Getting Down to Business
By Densie Webb | August 31, 2023 |
So, once again AI dominated the publishing news, affecting everything from self-publishing to the monster that is Amazon. Running a close second, is book banning and censorship. BookTok is still a force in book sales, but will it last? And then there’s the sale of Simon & Schuster to a private equity firm. What that will mean, nobody knows for sure. And a roundup of scams all writers and authors should know about.
AI
AI Is Coming for Your Audiobooks
How AI-Generated Books Could Hurt Self-Published Authors
Goodreads and Amazon Becoming Dumpster Fires?
Will the Powers that Be Care that AI Isn’t As Good As Creatives?
New York Times Considers Legal Action Against Open AI
How AI Could Transform the Economy
Federal Judge Rules That AI Art Can’t Be Copyrighted
Book Banning
What Penguin Random House Is Doing about Book Banning
A Surge in Education Intimidation Bills
Hearing to Block Texas Book Rating Law
Rewriting Children’s Books Justified?
ChatGPT Being Used to Help Remove Library Books
Publishers to Help Rate Their Own Books for Sale in Texas?
Motion to Dismiss Texas Book Rating Law
Book Stores
Unionized Staff at Massachusetts Barnes & Noble Walkout
Booksellers at the Vanguard of the Culture Wars
Booksellers Want the Justice Department to Investigate Amazon
BookTok
How Long Will BookTok’s Boost to Book Sales Last?
Print Book Sales Continue to Decline, Can BookTok Help?
BookTok Means Less Visibility for Some Titles
Publishing and Amazon
What the Sale of Simon & Schuster Means for Authors and the Industry
Judge Says Amazon E-Book Monopoly Suit Should Proceed
Amazon’s Literary Partnerships and Beneficiaries
First Half of the Year Shows Book Sales Up 1% to 2%
Archive liable for copyright infringement for its program to scan and lend library books
Scams
New and Inventive Publishing Scams
The news is rather depressing, but which do you think is the bigger issue for the future of books—book banning and censorship or being replaced by AI?
Densie Webb has spent a long career as a freelance nonfiction writer and editor, specializing in health and nutrition and has published several books and tons of articles on the topic over the years. She is a member of the Women’s Fiction Writers Association, and Red Adept Publishing released her debut women’s fiction novel titled, “When Robins Appear” in 2020. It is available in ebook, audiobook, and paperback formats. Her second novel, best categorized as romantic/domestic suspense, “Breathing in Reverse” was published in 2023, also with Red Adept Publishing. She is currently working (but not fast enough) on novel #3. She grew up in Louisiana, spent 13 years in New York, and settled in Austin, TX, where it’s summer nine months of the year. She’s an avid walker (not of the dead variety, though she loves anything to do with zombies, vampires, or post-apocalyptic worlds), drinks way too much coffee, and has a small “devil dog” that keep her on her toes. And she is thrilled to be a part of the Writer Unboxed family!
Thanks for another great list of articles helpful to us writers.
Book banning is as old as book printing, so it doesn’t worry me much. It’s a reflection of whoever is in power, so always has the same solution – support those who you want in power. (I am against book banning for the record.)
AI is the concern for me, because there are so many ways it will affect all of us. For example – It’s so easy to say don’t use AI for audiotapes, but here’s my dilemma. I have a self published novel I would love to offer as an audiobook, I just can’t afford a few thousand to do it. (Maybe someday.) Meanwhile, this month, Apple has offered to let Madison narrate it and take care of the full production, for no cost to me. All I have to do is let them sell it for at least 6 months, sharing some royalties. I won’t be able to use their version on the other platforms but they are not demanding exclusive audio rights. Some are saying, let the Apple version sales fund a real person narrator version that you can sell other places, and even on Apple, if you want, after six months. So, do I stay pure and have no audio books or do I let Apple do their thing and possibly share my book with more people? This is a difficult decision that I haven’t made yet. Plus, I like Madison’s voice better than the real actors that are in the starting price range. And as a listener, I usually speed the read up so much that even Meryl would sound like a robot. Ugh.
Depressing is right. I think it largely depends on who you are as to which issue, book banning or AI, affects you most and in what way. Readers are most affected by book banning, having their world scope narrowed and biased by the wrong people, and writers by AI, because of its financial and reputational hit.
Dealing with Amazon is a case of whack-a-mole. Once one issue is addressed, attacked, and semi-resolved or not, another pops up. And whether Amazon willfully ignores my actual issue in their nonsensical email responses or AI is doing the responding, I don’t know, but dealing with them is enough to make you tear your hair out.