First, I'd like to mention that I sent out the wrong Netgalley link in my last email (and thanks to the people who pointed this out!). You can find the Netgalley request here.
I also wanted to let you know that I have made some changes to my website, so it's going to look a little different if you read the newsletter or The Wards Will Fall there instead of through email. I really want to focus on using it more as a blog, as well as using more of Ghost's Patreon-like features.
So if you check out the Writing area, you'll notice some new posts including:
- A horny bonus chapter for Devouring Fortune for all newsletter backers,
- Irreversibly Demure, an exclusive scifi horror short story for paid backers at the Seer tier (contains pregnancy horror themes, please heed the content warnings!),
- and the start of my garden rambles.
I plan to start putting more exclusive writing on my website moving forward, so keep an eye out! And if you want to further support my writing journey, consider becoming a paid backer:
Anyway!
I'm writing the majority of this newsletter before heading to a few cities over on a train to have what I hope is a productive writing session at a coffee shop with a friend. I'm really hoping to get through the majority of my Stormforks edits in the next few months.
In this month's newsletter, I'm going to be talking about the following:
- Avoiding the Enshittification Riptide: I Refuse to Live in Technobro Hell
- Writing updates: ARC signups & preorder campaign
- A Shiny Internet Thing: Fantasy Map Brushes
- What I Read: From Under a Poisoned Bough by Alex Harvey-Rivas
- Asshole of the Month: Dickens & Puck
Avoiding the Enshittification Riptide
"Excuse me, what do you mean you almost drowned?"
I adjust my headphones in a futile attempt to make sense of my coworker's cheery voice on the other side of the Teams call as she relays to me her near death experience on the very first day of her beach vacation.
My coworker laughs. "Yes, a riptide caught me and dragged me out deep towards the pier. I managed to grab it and climb up enough to catch a breath!"
This is the same coworker who, with the same airy breeziness, also recounted her encounter with a tornado that brought a tree down, narrowly missing her apartment while she continued to work. But maybe that's just how it is with ex-911 dispatchers—At some point you accept life is a series of near death misses.
I feel like I am still climbing up that pier support, holding my breath as the riptide of genAI threatens to drag me out. I want to scream, but doing so means disturbing the stability I've been carefully crafting in order to juggle everything related to self-publishing a book while working full-time and taking care of life responsibilities. I am hoping that in a few years I will be able to talk about this in the same breezy way as my coworker despite feeling a deep-seated rage (because with any hope, it'll all collapse as the shitty bubble it is).
Publishing is having a reckoning with genAI. There have been many essays on this already that do a much better job of discussing the situation, but I want to specifically talk about how insidious the shift in conversation has been to authors needing to prove their work wasn't written by genAI. And specifically how this conversation seems to be cultivated and steered in particular by a company called Pangram, that totes itself as an accurate AI detector.
Kathleen Schmidt lays out the situation well with Pangram in her newsletter, Publishing Confidential:
Speaking of Pangram, they are the only winners in this situation. They are getting so much free PR from these stories that it helps their funding rounds. They just raised $9M. They are making money from these accusations.
This is exactly the problem that has been bothering me about all of this. The conversation has shifted framing, making it perfectly acceptable to discuss how an author's work must be dissected and verified for legitimacy. And this shift is being supported by a technology company with a financial incentive to demonstrate that everything run through its algorithms is AI.
Pangram is courting the publishing industry, touting a product that is comically wrong (Kathleen mentions her own writing got scored at 80% AI-written). It's been built on the use of AI—without genAI, Pangram wouldn't exist. This is the genAI economy. The businesses built on genAI want to encourage its use in everything, and want to demonstrate it's impossible to eradicate. Pangram is no different.
Jane Friedman, who reports on the publishing industry and offers resources to authors, posted a screenshot on Threads about how she expects more literary agencies to start using Pangram or AI-detection tools in the future:
I find this to be a huge problem, and a warning flag. These inaccurate AI-detection tools already being used as an excuse to pull stories by Black authors. Pangram has every incentive to continue to sow distrust and suspicion about authors' writing, and these tools WILL continue to be used to further gatekeep marginalized authors.
I also find it comical that agencies would rely on AI-tools to assess human-written stories. Dorian Dawes wrote an excellent essay about publishing and genAI that I highly encourage you to read about how publishing is looking for stories that check certain boxes, which is how the industry has been falling for AI-written stories in the first place. AI cannot write a good story. But it can write a story to a prompt.
What I have to add is this: don't let the conversation shift. Push back on the use of AI-detection tools that have every incentive to be inaccurate and sow distrust for financial profit. Seek out publications where humans are reviewing story submissions.
Stories are human after all. They're one of the oldest forms of connection. AI has no business in any of this. Don't be dragged under by the shifting conversational waters.
Writing Updates
I'm happy to announce that the preorder campaign for Devouring Fortune has launched! If you preorder by the release date of October 13th, save your receipt and fill out this form to get an art print illustrated by Polina Gipp, bookmark featuring the cover art by Jeleynai and a signed bookplate with art by Ares Bor.
This is ALSO available to backers of the digital tiers of the early release Devouring Fortune Kickstarter campaign. Just send a screenshot of your Kickstarter backer confirmation. The reason it is not available to physical backers is because I am already including the art print as a free bonus for all backers (and rewards already included the bookmark and signed copy!).
Also a quick reminder that I have limited ARC reader openings for Devouring Fortune:
- Netgalley - Available until September 3rd, request here.
- ARC team signup form is open - ARCs will start going out September 1st.
A Shiny Internet Thing
I really like it when people have niche interests that they go hard with. And this one I particularly appreciate as an author who has had to think a lot about fantasy maps.
K.M. Alexander has put together a wonderful resource for a project called NO BAD MAPS. This is one I think fellow authors or map enthusiasts are going to appreciate.
There are a ton of map brushes here to make your maps look gorgeous. I plan to check these out eventually, and probably sink too much time into making a map for The Wards Will Fall.
From Under a Poisoned Bough
July was a beta reading heavy month for me! I didn't really get to some of the books on my TBR (And I'm still wrapping up a beta read on a very fun fantasy serial that I hope to talk about later once it starts up, stay tuned).
But today I want to shout out From Under a Poisoned Bough, an ecological epic fantasy serial that just started, written by my friend, Alex. It's promising to be a good time, especially if you're itching for more queer, epic stories.
And here's the summary:
A woman lost in time. A knight longing for home. A peasant fighting for her life. A savior entombed in stone.
Once, the surface world flourished. Eidolons—massive, god-like beings—anointed a select few to enact Their will and were in turn worshipped for Their impossible magic. Then came the Empire with contraptions of fire and iron, intent on devouring all. And though a savior was chosen to prevent their onslaught, she was not enough. The surface was left in ruins, the Empire taking to the sky with imprisoned Eidolons in tow.
Centuries later, a world split in two tightens its bonds once again. After a chance encounter spirals the lives of four women irreparably out of control, it's up to them to stay the hand of a god-slaying empire. Otherwise, the world's careful stasis will crumple—for good.
Asshole of the Month
We normally keep the bathroom closet closed for a variety of reasons, including the catfood bucket resides there and Dickens (the tuxedo) will spend all day trying to get into it. (Sidenote: he managed to open it once and we found him inside in a stupor after his Very Large Feast).
But sometimes they manage to get in, as you can see.
Meander on y'all,
TL;DR AI-detection tools are garbage, ARC and preorder campaigns are live for Devouring Fortune