AND,

Ah yes the 1984 batch of forever chemicals, a lovely PFAS blend, just the right mix of bitter and sweet, heady and slightly astringent, enjoy

Are AI books actually destroying the kindle store yet? I think they’re a serious problem but — it seems like it’s largely Amazon’s issue right now.

You’ve got no body, no eyes, you’re floating in a vast black salty ocean, someone screams MAKE THIS PICTURE LOOK BETTER and your entire existence depends on making the picture look “better”

Is the entire book industry down if Amazon isn’t loading properly

It’s cool there’s a robot living somewhere on a data center I can sometimes message like “hey bud can you make me a python script that generates galloping horses in various shapes and colors and all the horses love me unconditionally” and it doesn’t judge

If someone is selling you answers, the answers are probably wrong. If they’re selling processes and education, that’s different. If they’re selling bots?? Get in early

What is a “structured reader wave?” Some kind of horrific assault on my person? Who wants that?? (It’s bots btw)

There is 100% an insane amount of scamming in the indie pub industry. I get like 5 scam emails every day, all written by chatgpt, and I have no clue what the end game is. They want to make me rich though! How great is that!

Building a yard sign grave yard, you are not invited

What do you mean it puts long term text in order? I agree with you by the way, I’m just curious what your use case is. I’m guessing a story bible? I built something like a story bible with Claude Code and it’s pretty good.

Yes stupid machines make bad errors etc etc but holy wow what’s going on inside of the model such that it recognizes errors and is still aware of the implications and reactions enough to actively try to cover those errors?

If you outline and brainstorm with an AI, is that morally ethical? What about with a human partner? At what point does it move from helpful idea making to an AI doing the work for you?

Are we headed toward robot communism

Magic is mystery and as soon as you explain away all the questions then it’s not magic anymore.

Don’t buy the course. Don’t go on the retreat. (Unless you can easily afford it). These things probably won’t change your life!

Sick of the “too many books” argument. Has anyone actually been so flooded by low quality books that they couldn’t find something decent to read? Is “the infinite flood of content” an actual issue or just another way of denigrating indie pub?

You have to build a brand. But mostly you just read and write books. Do you just write about writing? Or maybe write about reading? But you’re not a book reviewer. You’re an author. How do you generate content that isn’t just “buy my course” slop?

I don’t want to write about writing! I don’t want to talk about marketing! I don’t want to accumulate a list of other writers! I want to find readers!!

I wonder how many people are quietly making a living self publishing books. Like my author name isn’t huge, but I’ve been in the top100 overall a bunch. I doubt most people would recognize my name, but I have an audience. I feel like there are way more authors like that right now.

Nope

I swear every mafia romance starts at a funeral. Why are we doing that?????

I can’t remember the last time I wanted to quit a book at like 100 pages, forced myself to finish it, and felt good about that choice. Basically never happens! If the first act/20% isn’t for me, the rest almost definitely won’t be.

ALSO, just because I DNF a book does NOT mean I think it’s a “bad book.” I just think it’s not working for me, and maybe I can say why and have decent points, but who cares? My 5 star is your DNF. Books, man.

I can feel myself on the edge of quitting another book. The sweet relief of accepting this book is not for me… and putting it down. Nothing better. DNF life forever.

It’s honestly amazing to me that poetry presses/magazines/etc survive at all. But I feel like the writing world in general is full of stuff like book prize scams—little ways aspiring authors are used to subsidize the industry.

I totally agree. I think “accessible” is a good goal and doesn’t have to mean one particular form of narrative poetry. It’s more people are intimidated, like you said. As if poetry was “too hard” and can’t actually be fun (which it definitely is).

The incentives in the poetry world are like, write poems to impress this tiny cohort of editors and other writers. Hope someone reads your work maybe! I’m honestly sad that poetry doesn’t leak into my world more often. Because it basically never does! I have to actively seek it out (and still do).

I have an MFA in poetry. Writing poetry was a huge part of my life and all the internet journals and publishers felt so important. Now I’ve been out of the poetry world for over a decade… and it’s like all of that disappeared. It faded away. Poetry is just buried. It’s gone. It’s so small!