KJ Charles

KJ Charles

@kjcharleswriter.com

She/her. British European. Purveyor of opinions, rude words, and romance novels, historical and fantasy. USA Today bestselling author of How To Fake It In Society. "Erotically charged"--Good Housekeeping. Death to GenAI. http://kjcharleswriter.com

16.9K followers2.6K following10.9K posts

reminder of a week-long sale, get your scary romance here. And for other scary romances (a thread):

KJ Charles@kjcharleswriter.com

Looking for queer historical romance with sinister supernatural shenanigans? Of course you are. THE SECRET CASEBOOK OF SIMON FEXIMAL and SPECTRED ISLE are both 99p everywhere this week! (If sale isn't showing where you are give it time, includes Amazon and all the usual suspects, e only)

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reminder of a week-long sale, get your scary romance here. And for other scary romances (a thread):

KJ Charles@kjcharleswriter.com

Looking for queer historical romance with sinister supernatural shenanigans? Of course you are. THE SECRET CASEBOOK OF SIMON FEXIMAL and SPECTRED ISLE are both 99p everywhere this week! (If sale isn't showing where you are give it time, includes Amazon and all the usual suspects, e only)

View full thread

reminder of a week-long sale, get your scary romance here. And for other scary romances (a thread):

KJ Charles@kjcharleswriter.com

Looking for queer historical romance with sinister supernatural shenanigans? Of course you are. THE SECRET CASEBOOK OF SIMON FEXIMAL and SPECTRED ISLE are both 99p everywhere this week! (If sale isn't showing where you are give it time, includes Amazon and all the usual suspects, e only)

View full thread

reminder of a week-long sale, get your scary romance here. And for other scary romances (a thread):

KJ Charles@kjcharleswriter.com

Looking for queer historical romance with sinister supernatural shenanigans? Of course you are. THE SECRET CASEBOOK OF SIMON FEXIMAL and SPECTRED ISLE are both 99p everywhere this week! (If sale isn't showing where you are give it time, includes Amazon and all the usual suspects, e only)

yeah so this QT led me to their website, where I realise they also publish the incredible Hausa soapfest SIN IS A PUPPY THAT FOLLOWS YOU HOME (just read it okay) plus loads of Manickavel, and I just spent look sod off it's my birthday this week, I'm allowed.

Blaft Publications@blaft.bsky.social

Great reviews keep rolling in! What are you waiting for? Order the Indian edition here: www.blaft.com/collections/... Or the ebook: www.blaft.com/products/a-c... Or the international edition: angryrobotbooks.com/books/a-revi... Lots more of Manickavel's work: www.blaft.com/collections/...

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(Other soap must-reads include Beverly Jenkins' Blessings series, and LONDON BELONGS TO ME by Norman Collins who went on to create Coronation Street, if that tells you how good he was.)

yeah so this QT led me to their website, where I realise they also publish the incredible Hausa soapfest SIN IS A PUPPY THAT FOLLOWS YOU HOME (just read it okay) plus loads of Manickavel, and I just spent look sod off it's my birthday this week, I'm allowed.

Blaft Publications@blaft.bsky.social

Great reviews keep rolling in! What are you waiting for? Order the Indian edition here: www.blaft.com/collections/... Or the ebook: www.blaft.com/products/a-c... Or the international edition: angryrobotbooks.com/books/a-revi... Lots more of Manickavel's work: www.blaft.com/collections/...

KJ Charles reposted

I highly, *highly* recommend these books, truly excellent folklore-focused romances that are so beautiful that university theses have been written on them

KJ Charles@kjcharleswriter.com

Looking for queer historical romance with sinister supernatural shenanigans? Of course you are. THE SECRET CASEBOOK OF SIMON FEXIMAL and SPECTRED ISLE are both 99p everywhere this week! (If sale isn't showing where you are give it time, includes Amazon and all the usual suspects, e only)

KJ Charles reposted

Looking for queer historical romance with sinister supernatural shenanigans? Of course you are. THE SECRET CASEBOOK OF SIMON FEXIMAL and SPECTRED ISLE are both 99p everywhere this week! (If sale isn't showing where you are give it time, includes Amazon and all the usual suspects, e only)

What, exactly, is it that people are *doing* with the time they save by getting GenAI to write their novel, read stories to their kids, communicate with their friends, and compose their parent's epitaph?

David Gura@davidgura.bsky.social

cool, cool

Looking for queer historical romance with sinister supernatural shenanigans? Of course you are. THE SECRET CASEBOOK OF SIMON FEXIMAL and SPECTRED ISLE are both 99p everywhere this week! (If sale isn't showing where you are give it time, includes Amazon and all the usual suspects, e only)

KJ Charles reposted

THE DEVILS' DANCE FLOOR will be published on 25 February 2027 and pre-orders are open NOW! Come and meet Hezekiah Moscow, Alec Munroe, Henry 'Sugar' Goodson, Jack Wannop, Jack Davenport, Alf Ball, Jem Haines, Jem Smith, and a little bit of Felix Scott... 🥊🔪🦁🐻🤜🏻🤛🏾 linktr.ee/thedevilsdan...

Tangential to this excellent book that you should read: possibly my brain is rotting, but I twice attempted to recommend this in my panel at ComicCon and twice failed to claw any of the title to mind, and I had literally been reading it on the train there.

I have a couple of Incredibly Long Titles myself and nobody ever gets them right and yes, it is hard to find a title nobody else has used, but even so, give me something my battered brain can carry.

Venison lasagna and rhubarb crumble in the oven, waiting for the boy to wash off the mud of rugby in storm conditions. There will be custard, before you even ask.

KJ Charles reposted

The Australian government is introducing legislation to allow AI companies to use authors’ work to build their models. This would apply to authors from anywhere in the world. Authors: To sign the US Author's Guild petition against (you don't need to be a member): authorsguild.org/news/austral...

authorsguild.orgAustralia May Legalize AI Training on Your Books. Sign a Statement Opposing It.The Australian government has announced that it is planning to introduce legislation that would change copyright law to allow AI companies to use authors’ work, without a license, to build their model...

Did a panel and a signing and a romance mixer at ComicCon. Met some great authors and many delightful readers. Not actually sure how something can be simultaneously energizing and exhausting but here we are.

So Eloisa James's latest book was given a cover made with GenAI. The publisher has withdrawn it and commissioned a new cover with a different artist. Props to the author for putting her foot down and the publisher for withdrawing it promptly.

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"Pay freelancers more so they don't have to"--absolutely, but also lol, have you seen publishers? "Use only trusted people"--ok but how do new illustrators get started? "Use AI detectors/demand people record their process"--I do not believe this would work and anyway it's not OK.

I don't goddamn know what the answer is here, except FOR GOD'S SAKE HOLD THE LINE. We do not use GenAI and we do not use people who use GenAI. And if you think you see AI on a cover, tell the author and let them and the publisher actually look into it before going ham on either.

So Eloisa James's latest book was given a cover made with GenAI. The publisher has withdrawn it and commissioned a new cover with a different artist. Props to the author for putting her foot down and the publisher for withdrawing it promptly.

View full thread

I might be able to get a No GenAI clause regarding in house work but I'm not getting more than 'best endeavours' to cover what third parties (subrights, freelancers) do. How exactly do we handle this?

I am very strongly against witch-hunting; I don't trust AI detectors that are basically just other AIs. I don't think a culture of suspicion will help anyone. I imagine most illustrators regard GenAI like most authors do. If it turns up on a cover, it's the author who gets the blame.

So Eloisa James's latest book was given a cover made with GenAI. The publisher has withdrawn it and commissioned a new cover with a different artist. Props to the author for putting her foot down and the publisher for withdrawing it promptly.

View full thread

I am pretty sure this happened to me recently in a different area. The freelancer denied it. The publisher was great about fixing it, and I don't believe for a second they OK'd any GenAI use. Nevertheless, I'm pretty sure that was what I got.

Publishers are outsourcing huge amounts of what used to be in house jobs to freelancers, who were struggling to make ends meet even before GenAI. It's pretty inevitable some of them will quietly use short cuts. And there's bugger all authors can do bc their contract's with the publisher.

So Eloisa James's latest book was given a cover made with GenAI. The publisher has withdrawn it and commissioned a new cover with a different artist. Props to the author for putting her foot down and the publisher for withdrawing it promptly.

Obviously I don't know anything about this case except the above, so let's just proceed on the assumption that the publisher did not OK use of GenAI for the cover. This has happened before and will again.

We've been banging on all week about how publishers need not to force GenAI into workflows without consent. But publishers actually can't stop freelancers doing it. They can demand it, and refuse to pay if it comes out etc etc, but if a freelancer goes rogue...

KJ Charles reposted

The defence secretary telling the public to stockpile in case of emergency, but not for anything in particular, just for one of the many shit things that could happen that we have no real state plan for, really does capture the mood of times

I'm desperately trying to work out what actual swears led the author to this choice of words. It could only be better by adding the classic American misplaced bloody. "Oh, bloody for crying in the piss!" perhaps.

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I have said it before: Get a native speaker of the dialect to beta read your swears. They're such a giveaway and so easy to get wrong in tone, placement, appropriateness. (I had HOW TO FAKE IT IN SOCIETY swear-read by three French people...)

KJ Charles reposted

For your information, the bookshop chain being mentioned here as being willing to sell AI books (if there were clear demand and clear labelling) and knowingly selling books that used LLMs and a poetry collection written "in dialogue" with ChatGPT is Daunt Books, London/SE England.

‘Sudowrite, the “best AI for novel writing”, promises to maintain your ‘unique voice’. Whether or not you have a unique voice, it will give you scene directions and alternative options for the plot, and act as your editor.’ Alfred Nunney on AI and books, from the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/oc...

...why the *hell* is the LRB promoting Sudowrite? Yes, I see it's a quote from the article. It's a quote that puffs what Sudowrite does without comment or criticism, and as such, in isolation, this is indistinguishable from an advert.

‘Sudowrite, the “best AI for novel writing”, promises to maintain your ‘unique voice’. Whether or not you have a unique voice, it will give you scene directions and alternative options for the plot, and act as your editor.’ Alfred Nunney on AI and books, from the blog. www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2026/oc...

KJ Charles reposted

A date for your diary: LPAC's next concert will be on Sat 21st November at St Michael's Church, Mill Hill. With beautiful music performed by a full choir, soloists, and two pianists, this is going to be a really lovely evening. We hope you can make it--and under 18s attend free!