By James M. Jackson
Three years ago, I agreed to create and teach a course
on Indie Publishing for the Guppy Chapter of Sisters in Crime. This Sunday,
I’ll welcome my third group of students. In order to give students time to do
the reading and suggested homework, we cover the material over six weeks.
To prepare for this new session, I reviewed the twenty
lessons. Some required only minor changes from last year. Changes in four
areas, however, required significant reworking of the lessons I used for last
year’s class. Three relate to so-called Artificial Intelligence, AI for short.
The fourth is the increasing opportunity for selling direct and using bespoke
books.
The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became
that I needed to create a lesson that provides information on how Indie and
Hybrid authors are using AI. With a topic so large, the lesson can only skate
the surface, but my sense is that writers who consider becoming Indie or Hybrid
authors cannot make a reasoned decision without understanding how AI might
affect that choice.
Besides the broad AI overview, my lessons on cover design and audiobook creation required extensive revisions to reflect the significant improvements in AI over the last year. I also needed to reflect information about the increased acceptance of AI technology-assisted narration and cover creation and processes an Indie author might use.
The topic of AI use by writers is fraught with strong
emotion. But ignoring it in a class for writers learning the inside skinny on
Indie Publishing seems to me a disservice.
Your thoughts?
* * *
James
M. Jackson authors the Seamus McCree series. Full of mystery and suspense,
these thrillers explore financial crimes, family relationships, and what
happens when they mix. To learn more information about Jim and
his books, check out his website, https://jamesmjackson.com. You
can sign
up for his newsletter (and get to read a free Seamus McCree
short story).
I know writers who use ChatGPT as a first draft, then "edit out anything that isn't their own words." Not buying it. If I need help writing a scene, I use certain books I admire (Ann Cleeves for setting, Dennis Lehane for characterization) and study how they do it.
ReplyDeleteI with you about writing my own first drafts -- but there are marketing and sales uses that I (and others) find to be significant time-savers.
DeleteMargaret, same here!
DeleteSo many questions surround the use of AI, including whether it violates the copyright of the works it uses to compile its information (this is a question the courts will have to decide. At this point, it's early days.)
ReplyDeleteAs an experiment, I ran one of my oldest stories through AI for editing. It wanted to totally kill the voice, favoring the bland and conventional over the quirky and interesting. Maybe fine for a business report, but not for creative writing.
It's a tool, and like any other tool, should be used judiciously. And ethically.
Because of the way much of generative AI has been trained, it does have a tendency to push writing toward the "middle," which will kill the voice. More sophisticated models, which you have to pay for, can learn your quirks and respond more "appropriately" but in my opinion, a good human editor is still way better than the best AI editor.
DeleteI was on an author panel last weekend when the subject of AI came up in a question from and audience member. Wow. The temperature in the room soared twenty degrees (figuratively). All of the authors were dead set against use of AI for writing. Using it for marketing was more up for debate.
ReplyDeleteI'm currently avoiding it like the plague except for one editing program that helps me catch some things... and tells me to change others that don't need to be changed. I still make the final decision based on my voice and word choices.
That speaks to the "fraught with strong emotion" line I used. I use ProWritingAid as part of my polishing process. for me, it does and excellent job of catching typos and misspellings, very good with grammar, and fair to good with other style aspects, and poor at recognizing author voice where it differs from its concept of the norm.
DeleteLike you, I make all my final decisions, and I never use its offered "AI feature" to rewrite a "problem" sentence or paragraph.
I recognize that it is here to stay - and that it is part of many of the applications we use (reading news articles - I hate it summarizing before I've read the article), spellcheck, etc., but I still can't get my head around it for actual writing. Jim, having taken your course the first time it was given, I do agree that this is a pertinent and necessary update in just the intervening time between when you taught my class and now.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Debra, for the confirmation that I should be including information/discussion about AI in that class.
DeleteJim, I think it's wonderful that you update your course each year. As you've noticed, there are constant changes in publishing. I agree that we need to be acquainted with AI and realize its presence in our world. Like it or not, AI is here to stay.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Marilyn.
DeleteAI is here to stay, actually it's been around and used by authors far more frequently than they realize - hello, spellcheck and the ever unpopular (but funny) autocorrect. AI has come a long way in cover art, but it needs to be carefully checked. A friend recently used it and the heroine had six fingers. The book was not about Anne Boylen. My concern, and the reason I only use AI assistance for grammar and spelling, is that the programs are essentially scrapers. Once you introduce text, they've got it.
ReplyDeleteI guess I forgot to hit publish because the comment I made two hours ago is not present.
ReplyDeleteBecause I think AI "chats" will replace much of the current search engine technology in helping readers find books, I have a different perspective on data scraping. I want ChatGPT and Claude, etc. to know about my books. Yes, they could get the information from my website, but just like with readers, the more touches it makes to my stories, the more likely it will be to include my books in their "results."
I think.
After the "I think" I included "picture wry smile" between greater than and less than signs, which Blogger must have decided was some kind of forbidden html, since it deleted it!
Delete