Publishing Announcement

[Malik]

I will not be releasing my forthcoming novel, STONELANDS, as an ebook.

Certainly not initially. It will be available as paperback, hardcover, and audiobook.

I've given this a lot of thought. The nuts and bolts of it are, I don't want to give AI LLM scraping, piracy, and the general social media f*ckery that goes along with releasing a novel any help. If people want to rob me, I want them to break their own backs doing it.

I'll also be nuking all my social media accounts at the end of August, a couple of weeks after STONELANDS launches. (The launch date is set for 5 August.)

I'll be keeping my website, though, and I'll haunt some forums from time to time. Probably this one.

Anyway. I started here; I figured y'all should be among the first to know. Cheers.

- Joseph Malik

 

[Mad Swede]

Look forward to reading it when it somes out!

 

[ThinkerX]

The AI situation is getting ugly in multiple ways.

I was doing mapwork for the WIP a month or two back. I lost track of a sheet I'd made up with basic longitude data, so I checked Google. The AI thingy gave me an answer that looked suspect. So, I went and asked it again. This time, it spat out an entirely different answer that was also entirely wrong. Bow, this wasn't anything elaborate, just math. And the Google AI botched it - twice.

I am also seeing more and more ads/debates about the use of AI in creative writing. Scary thing is, a lot of people don't seem to have any qualms about leaning on it pretty heavily.

To me, the issue is that AI is a shortcut that short-circuits critical thinking skills. The people get an answer handed to them without learning the reasoning behind that answer, and worse, that answer may be wrong. This situation has the potential to get a lot worse in the intermediate future.

That said, best of luck with 'Stonelands.'

 

[Malik]

I am also seeing more and more ads/debates about the use of AI in creative writing. Scary thing is, a lot of people don't seem to have any qualms about leaning on it pretty heavily.

There's a whole other thing here, too, where trying to compete against a flood of over a thousand AI-generated books a day is idiotic. I'm not going to spend the money I'd need to set STONELANDS apart; I don't have it--due to piracy, go figure! This does it for free.

 

[pmmg]

Ive said beforehand if i know you are using AI i will not help you. We are here to be creatives not regurgitated AI.

I want to put language my book to the effect of the owner is free to read, give away, share with others, even write fan fiction if they want, but an AI must pay a royalty for every read and use of my book.

Let them license it the way the software companied do.

Id probably lose in court but….

For further opinion on AI. Please see the words of wisdom linker below.

 

[Demesnedenoir]

Piracy is a bitch. AI writers are pathetic. I feel bad for authors not established at least a little bit in the near future. My voice, style, and story is known so at least I won't be accused of fakery.

The really funny part though, is watching AI try to write a Tomes of the Touched epigraph. I dicked around with this a couple of times for own amusement to see how far AI had come in mimicking style. It was humorous.

August 5 marked on the calendar.