mindset would have had cavemen abandoning using fire as a tool because it was too dangerous, or because it made certain cavemen feel bad (specifically those whose job was to exercise really hard every night and heat up the cave through body heat).

Yes, AI has a lot of people scared, for genuinely good reasons and for unfounded or paranoid reasons. Yes, we have a long way to go to figure out the best place(s) in our lives for AI—if any. Yes, some AI companies are scummy, but that doesn’t mean AI should be taken away from the people who would put it to genuinely good use. Yes, I’m saying all this as a guy who prefers to not use AI and instead usually makes fun of it. I’m also saying this as a guy whose hobbies and hopeful future livelihood might be threatened by AI, but also doesn’t see banning (or even regulating) AI as a good idea.

|| The Context

So, with all that out of the way… I want to join the following discussion:

While I recommend watching Moop’s video to get the whole picture, here’s the gist of what he’s saying: AI-generated content on Amazon is a real problem. Zero-quality, inaccurate content (and I use that word as it has become, with all the loathing it deserves) is flooding online bookstores, notably Amazon. And, so far, those bookstores aren’t doing jack squat to stop it.

Here are the examples Moop brings up of bad (and/or bad faith) AI content:

• General Slop: Unique (meaning not-previously-existing-in-some-form), generated, zero-quality “books” of various genres.
• Theft/Knock-Off: Generated “books” very intentionally designed to closely mimic (or outright copy) real books made by real people.
• Kid Crap: Soulless, inaccurate, aimed-at-kids content generally about random celebrities and created with a Disney/Pixar art style.

I hate this stuff, but that last item—the stuff that exploits kids—really makes me mad.

Everyone gets hurt by this flood of filth. It starts with the buyers: if they can’t find what they want, or if they get burned by wasting money on crap that wasn’t actually what it was sold as, they will go away and be hard to bring back. Buyers disappearing means sellers make less money, both the marketplace itself and the venders in the marketplace. Buyers getting tricked also means sellers may get screwed by stolen sales or, if the low quality of the knock-off AI-generated content is mistakenly pinned on the seller, damaged reputations, which has the potential to destroy careers. In short, it’s chaos, and not the constructive kind

Something has to be done. But what?

|| Some Wishful Thinking

I’m going to get my wishful thinking out of the way before coming up with real solutions. Below are the sort of solutions that come to mind fastest because they require other people to put forth effort—the sort of solutions that I see come up often in discourse, unfortunately.

Amazon (and other booksellers) could actually do their job and ban no-effort, AI-generated slop and knock-offs, or find better ways to prevent it from rising to the top of search results. But why is that wishful thinking? As long as Amazon is making enough money off of the sales of the aforementioned slop, the company will not change.

Consumers could put pressure on Amazon and force them to start curating their store more, probably by switching from Amazon to other online retailers. This is wishful thinking because the Amazon ecosystem is extremely sticky; it would take one heck of a movement to get enough regular people to care enough to do this, at least in numbers large enough for Amazon to actually notice.

Consumers could get really educated and do lots of research before buying anything, but, en masse, anything involving hordes of people suddenly changing their habits is very wishful thinking. Amazon is the king of the general marketplace war by virtue of showing up first and being the most convenient by far; if a consumer is going to Amazon for convenience then the consumer not likely to inconvenience himself/herself by putting forth more effort than absolutely necessary to buy something. (Besides, consumer research would only mitigate the issue, not remove it.)

Consumers choosing to switch to buying things physically, rather than online, could also help solve this problem. It’s harder for AI-generated slop to get past the gatekeeper that is a bookstore manager and onto shelves. Even if slop does manage to get there, a consumer holding a book and flipping through it can more easily determine if the book is legit or not. Consumers have more power the more physically real a transaction is. But, for the same convenience reasons mentioned above, I don’t see this happening, at least not en masse.

Finally, some wishfully think that government intervention will fix this—they are wrong. Banning AI (in the US, or any particular country) won’t stop slop peddlers from using VPNs to access foreign AI text generators; all it will do is prevent good innovators from developing worthwhile things with AI. Let’s also not forget, in the USA, that our aging congress members are pretty famously bad at drafting bills that stay on topic, let alone fix core issues.

Even a “fix” as simple as a bill saying “all AI-generated content must be clearly marked as such” won’t do anything. Someone, in twenty minutes to an hour, can use AI generation to create a crap book and throw it on Amazon—and Amazon only requires you to self-report whether or not you used AI. Marking their “books” as AI-generated will decrease sales for these chuckleheads, so they won’t self-report; getting caught and taken down won’t be an issue because they can make a new book, and a new KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) account, in another twenty minutes to an hour, and then be back to business as usual.

You want to know how I know this exact process will go down? This is already happening with fake companies flooding Amazon with slop-quality physical goods, often drop-shipped. These companies are not vetted properly prior to making an account and getting their goods onto Amazon; if something actually gets them taken down, all they have to do is change a little information and they can get a new “company” account up pretty quickly, selling the same crap as before. Many of these grifters even make multiple company accounts selling the same thing so there’s no down time when one get banned from Amazon; dense use of keywords and botting reviews helps them to get to the top of search results in no time.

Of course, if Amazon, in some way, was held directly liable for unmarked AI-generated content, then maybe—but no. Amazon would figure out how to pass the cost, and the punishment, on to its authors, because Amazon already does that wherever possible. Amazon already takes author earnings away, as well as suspends or bans author accounts, at the drop of a hat without prior warning or time for rebuttal; no law would be airtight enough that Amazon couldn’t shift the blame and shift consequences.

|| So What Can I Do as a Creative?

I don’t know! Or, rather, I don’t know. I’m not in charge of the marketplaces, I’m not in charge of the consumers, so focusing on ways they could (and maybe should) change is largely wasted energy, in my opinion. But I am an indie author looking to do what I can to help myself, and help the people interested in my stuff, and I have a few ideas for what indie authors can do with what power they do have

Get a following and be your own authority. This is, in my opinion, the suckiest part of being a modern author, but it’s becoming unavoidable. You have to get online. You have to get people interested in you and following you—in some way directly connected to the real you. (Or, the “real” personae you’re cultivating. Whichever route you choose.) You have to be more than just an author—even though you probably got into this solely interested in writing.

There are meaningful advantages to leveraging personal websites and social media to get a following and be connected.

Having a following—through a website preferably, but social media also works—means you can connect with your fans directly. If you can connect with your fans directly, at the bare minimum you can let them know when you release something and you can give them direct links to it, minimizing the risk that they will accidentally find (and buy) a knock-off. (That’s a reason I have a page of links for The Failed Technomancer. You follow one of those, you’ll get the real deal, guaranteed.)

If you’re connected to your fans, and they know where they can find the legitimate you, you can provide warnings if you learn about stolen or knocked-off content. You can also help your fans connect with each other, enabling them to protect each other—particularly new fans. (This also helps you out with word-of-mouth advertising, but that’s tangential to this topic.) You can also circumvent the AI-slop issue entirely by selling directly, an option already growing in popularity among indie authors anyway.

In short, building a following and being your own authority helps you take control of you and yours, at least a lot more control than you would have otherwise.

Crowdfund. I am not an expert on crowdfunding, but I do think, based on my observations, it can be a tool to combat AI-generated slop. I do know for a fact that AI-generated content—of the genuinely quality kind and of the slop kind—exists on platforms like Kickstarter. However, those platforms don’t appear to be flooded like online bookstores are. So, crowdfunding platforms might be a haven, for now.

It’s also my understanding that crowdfunding platforms tend to have consumers that are willing to put forth a bit more effort in research, making it harder for slop to pass as a legitimate product. This disincentivizes the makers of AI-slop from focusing on these platforms. Maybe that’s why the floodgates haven’t opened.

Anyway, here’s another reason I think crowdfunding websites may be a good place to sell books: many crowdfunded projects have totally imploded—and yet consumers still crowdfund. The base is fairly stable, even in the face of controversy and risk of non-delivery. (Of course, your reputation and sales won’t be if you fail to deliver, but that’s a separate issue.)

It’s also my understanding that marketplaces like Kickstarter—and many of their patrons—have taken a harder stance against AI than marketplaces like Amazon. Don’t quote me on that, though, especially since large, established corporations like to talk big and fix nothing.

Of course, crowdfunding comes with its own advantages and disadvantages for the author. Most authors are only able to run successful crowdfunding campaigns after cultivating a dedicated audience—which might not be an issue for established authors, but makes the barrier to entry a bit taller for the new and unheard-ofs. As well, crowdfunding only works for the patient type—no one will buy your book if they are looking for something they can read tomorrow (but, then again, that’s probably not the type of customer you are aiming for anyway, at least if you know your audience when crowdfunding, so oh well).

Will crowdfunding be a long-term viable solution to get ahead of the AI-slop plague? Hard to tell. It’s not foolproof. But I think there’s potential.

(To repeat: I’m not saying that AI slop does not exist on crowdfunding platforms. I’m just observing that the very nature of those platforms appears to make it harder for AI slop to flourish. There is still plenty of regular, old-fashioned, human-made slop, which is a separate issue.)

Work with real people with unique styles. Not everyone has the budget to work with talented artists and layout designers for their covers and interiors, unfortunately. But, if you can, swing for the fences. Obviously do your market research to make sure your cover (and, if included, interior art) will attract the right kind of customer, but once you know the limits you’re working with, go wild.

Anyone familiar with AI art and images is aware that there’s a certain… style or feeling to AI. There are absolutely some generators that do a better job at mimicking reality than others, that create images almost unrecognizable as AI-generated (under casual inspection, anyway), but the uncanny valley almost always gets revealed upon a close inspection. In my opinion, at least, but then again I touch grass sometimes.

Human artists don’t have that problem, unless their art style is intentionally uncanny. Human artists also have the power to represent much more specific details from your book than AI generation can. After all, AI can only work based off of what it’s trained on—it can’t create something new. I wouldn’t be surprised if, once we understand AI better, art fields specifically focused on doing what AI can’t start to come to the forefront (of human artistry, anyway)—but I’m getting ahead of myself. Within the limits of what types of covers work for your genre, have your artist create a cover that an AI never would (or could), something too specific or unique.

Also, if for no other reason, working with an artist gives you receipts. For people who care about whether or not something was AI-generated, you can have your artist provide sketches, early drafts, and more to prove that the work was human-made. You can also use these “receipts” as part of your advertising because, honestly, some people find these messy, early drafts of art beautiful in their own right.

As for this final thought, I don’t have data to back this up, but maybe working with new and emerging artists, specifically ones with distinctive styles, could work in your favor? Since AI can only work based off what it has been trained on, maybe newer artists that wouldn’t have been around when current AI models were trained would be at less risk of an AI being able to mimic or steal their art. Maybe. This idea probably better belongs in Wishful Thinking above, because I think AI is a little more flexible than I’m giving it credit for, but, hey, it’s an idea.

|| Closing Thoughts

AI isn’t going away. I personally don’t think it will ever be as “dangerous” as some people think it will be—and I think there are plenty of fields that will never be threatened by AI—but it can’t be denied that some bad things are happening because of bad actors in the AI space. Hope for the best and prepare for the worst, I suppose.

Writing Updates

Hazel Halfwhisker is has been edited to 139 out of 207 pages. Yup… 7 pages were added. This is not a cutting revision, this is an addition revision.

That said, I think I’ll be back to primarily writing new stuff by the end of next week, rather than mostly editing old stuff. Newborn permitting, of course. We’ll see when she decides to come and how disrupting her advent will be.

Send-Off

Whew! This was a long one. I think my stats are an average of 1,000–1,500 words a post, but this week was nearly 4,000. (Dang, maybe I should turn my thoughts on AI above into an article.)

Have you read Witchy Eye? What were your thoughts? Did you go on to read the rest of the series?

Do you have thoughts on modern AI? Do you agree or disagree with anything I said? Why?

Comment below, or send me an email!

Have a great week!