In the last issue, after wondering if the New York Times and other media outlets may need to start doing routine plagiarism checks to catch the most egregious problems, I heard from an editor at a smaller outlet who says they have already been doing routine plagiarism checks for about a year, using at various times Copyleaks and ProWritingAid (and they are pleased to report that, so far, they haven’t detected any plagiarism).
Regarding that project to help prompt AI to write novels about a happy AI future, Barbara Boyd wrote in, “I read your clip about Hyperstition and wonder if you are familiar with the short film The Prompt by Francesco Frisari, which presents exactly this type of competition.” Here’s the trailer.
Children’s author and publisher Darcy Pattison responded to my Q&A with Scott Reintgen with the following insights from her career: “In general, the route of doing school visits is a well-known way to success. You could also look at Alan Gratz (Refugee) or Tammi Sauer (Your Alien), both of whom do many school visits and have NY Times bestsellers. In the indie world, there are also people who have great success with this route.
“In general, I see this working more with men, who, for whatever reason, are more likely to hit the road on an extended trip to visit schools. Women do travel, some extensively, but often family responsibilities limit this. Tammi is an exception, and I think she goes to over 100 schools per year.
“The success of school visits works best for those who consider themselves as entertainers. When Tammi writes a picture book (she only writes picture books), she is judging the writing by thinking about performing it for a school. That’s a different skill! I think about the read-aloud aspects of a story, but not necessarily how it would play out in front of a crowd. My audience is more intimate: a parent and child.
“I have done school visits, and can say that it’s the best way to get on-the-ground information on what librarians, teachers, and kids like. It’s fantastic market research, as Scott correctly points out. … [However] it’s hard to scale up the efforts; there are only so many school days in the year, and when your actual presence is required, you can only scale up so far. A publisher can amplify what you do by sending you to educational conferences or introducing you to influential educators. As an indie, though, it’s hard to amplify the efforts of school visits.”
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
