Links of Interest: August 16, 2023

AI

• Can Sarah Silverman’s lawsuit against OpenAI and Meta succeed? In brief: It’s hard to say, but the outcome of the Google Books scanning case indicates she may have a very difficult road ahead. Read Victoria Bekiempis at Vulture. Elsewhere, Evan J. Zimmerman predicts that “AI companies are going to wipe the floor with these litigants using copyright law as their towel because it’s basically impossible to argue that machine learning isn’t transformative use.” He believes her only path to victory is if the law categorizes machine learning as not fair use.
• Shoddy travel books have flooded Amazon. And they have a lot of reviews, with author bios that look legit. But most are poor quality and likely AI generated. Read Seth Kugel and Stephen Hiltner in the New York Times (gift link).
• In praise of boring AI: Amidst the fear and anxiety, one person takes a look at how AI tools could improve the quality of our lives by eliminating repetitive or boring tasks. Read Ethan Mollick.
• Google and Universal Music seek to license voices for AI-generated songs. Musicians would be paid for use of their voice, and it would be an opt-in process. Read Hibaq Farah at The Guardian.
• Is it a good idea to buy into “authentication” services? How do you reassure consumers or readers that your work is human-created? Some service providers might try to convince you to buy a certification. Victoria Strauss has interviews with the founders of two such services, leading with, “It is a truth universally acknowledged that where there is an issue of concern for writers, someone will find a way to monetize it.” Read at Writer Beware.

Creator Economy

• Record-breaking Kickstarter launched for graphic novel adaptation of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. The project has nearly $2 million pledged so far and broke two Kickstarter records: the most successful 24 hours of any comic campaign and the most-backed comics Kickstarter. The project hopes to publish in summer 2024. The Bookshop Tier allows stores to purchase 20 copies at a 50 percent discount, and they added a Small Bookshop Tier, which gives the same discount for 10 copies. Take a look.
• You can now connect Patreon and Spotify. If you have a Patreon account, you can now give patrons access to exclusive podcasts via Spotify. Read the press release.

TikTok

• Teens on TikTok drive demand for romance and romantasy. One UK bookseller says you can tell which books are trendy on TikTok by the speed at which they sell. But there’s also this choice quote from an editorial director at Orion Fiction: “What has been interesting for me is looking at the self-published authors who are doing incredibly well because of TikTok. They’ve established demand for their books and, as traditional publishers, we can then get them out to even more readers. This is especially the case for authors whose books are very big in the US but less so in the rest of the world. That’s where UK publishers can help. I’m also just not sure the TikTok generation is one that wants to be steered this much by publishers.” Read David Barnett at The Guardian.
• If TikTok becomes a publisher, could it harm the book publishing industry? “The 8th Note Press news seems more ominous coming at a time of declining book sales, publishing layoffs, and crumbling social platforms,” writes Tajja Isen. Read at The Walrus.
• YouTube narrowly beats TikTok for young people discovering books online. That’s according to Nielsen UK. Instagram ranked third. Read Melina Spanoudi in The Bookseller.
• There’s a booming subgenre of hockey romance. And it’s creating some problems for real-life hockey players. Read Amanda Holpuch at the New York Times (gift link).

Marketing & Promotion

• How to handsell at cons and markets: Author Catherine Baab-Muguira shares hard-won experience and ends with this tip: “I keep a big bowl of candy in eyesight at all times.” Read at Poe Can Save Your Life. (If you’re interested in more advice on how to sell at cons, be sure to read our 2022 article.)
• What is the fallout from Amazon’s changes to how categories work?Aside from being able to set only three categories, Amazon is also making other changes that can affect visibility on the site. Read Monica Leonelle at Author Analyst.
• A really good explainer on book distribution. This perspective comes from a publicist. It’s a good education, especially for those who are confused by what Ingram does or what a book distributor does for smaller publishers who don’t have a sales team. Read Cassie Mannes Murray at Pine State Publicity.

Culture & Politics

• What are the sales numbers for books by Supreme Court justices?The most popular authors are Sonia Sotomayor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Read Jim Milliot at Publishers Weekly.
• Why the Pulitzer Prize should allow noncitizens to receive the award: “We implore you to update your requirements for the Pulitzer Prize to include the work of our peers who, through accidents of geography, of violence perpetrated on our lands, and the personal familial reckonings with survival, have come to have or have been born into a mixed or undocumented status.” Read at Lit Hub.
• Publishers asked by major distributor to rate their own books. A new Texas law that requires vendors to rate books sold to schools for sexual content is set to go in to effect Sept. 1, and the nation’s largest school distributor is asking for publishers’ help. Publishers are reluctant to do so. Read Andrew Albanese in Publishers Weekly.
• The next chapter for sad girl lit. “If you’ve read a book by a woman, about a woman, that has been published in the last five years, then it’s overwhelmingly likely that this woman was the protagonist. The narrative likely circled around this character’s sadness, her passive struggle to overcome it, and little else. Typically, such stories have notes of darkness but will rarely deliver the actual thing. Usually the main character (like the author) will be middle class, if not incredibly wealthy.” Read Sarah Manavis in The Guardian.