Post

Drew Broussard
@drewsof.bsky.social

Very grateful to see these publishers getting named and shamed. If this stuff is going to happen, and we all know it is, I'd rather see it happen with bright shining klieg lights instead of in darkness and secrecy. We should know that it's happening, and act accordingly.

Adam Morgan@adamm0rgan.bsky.social

For @wired.com, I spoke with workers about the quiet push to experiment with AI tools from book publishing executives at the Big Five. www.wired.com/story/book-p...

wired.comBook Publishers Are Quietly Using More AI. Staff Are RevoltingWorkers at three major publishing houses tell WIRED that LLMs are being used for publicity, cover art, back cover copy, and emails, as some execs push junior staff to champion the tech.
Drew Broussard
@drewsof.bsky.social

Would love to see some agencies and writers putting their own ethics on the line, too, and saying they won't sell to these publishers, won't work with these people. It's not worth a better book deal or some fading slice of the already-shrunk pie. Again, I direct you to Mart Lavin in THE KEEPER:

Drew Broussard
@drewsof.bsky.social

bsky.app/profile/drew...

Drew Broussard@drewsof.bsky.social

"That's all I'm doing, Jean-Claude. I'm keeping the heart in people. So that when alla this is taken off us and changed, we'll know we fought like fuck, and we'll have a bitta heart left in us for whatever comes next." -- Tana French, THE KEEPER (been thinking about this a lot, of late)

Drew Broussard
@drewsof.bsky.social

Just wrote my IPS rep about Europa, working on emails to my Simon/Harper/Hachette reps too. I'm curious about whether or not the @americanbookseller.bsky.social might be willing to get to organizing a more robust push-back to all of this, although I confess that I'm not going to hold my breath.

0 reposts1 like

Drew Broussard
@drewsof.bsky.social

Which, to be clear, is not exactly a knock against the ABA — actually going to war against these publishers is a last-resort kind of option, and a dangerous one for so many reasons. But the time to get off the sidelines is if-not-here then coming very soon.

Drew Broussard
@drewsof.bsky.social

for anybody looking for something of a template, should you want to send an email to a publisher — you can do it even if you're just a reader, they have contact forms on their websites!

Litbowl
@litbowl.bsky.social

For authors esp. but also for readers, I think also worth emphasizing that publishers have repeatedly expressed having authors' back in the fight against AI theft, and some have even themselves sued. To then participate directly in that theft by buying and forcing use of the plagiarism machines...