#24: How To Write Fiction In An AI Dominated World - A.L. Lieske, Ryan Null, and Heys Wolfenden

Should writers embrace AI in their books, or should they reject it completely?

In this episode authors A.L. Lieske, Ryan Null, and Heys Wolfenden discuss the ethical implications of using AI in writing and publishing, along with some ideas on how to market your books effectively. 

Perfect for writers and creators everywhere.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

Welcome, AL. Nice to see you again here. Yeah. By the way, everyone, this is the second time AL's been on my podcast. I'm thrilled to have her on again. So how's things going, AL? How's uh writing going? How's life?

SPEAKER_00 0:12

It's been pretty busy. I'm getting ready to release my well, start the pre-order for my second book. That's been a little bit pushed behind. It was supposed to come out last month for the pre- well, the pre-order was supposed to start last month, and that was too ambitious. So it's it's it'll start at the end of this month, and I've I've just got a few tweaks to do with this side story that's coming out with it. And then I'm hoping to get started on the third book. I have I've written a ton on that book already. It's just living in different pinned emails in my author email and telling me that I need to start on it. So it's it's been crazy because I really want to start writing, but I'm still waiting for this other thing. Otherwise, I've just I've mostly been busy with my podcast.

SPEAKER_03 0:54

Yeah, I can imagine. I was going to ask you something, as you mentioned there about pre-orders. What is that? Like how do you I I vaguely know what it is, but I only really know about it from like more like traditional publishing. So for like an independent author, how do you like do pre-orders?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

You know, that's something that I just learned recently. I didn't do it with the lattice scheme. I didn't know anything with the lattice scheme. So just kind of from the grapevine from all of the authors I've interviewed, some of them have successfully done pre-orders. And I know my mother-in-law, who is an indie author, has done pre-orders, so I thought I'd look into that. You you can set it up through Ingram Spark, you can set it up through Amazon, and it's it's really simple. You just upload the files the same, but you set a specific release date. And so it shows all your files to anybody who's viewing it online and they can pre-order it, and you'll see those marks go up, but then they won't get it until the release date, or it won't be printed and shipped until that date. So it's it's not really that difficult to set up, but you do have to have all the files done. And my standstill is there's a couple last-minute changes that needed to be done to my manuscript that were rather significant. So I couldn't just upload the files and go with it.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Yeah, I totally get it. Yeah, like for myself, I've never done pre-orders. I can't say why. It maybe when I published my books on Amazon, it wasn't available, but it probably was. It's something I'm going to check out. Again, I like what you're saying about talking to other authors and stuff. I I feel like with my podcast, I'm just learning a ton, you know, and on obviously on Instagram on the on the group, like people just, oh yeah, I'm doing this. I'm like, what? You can do that? Like, there's a couple of authors on there that are doing, I think is it is it book talks at Barnes and Noble. Indie authors can just go to Burns and Noble and just set up a book talk. This is revolutionary, it's fantastic. I I've not done that, and I'm like, Well, and like, you know, the two writers that have done it, you know, I'm like, yeah, props. I think that's I want to say it's it's ballsy. And I think I think other indie writers out there, as indie writers, indie published, put indie published writers. I think you have to be. I think you have to be confident and you have to bat yourself and you have to go, you know, hey, I'm this good. This book is this good. You you need this book, and and and then do it. That that's the impression I get anyway. You mentioned Ale there as well about your podcast. How's that going?

SPEAKER_00 3:17

It's it's been hard to keep track of everything. I've had so much interest shown in the who wrote it series, and then individuals want to be individually interviewed. So it's been trying to balance things on top of that because ever since we moved, our schedules have changed. So my husband who edits the videos, he no longer has as much time to do that anymore. So whereas we could we could have popped out about one or two podcasts per week. Now it's like one every week and a half. So it's things have been backing up a little bit. But I do every week I've been meeting with one group and an indie author. And so I'm just I'm on pins and needles trying to get their interviews out. And at the same time, I keep getting DMs in my um Instagram and on Facebook that, hey, will you interview me? And I would love to. I just don't know how soon I can get you in. And it's funny to me because I had set up a tentative goal to have an author week, but I wasn't really pushing that very much at the start of the year. I I thought, you know, if it happens, it happens. Otherwise, I have lots of material to talk about. And it's it's just happened so much that I am booked till August now. And that to me, that is mind-blowing. And it's a little bit of a panic because I I do have to put in time for my podcast segments for my second book. And now I don't know when I'm going to do that. So it's it's a good overwhelm. It's it's a very good overwhelm.

SPEAKER_03 4:33

Sorry, did you say you you're booked until August for your podcast now?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 4:37

That's fantastic. I'm I mean, I've not booked that far in advance. Um, but I'm I'm two months fully booked up, pretty much until I've got like maybe one spot left in May. But then in June, I think I've already got one or two spots already booked. I've already I think I've already got a a spot booked for September. Yeah, I'm like yourself, I just find that like I I when I invite people into my Instagram groups and for edge groups, I always have an invite as well and say, hey, I'm just actively looking for guests. And even if like just one in five say, yep, I want to be interviewed, I'm snowed under. I've got like a file on my phone of all the writers that have said they would like to to join, to you know, to be interviewed, but it it's still there may be maybe 20, 15 to 20 names on there, and of course I'm adding names to it all the time. So I know I find it pretty, pretty tough at times. Like I got sick like about a week ago, and it just threw my schedule out completely. I just couldn't I didn't have the energy. It wasn't bad, but it was just like I just don't have the energy to even look at Instagram, never mind do a podcast, you know. And I find that I don't know about you, but I think you were kind of saying there, but you you're looking at your your your DMs in Instagram and Facebook, and yeah, I I get especially on Instagram now, like yeah, every day I I open my phone in the morning typically whilst I'm having a cup of coffee, and there's easily five or six messages. I mean, so some of it is just like maybe somebody's liked a message, it can't just be that simple, right? Good, just check it, fine, whatever. But then there's other times my Instagram group be I might have missed a full-length conversation. And just for everyone out there that's in the group, I do read back and I try to follow the thread. I do sometimes try as much as I can to respond individually, but that it's not always possible with many. It's not realistic to have like me respond to like 10 messages after each other. But I usually like to read it and I do like messages and stuff. And I think it it's a big part of like in depublishing. I want to show people that they matter. Your comment just like your books matters and do things like that. But yeah, it k keeping on top of it at times can be pretty harrowing. Um, it's enjoyable, but my my time schedule every week is pretty packed. Uh, I don't know what you're like, but like just give you an example, if I interview on a Saturday or Sunday, I'll have a day off after that because I typically listen to the messages again when I'm at school and have a bit more time to kind of sit down and do other things, but listen. And then I I'm I'm up against it editing for a day or two, finally get the episode ready, do a bit of promo stuff, publish it, tell people about it, next two days maybe release some segments from it to get, you know, just further publicity. And then after that, I'm trying to promo the next episode, and there's very little time in between. My only day off really is like say if I do the podcast on a Saturday, I don't edit on a Sunday. I just I just leave it and I kind of do my own thing. But it it's I mean it's a good thing, isn't it? We're we're it's working. It's not a good thing.

SPEAKER_00 7:55

It is, it's just yeah, you're right though. There is this this crazy balance that sometimes it can be rather straining. For me, my biggest frustration has been that as much as I love supporting other indie authors, as much as I love doing the podcast and trying to interact with all these groups, it has significantly taken away my time away from writing. And that's on top of readjusting to a new state that we moved to. And so it's in a sense, it has actually killed my creativity at the same time as inspiring me to write more. So I'm I'm dealing with these things. I'm like, I I have to write this scene, I have to write this part of this book, but I don't have time and I don't want to lose it. So my my sticky note wall has tripled. But my time to actually do anything with it is like it's deceased.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

Yeah, no, I totally get it. I I I'm not as affected that way, but I notice some days it affects my reading time. Like my reading time might just be 20 minutes some days, and uh I try to get an hour in, which is not always possible. But yeah, it can do. I I typically try at the moment I'm just editing. Usually when I'm editing, I typically allow myself I'll do it every day, but I will go easy on myself. I I'd love to do an hour, but sometimes because I got sick of I'm just kind of easing my way back into it. And the last couple of days I just allowed myself 30 minutes each day, to be honest. I'd like to do more. I will start doing more. It's bizarre, I'm on holiday at the moment from school, which is why I've not got a a regular guest box, because I thought we were going on holiday, but but but we're not here. But then I decided I wanted to have this kind of open platform kind of thing. But yeah, but ironically, because I'm on holiday, I have less time. And I it that sounds crazy, but it's because I've got a young kid, when we're we're going to school, because he goes to school, he goes to bed earlier. So I've got two hours at night to do editing or writing and reading, which to me is like heaven. Between eight and ten, maybe ten thirty, I can just just focus on that. But I don't quite have that time at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 10:09

So yeah, yeah, you know, that's an interesting phenomenon. My husband and I have been talking about that for several months. There was a time that I was unemployed, and suddenly I had all this time to myself. And because of the lack of structure, I wrote less, I got less done, I felt worse. And he knows that in his own life, both between jobs and between school and summer, like when there's more to do, you're more productive, you're more disciplined, and when there's less to do, there's not. And I don't know if there's a name for that phenomenon, but it's so utterly fascinating to me.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

That's a good point. I don't know. Uh I think I'd love I'd love to have the thing that I wouldn't want to be unemployed. I'd want to be unemployed and fantastically rich at the same time. You know, where I could I could easily write all morning or six till nine and maybe read and hike uh the rest of the day. I'd love it. But it it's not like that, is it? It it's not that kind of life, unfortunately. Yeah, I do think when you're working, I have to constantly think every day, where am I gonna find my writing time? Because at the moment my schedule's kind of topsy turvy, and I have to really prioritize that, and then I gotta think about reading time and somehow around that fit fit in a bit of Instagram or something like that. And there's time to I'm fine, I'm fine. And there's other days I'm like, oh no, I've just got so much to do and I'm behind. Like sometimes when I approach people to come on the podcast, or when I approach people to go into the Instagram group, most people just say yes and people don't say no, they they typically just won't respond, which is fine. And most, if they want to join, will just say yes. But I don't know if you've had this. There's a few, you know, rightly or wrongly, I'm not knocking them. They want extra information and which is all very well and good. Like somebody has asked, has been asking me this weekend for extra information, and I just said I'll get back to you. Because even though it'd only take five or ten minutes, I didn't have five or ten minutes right then, and I wanted to sit and focus. And so I send these answers back just now, and I don't think they're interesting. I just like wasted my time. But it it takes so much time if you've got two or three people in your inbox like that, and I get it, I get it. I'm not a listener. If you if they're listening and they're like, hey, that's me, I don't mean that's bad. I just mean, you know, we are busy. And it seems like a simple thing. You know, but it's like that it's like it's one of the things.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yeah, it's it's kind of funny because there's so many things bombarded like that. I found that in order to respond to them all and to give more information, I have to have constantly pinned, copied little blurbs about more information. So I have that like for advertising my book, but then I have that for the podcast. And then I have that for, you know, the different segments of the podcast, individual interview, the who wrote it series, and so forth. And every time I'm pasting those though, I start to feel like I'm a little bit of a fraud because that's kind of what scammers do. And AI does that. It's just copy-paste, copy, paste, even though it's written all by me and it is the same information. I'm like, huh. Isn't that the irony that as real people, we're so busy sometimes that we have to just copy paste and relay the same thing to everybody instead of being organic, the same way that these robots are spitting things out.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

A little bit. But I think that I think i if we had, you know, all the time in the world, and just for argument's sake, our podcast is mega successful, so we're we're making money back on that. Sure. No, we we we don't copy and paste, we we do take more time to do things. We we we do we just do things differently, we do things more professionally. But you just like I've got five minutes, I got five minutes right now. For example, I've got my lessons at school, got a 10-minute break, and I'm like, right, I know there's something on my phone that needs uh answering. I've got five minutes. That's all I've got. And if it takes 20 minutes, I'm not doing it. You know, so it it's it the pressure's on, but it is I think it's a good pressure, though, that's what I would say.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_03 14:10

It's definitely enjoyable. It's been um for me, I don't know about you, but it's a massive eye opener. Like I feel like I've learned so, so much.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Um every single person that you meet is like I listen to your podcast, and then I come in and I have my own, and like I always walk away from those, just absolutely blown away. As much as I enjoy writing my book, I'm just so impressed and inspired by these different authors and their advice. And it's it's like you were saying earlier in our conversation before the podcast. You've learned so many things from marketing, from writing, from drawing inspiration and characters, everything about being an author from everybody that you meet that you never know before, and you're not gonna get it all from a Google search. It's this real life experience they share is utterly priceless.

SPEAKER_03 14:57

Yeah, i it is. And it is also real people's experiences and like you can tell they're not making it up. You know, like we like I said before, we start doing recording the podcast talking about the two authors that have, you know, booked book talks in Binds and Noble. And I'm like, that's fantastic. You know, and there's been another couple of authors on my podcast that have uh sent books to bookshops or they've send them to libraries and that kind of thing. Like Michelle last week with the hotels, and she she takes uh books in the suitcase and just leaves them there and stuff. Uh it's just such a great attitude, to be honest, to uh what do you want to say? It's a great attitude towards you know art and just the idea, it's it's not about necessarily making loads of money, it's about validation, getting your ideas out there, standing up to be counted, not being ashamed, not being afraid to do these things. And yeah, I've looked I I can't even tell you now. Why did I start my podcast? I can barely remember because it's insignificant. Like now it's all about learning from other authors for me and listening, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

Yeah, I completely relate to that. And it's, you know, it being an author is an art. And that's the thing that I keep drawing from all of these different authors, is and it uh it's a different art form for every single one. There's similarities you can draw across from them, such as where they get their inspiration from, things that have influenced them, what they want to do as an author. But anytime that you ask them, you know, how are you marketing yourself and what is life like for you as an author? What does it mean to you to be an author? Just it's it's different. It's nothing but pure art. The way that they live their lives is authorship. And I'm not quite sure that you could put a single definition on that. So that's why I name my series What is an author, because what is it? You you can't answer it across the board.

SPEAKER_03 16:48

Yeah, it's a fair point. Uh I think there's probably times in my past where I've said, yes, I'm an author. And there's probably other times I say, Oh, I don't know if I am, because I'm just I think when I I was almost like secretly writing after I'd finished the Jack Strong series, I was doing different books. I was just writing, I I got sick of getting rejected by agents and sick of telling people about it as well. Yeah, I got rejected again, you know. But I I kind of feel with the podcast, it allows me to come out, so to speak, and just be a bit more like these other writers, just a bit more bold and go, yeah, I'm an indie writer. So the difference between me and you and getting published, I think a lot of the time is a huge dollop of luck. And maybe knowing the right person at the right time. That's not to say everybody does that. I don't think that's true, but I do think you need a bit of luck. For example, I checked out, I was like, you know what, I'll check out I write, you know, the Jack Strong series like uh middle grade sci-fi. I was like, yeah, I'll tell you what, I'll just randomly check on Amazon, on my Kindle, you know, middle grade sci-fi. There was nothing that was traditionally published, nothing. At least that that's just a list they give me, of course. I said, oh right, yeah, I am up against it then because they look at the comparative titles and go, nope, nothing's sold well, but it it I think it can become a bit, you know, repetitive, you know, going like that. Well what is your take on AI? So when I say AI, we mean AI in the writing and publishing industry. I think let's just we'll stick to that for the time being, I think.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

I think when it comes to AI, I look at it as a spectrum. All technology can be used for good or bad. It's how you're using it and why you're using it. My first acquaintance with it in the author community was when I started Instagram. There was somebody who wrote AI books who was getting significantly bullied. And I defended that person because uh while I'm not okay with AI-written books, I don't think it's ever okay to put down another person and to, you know, crucify them for using it. That's that makes us very inhumane towards one another. But to me, it's every time that I have read an AI written book or an AI edited book, which to me is very obvious because of the extensive work I've done with AI, I just I can't stomach it. It all sounds the same. It's written rather terribly if you read it out loud. It's it's either over dramatic or it just doesn't sound like a human writing. And, you know, it's it's been a little bit of a struggle with that on my podcast as well, because I have interviewed a couple indie authors who have very evidently used AI in their writing, and I haven't called them out on it because that's that's not my job as podcaster. It's uh it's it's really sad because when I meet them in person, they have these incredible ideas. They are these wonderful people. And I'm thinking in my head, why are you using AI? You could write this better than that book was written. I know it. Why don't you know it? Or maybe there's a time thing, I don't know. But that's the thing with AI, is because it is a spectrum, some people use it because they don't have time. And they have these wonderful ideas and they like they have all these self-justifications for using it. And some of them are really quite good, and then some of them are really quite lazy. That it's one I heard the other day was AI gets AI puts to words what I can't get out of my head. And I'm like, while I understand that you might need a little push or help to learn how to do that, it's much more empowering to learn how to do that for yourself than have a machine do it your entire life, kind of like, you know, riding on training wheels instead of learning how to ride the two-wheel bike. You know, you pick your level of difficulty, you pick your level of empowerment. AI can help you to get there if you really are intending to become your own author. But if you're just using it because you don't intend to improve and learn those skills yourself, to me that is just kind of morally wrong. So I I try to weigh it on a case-by-case basis. I wouldn't inherently say that AI is the worst, don't touch it. I wouldn't say that AI is the best, you should use it all the time. I think there's just proper use that needs to be understood.

SPEAKER_03 20:52

That's fair enough. Yeah, I I think the idea of like using it to write books or write, should we say, write your own book. You've got an idea randomly coming read now, Western romance. You can't write that book. AI, do it for me. I I mean I get it, you you wanna it's a shortcut, right? Okay, it's a shortcut, whatever. But but for me, the fun thing, the challenging thing about writing is you've got this idea. And a lot of my ideas start out quite vague. I think Stephen King said this, like sometimes he gets ideas, and it's like, right, you know, a man wakes up uh in a forest at night, doesn't know who he is, and he doesn't know anything else about the butt apart from that premise, and then he starts writing it. And you know, for me, riding is about you've got this vague idea and you s as you're writing it, each word just you know, it pixelates it until it's it's clear that that that's the idea, and I think it does take practice, you know, that there isn't I don't really think there's a shortcut to becoming, you know, if I say a Successful rider. I mean a good rider. You can be successful and not be a good rider, but I mean a successful rider where you your work stands out maybe to yourself, first of all. And if you if you read your own book, say 10 years later, and you go, oh, hey, this is pretty good. Might not be amazing, but you're pretty good. That that to me that that is some kind of success. But if you read it and it's like this is AI written drivel, you know. I mean, I on on my on my podcast on Buzzthroat, I tried last week. There's like an AI co-pilot, and it's in the editing phase, and it says, you know, try it for free. Okay, I clicked on it. And what it does is it gives you the podcast title. What's it giving? It gives you it gives you a podcast title, it writes the blog for you, and it writes the summary for you, the summary of the episode. All three of them were absolutely garbage, I'll be I'll be honest. Like even the title, a title, so just go back to the easiest thing, was just this isn't what we discussed in the the podcast, you know. And I was like, yeah, you know. So it the whole thing got thrown out. I mean, listen, I would I have used it if it was really good. Right now, I can't honestly tell you if I yes or no. I'd like to say no, but it wasn't like that. I'm not in that parallel universe, to be honest. I think a curious one, the one I'm thinking about a lot at the moment, I'm not it in in the scale of AI, I'm anti-AI in writing on two or three out of ten. Where I'm open to AI is like the the nitty-gritty stuff with the publishing process where you you submit to an agent and you might want to get your letter proof to something. I get that. Some people are dead against that. I get it, but I also get that there's a very fine line between getting it getting accepted and being rejected 150 times. And I I get it if you if you if you write a bad query letter, and you could spend lots of time doing it, but you kind of want to spend the time writing. So I'm open to that. I'm open to things like that, synopsis and stuff, and just helping you a little bit. Uh, because it's a listen, I'll and I'll I'll hands up so to everybody out there. I've in the last 10 years of submitting to agents, I find I've always found like sypnoses difficult, blurbs, elevator pictures. You know, this is where like you're a writer, and then you maybe you're writer first, editor second, you know. Things like marketing and blurbs and stuff, that's not your job. That that's a that's the job of someone else in the publishing company. I always thought it was a bit disingenuous to expect writers to just come up with an imperfect elevator pitch for for example. Well, if you were great at elevator pitches, you'd be in sales, are you? But most writers aren't. You know, and I f so I find it's a bit disingenuous to expect writers to be really good at these things. I suspect what probably happens with traditional publishing, it just effectively creups people who are very good, rightly or wrongly, at putting together these packages. And so I suppose my take on AI is if it can give indie writers a bit of help on these occasions. I'm I wouldn't say I was I'm all for it, but I understand it. And I wouldn't condemn someone for, yeah, I wrote my book, I edited it, I sent it off, did all these things. And then me and an AI wrote a, you know, for example, a query letter. I'm like, yeah, okay, fine, fair enough. You want to save your time? Yeah, totally get that, you know, to be honest. What do you think about that?

SPEAKER_00 25:56

I think so. As you're speaking, the thing that comes to me is honesty. That's that's the core of it is are you being honest with yourself? I can write this, I have tried, I've tried my best, and I really need that little bit of help. Because if you do, to me, AI is meant to fill in those gaps. Like I have used AI for transcript writing several times in my profession as a health coach because sometimes I don't have the time to type up all my notes. But that being said, you know, if you don't read through it and edit it yourself, you'll find that many times over it misses critical things or it does write garbage. When it comes to query letters, I think it's good to type up a query letter to pass it through an AI and say, okay, this is the criteria this agent is looking for. Give it very, very specific things. You have to give the very specifics, otherwise AI will just praise you for it. But if you say, this is specifically the genre they like, this is what they're interested in, how well does my query letter do? Where can I improve? And it gives you that feedback. You can very much use AI to tutor yourself into being a better writer to getting that perfect query letter. To me, that makes sense. And that's usually what I counsel when people are insist they need to use AI to edit. You have to be very, very specific. You have to read over it, you have to double triple check, you have to make sure to give it those, you know, emotional instances that, you know, this this paragraph, it might sound like this, but it's supposed to be more of a thriller. It's supposed to be more of a this. And then double check the words it's using so it's not repetitive. But it really is just that. Is is it filling in the gaps or is it doing the work for you? Have you done everything you can? Because if you honestly have, to me, that is justified because you're absolutely right. Authors are not marketers. We're not professional marketers. Having we have AI run ads on Amazon, you know, algorithms and Instagram, all those sorts of things that is written that is run by algorithms using AI. So it's it doesn't feel as wrong to me to say I'm going to have AI do my marketing for me while I'm going to organically write the book and pitch everything else that I can. It just fills in those gaps. That makes sense to me. It reminds me of a previous podcast that we had, and you discussed that, you know, traditional publishers have this team and indie authors don't. Sometimes AI can be a little bit of that team because we can't do everything ourselves. That makes sense to me. And like yourself, I'm not saying go ahead, use AI. I'm all for it. But yeah, it's it's with that honesty thing. I I do think there's a place for it. And I am for using it where it's appropriate. I'm against using it where it's not.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

Yeah, I I totally agree, to be honest. I think it kind of leads into something else I was gonna say. I think it's part of it. It sometimes the way that the debate is framed is like, you know, you you don't use AI, you're pure. And like for true and that listen, that might be true for indie for indie publishers. It might be true. It's probably more likely to be true, to be fair. But once you go into traditional publishing, the at the moment, for the last sorry last 10 years, you know, I think you know, there's a lot more input from other people in the the publishing process. I mean, editing's just editors, for example. But then you get the sales team in part, you you know, the the book cover is not designed by the author. Of course, it's you know that they pick, you know, that they'll flick through a few designs and pick the right one. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. I think that's probably the best way. But that's not a completely independent process either. Now, I I I get the argument, yeah, but that's a real person. Yeah, sure. I I get that, you know. But they're a very expensive person, and maybe even an expensive company, that you know, one one we talk about sending books off to editors, but uh, you know, the traditionally, you know, published authors, the editors they use are, you know, we're talking, you know, maybe dollars, something like that. It it it's it's very expensive. I can't afford that. So where am I doing that? You know, not when you're an indie author and you might sell, yeah, I sold one book today. It's not like it's not realistic. And I do think at times that part of the uh equation or the debate needs to be a bit more a bit more understood. I also am gonna say in children's book publishing, there is a lot of fake writing by celebrity authors at the moment. And it does seem to be, maybe thankfully, thankfully it's not good for children's authors, but it seems to be stuck in the children's author sphere at the moment. Don't quite know why, but it hasn't really gone out of that. But Madonna didn't write the book, you know. It used to be in the UK, like you know, they'd have like sports people's autobiography. Everybody knew that somebody else wrote it for them. But now like you've got writers that go, right, look at me. I I've written this book. Oh, this is my you know, my my my children's, you know, series or whatever. And then that's very disingenuous. And I think maybe it would be better to say name of the first famous person and such and such a person. That would be more honest, to be honest, and that that is really bad in the children's publishing sphere right now, to be honest, I'd say.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

Yeah, I have noticed things like that, and it often makes me wonder how many of the other industries, creative-wise, are being influenced like that. Music is taking a hit by AI. I do know that. There's a lot of AI music, a lot of it that's actually used on reels in social media, and people don't realize that, even as they're they might be posting a reel about I'm anti-AI, I won't put it on that, but the song they're using has been written by AI. And so it's you know, there's there's a lot of things against it that we are too black and white, I think, in this I'm against AI, but I'm not going to actually like deep dive into every little bit that it's used in. I mean, in all reality, the argument is against the recent generative AI. We've been using AI for years. Google is AI, Grammarly is AI. When you do a spelling check on Microsoft, it's all AI. It's none of this is actually new. And yet everybody's like, I have never used AI. Well, I don't believe that. If if you're using any software to write something and to spell check, you have been using AI. So it's, you know, it it is a sticky, sticky, sticky cloud that's like you're saying, it's we have to take more of a look at it instead of just pointing it out. But at the same time, trying to be authentic about that, saying that yes, I use AI and it this is where I give it or use it, and this is where credit's due, still runs us into the problem of the extremists who are like, oh, you're a terrible person now. I'm gonna slander you, I'm gonna make sure everybody blocks you, and you know, it can be self-defeating. So it's it's difficult to want to, you know, help people to be authentic and to be honest and to learn how to properly use AI and to be, you know, honest about using it, if that means they're going to get backlashed and utterly destroyed. You know, where's the balance? How do you navigate that?

SPEAKER_03 32:58

Yeah, sure. I think it's just one of those that that aspect of the debate where it seems to be very say very purist. You know, you have a completely for a completely against. And listen, and again, like the the completely for it, I completely disagree with them. Like they're way too comfortable with you know writing, say 100,000 words and then I'll give it to the AI and say, make it 50,000, and they're like, yeah, it's fine. And like, no, you shouldn't do that. But again, going back to what I said before, there's there's published writers out there, they're not editing their own books anymore. And you can see like how like when quite if you're following certain series, the quality drops off towards the end. Why? The writer's not editing anymore. So if you're not editing, you're not getting better as a writer. So they're all they're doing is writing pure plot, and someone else is editing it, and over time they just start to to decline as writers, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Brian.

SPEAKER_03 33:59

How's it going? Yeah, it's good. We're just we're just anchor ankle deep. No, we're we're neck deep in talking about AI. I mean AI and publishing. We're gonna move on to marketing soon.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

So AI is starting to affect everybody, really.

SPEAKER_03 34:15

Yeah, I think I I was just gonna say there, yeah, it it's not a binary choice. I people like if you're writing a book, let's just say you've been completely pure, you're writing in a notebook, notepad, whatever, and you want to check something, do a bit of research. As soon as you open any search engine now, it's got AI in it. Everything's optimized. So it it's we are using, I think with editing is I think it's in almost every program that you'll be using on a computer right now. I don't know much about what's that is it Google Drives or Google Docs? Some people are writing on at the moment. Because I just use Word, so I don't know, but I suspect that's probably got AI on it as well. So yeah, it's kind of like that.

SPEAKER_00 35:03

I believe like you have an option of adding Google Gemini to the side of it to check through. But it does use just regular spell checks, just kind of like Microsoft.

SPEAKER_03 35:12

Yeah. I mean like spell check, how close is that to you know, AI? You know, especially these days. You know, I get it, maybe in the past it wasn't, but it's like somebody said to me on on threads, it's not AI, it's an algorithm. And I'm like, yeah, it's kind of the same thing. It's it's it's it's like the algorithm is the grandfather, sure. But like you you you can't this is the problem with technology, it's like you're trying to like it's like spaghetti, you're trying to untangle bits and you can't because it's all you know enmeshed. Re- AI comes from the internet, and all these things kind of, you know, are at play. I I've listened to writers that have said, Stephen King says it, and Neil Gaiman says it, and I don't agree with him, but they're great writers, that you can only truly write by writing in a paper notebook. And Neil Gaiman uses a fountain pen. You know, and so it's like from their perspective, we are all charlatans, you know, rightly or wrongly. And so it's easy to kind of when do you decide to kind of, you know, raise the drawbridge, so to speak. It's there's always going to be somebody who says, nope, that's not writing, you know. Maybe since Ryan's here, we could we can just move on now to like another like topic. I was talking to A. L right at the start about book marketing. Because I'm just hearing so many great like ideas and schemes for book marketing at the moment. Ryan, I'd love to hear some of your ideas, if if you don't mind. I know you you send books out to libraries, I think.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

So I mean, I I spend a lot of time marketing. I've send books to bookstores, I do a monthly newsletter where I give a free author and two business shout-out. Uh it seems like I live on social media these days just trying to keep up with everything, but constantly posting or making reels or, you know, something like that. I'm always looking for ways to like forms, you know, and podcasts. I was on her podcast as well. So always trying to you know, it's like a never-ending cycle, it seems like these days. It's it's really challenging for indies. You know, we've got a little bit do all do all of it, and then we've got to be creative in the marketing as well and try something new. So I'm always just trying to put myself out there, whether people read it or not or buy it, it is what it is, but at least I'm putting myself out there. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

AL, any any any take on this? Um, so it's an interesting topic. I have a trial reel that's been running about social media marketing. Statistically, I don't I was I was recently on the Cochrane Entertainment show, and I did mention that statistically, social media doesn't sell books as much as people think it does. And that is true. There's a lot of data that shows that selling direct on your website, selling through newsletters, much more powerful, especially if you do Amazon ads, things like that than social media. For me, I've I never use my social media to sell books. I I do occasionally run an ad just out of curiosity to see will this happen? And I do use threads to put things out, but really the biggest powerhouse for marketing for me has been e newsletters using like free reads e or the fussy librarian. I was gonna say messy. The fussy librarian is a fantastic one. The the game changer for me was BookFunnel. I'm a huge, huge book funnel lover. If you pay$200 a year, you're able to get people onto your newsletter. And that's where the power is your newsletter, just sending that out to different readers and keeping them up, giveaways as well, having a free chapter, a free book, free newsletter, huge. But BookFunnel also puts these group promos that I absolutely love that you can be put into someone else's newsletter, you can get people into yours, you can get people to just download your book. And if you have something at the end of your book that says, you know, follow me, review, join my newsletter, they do. And it's it's just fantastic. I've been seeing reviews popping up now for my book because of that. So it's for me, book funnel is a huge one. But there's also different things you could try, like NetGally, book bounty, all sorts of ways to advertise. And for me, it's getting your face anywhere outside of social media to me is going to be more effective because with the socials, people see you a couple seconds, they're like, Your book is entertaining, you are entertaining, but do I feel like buying? No, I feel like doom scrolling. They're always going to doom scroll over reading you the majority of the time, anyhow.

SPEAKER_03 39:41

Yes, fair point now. I was checking some of my uh stats for Instagram and like, yeah, the doom scrolling. I I do know, yeah, Instagram or social media, what do I think? I I I like it not so much to try to sell my books because I think there's only so many times I can say, hey, this is what it's about, buy my book. I use it just as an outlet for myself and just I tried to sell the podcast, one of a better word. It's free. So I noticed that when I when I release those, you know, the the videos, the segments from the podcast, they always get it's quite a low number, but they always get extra downloads. Little things like that help. I personally like what we're doing now, just meeting other writers, you know, and when I can I buy books or I, you know, with Amazon, I download samples sometimes, and then I'll I'll read the sample, and then if I like the sample, I'll get the book. And I try to do things like that. Hopefully, people do that with me, but I I don't mind if they don't, they don't. And trying to sell myself as a writer a little bit, but I I do love the newsletter idea actually, and it's something I've been thinking about, like maybe doing like one a month just to kind of update people and what I'm doing as a writer, like what what what am I writing, what am I editing and stuff beyond just talking about it. And it's I think it's good to just keep trying different stuff, to be honest. And if it doesn't work, that doesn't work, just try something else. It it's it is hard as an indie writer because you're because you're there's lots of writers, there's lots of books being published, and you've got you're on this little island of anonymity and you're just trying to like get people in. So yeah, I do I do plan to approach some bookshops at some point or libraries. One of my problems is with Jack Strong. Jack Strong is for young readers, and I found it really difficult to get young readers to read it. I just don't know any. So I need to try to like do a bit of research. Maybe there's libraries in the UK that are focused on on you know young readers and we'll try to get them to unbox them. We'll see what happens, you know. So it could be good, hopefully it will be good. But yeah, marketing, it it's one of those things, it's a never-ending like you're falling down a hole. You know, you can just keep trying things and it's it's I mean Ryan, you mentioned about you you're always like engaging, always on social media. Sometimes I need to take a break, you know. Like I try to release sorry, Ryan.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

I said, Yeah, I know it it it can be kind of overwhelming and exhausting, and uh here lately it seems like I'm failing. I feel I feel like I'm failing at least because I'm not active as much as I want to be. But any holidays or like I'm sending my newsletter, and when I send my newsletter, I don't use BookFunnel. I've heard about BookFunnel. I didn't know it did everything like that, like AL was saying, which is cool, but I send my newsletter manually an email to about a thousand people and then I put on LinkedIn. So it takes like three days to do this. So it's very time consuming. Or if there's like events I kind of lack on social media just because I'm traveling or, you know, stuff at home and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 43:15

So Ryan, you got a thousand people on your email list.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Well, I I have a book, so I got a book that I designed off VistaPrint, and then people just put their first name, last name, and email, and then everywhere I go I just lay the book out and tell them about my newsletter and have them sign up. But I do you know, I do believe that's the best way to engage, like she said, because it's the continuous direct communication, you know, once a month or however. Some people do it every two weeks, but it's that, you know, constant connection that they're gonna see and then you can put like, Hey, here's my new stuff or here's where I'm gonna be at, or I do like cooking recipes or fun facts or just something to make it, you know, a little bit fun. Not like another email, I guess you'd say, because people get so many emails. So you gotta make it engaging where people wanna read it and look at it. And then, you know, it is that once a month where they don't gotta scroll, do the doom scrolling or kind of plow through all the different media, social media things out there to try to find what you're doing. It's just right there, nice and clean and fit package. Yes, yeah, it's mine. It is my younger two. I've got an oldest son that'll be 16, and then uh my younger two are six and seven. So it was the six-year-old. Even though I told him, hold on.

SPEAKER_03 44:45

It's okay. No, I think it's good. I was gonna say about the I was gonna say about the newsletter. Yeah, what when I'm on like social media, I'm doing this, I'm doing that. I think it seems to me like a good way to kind of collate everything, or even if it's just a summary of what you've been doing for a mom for two weeks. And I and I haven't done it yet, but my my I I I've I've been thinking about it. I've written like I'll have to get from AL again the name of the one you're using. I've already written down a few on my phone, so I do plan to kind of look into them. I'm just right now it's just finding time, you know, with writing and reading and the podcast, you know.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Yeah, I'm I'm always impressed by those who can get out to libraries and book events because I'm I mean I I know I'm in a brand new place and nobody knows me around here, but to me it's like I don't even know how to get into a bookstore. Like I know I can Google it and they say just present it to so and so, but to me, I'm like it's not just that that's intimidating, it's that does that really work? I don't know because like I'm I'm kind of on a solo island here. I don't know any other authors where I live yet. So it's it's it's there, I guess it is intimidating, but it's just unknown.

SPEAKER_01 45:58

It is, you know, a lot of them have like forms and stuff too. It's it's kind of power in numbers. I mean, I've submitted like 300 forms, and every week I try to do like 10 to 20 new bookstores, but like my newsletter week or traveling week I lack on everything else because you know, my time you there's only just so many time 24 hours in a day, so what do you do, you know? Man, my schooling's starting soon too. So but I mean I've been rejected a lot, and I've been told, you know, all kinds of things like I gotta be a bestseller, I gotta be under 500,000, or you know, I've gotta be traditionally published, or they don't accept indie authors. I mean, just kind of everything, but you just keep going and you just keep emailing and fill out forms, and I mean eventually you'll hit a few and then it just keeps growing like that, but you get a lot of rejection to be an indie.

SPEAKER_00 46:56

That's the reality.

SPEAKER_03 46:57

That's what I imagine. Yeah, I imagine we'll get a bit of rejection, but I I kind of figure nothing to lose, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 47:10

That's a good perspective, I think. Oh go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 47:24

Yeah, I know I'm I I've got mine. He's in bed. Otherwise he'd just be in bed.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

But I mean, yeah, you know, what I've found interesting though is the UK. I I I have one bookstore in there that carries myself, but it's really hard to get into the UK bookstore, is there? Very humanly. Um like any other country, they're very kind of to the ring because the margins are so you know, so hard, they're slim. But that's honestly the hardest I've had is uh the UK bookstore and I've been rejected by so many, so many.

SPEAKER_03 48:08

I'll see what happens to me. But I I I can say I think the newsletter is a great idea, and I'm gonna go down that route as well. Right. I think we can end it there if that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 48:21

I'm sorry, I'm yeah, I'm sorry, I'm late. I woke up later. We was up late, my oldest son got baptized last night, so it was like a whole three-hour kind of thing, and we didn't get home till like midnight, one thirty. I had to take my sister-in-law home, and and then yeah, I slept in, the boys did, and me I seen your thing, I'm like, oh crap, I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 48:45

Yeah, no, no, no, it's fine, it's fine. It was it's always the it was more of an ad hoc thing. I was just kind of like curious. I think it'd be kind of good to do things like this every now and again where I can't really plan a podcast and just open it up to people instead of me just talking to myself, you know. So I've I've really enjoyed talking to both of you, to be honest. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 49:08

Yeah, thank you. It's been a pleasure to be on again.

SPEAKER_03 49:10

Yeah, yeah, fantastic, fantastic. I think AL, like, because I'm gonna interview Ryan next week, but like, yeah, AL, if you want to come on my show again, more than welcome. More than welcome.

SPEAKER_00 49:21

We're always happy to.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

Yes, it it was my youngest wants to say hi. Say hi. Say hi.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

Hello.

SPEAKER_01 49:30

Okay. Yes, his name's Luca. So I had a blast too. Thanks for having me. Um sorry again. Yeah, I'll be on next Sunday here. So I'm really excited about that. Hopefully the boys are outside playing.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

Yeah, like yourself.

SPEAKER_01 49:46

Right. Looking forward to it. But thank you for having me. And thank you for having us. Yeah, you're welcome. Perfectly welcome.

SPEAKER_03 49:52

Right. Enjoy the rest of your day, guys.