Book Marks: No Jail For 'Script Thief, Plus Annoying Things About Books

Either someone was listening to the Literary Hub or perhaps the crime wasn't severe enough: Infamous manuscript thief Filippo Bernardini won't be jailed for his little scam where he tricked people into sending him unpublished 'scripts so that he could read them before anyone else. According to the Guardian:

The former publishing employee, who worked for Simon & Schuster in the UK – the company has not been implicated in any of Bernardini’s crimes – had said in court documents that he had a “burning desire” to feel like he was a publishing professional. He added that he had no desire to leak the manuscripts he acquired.

Instead, Bernardini has been sentenced to three years of supervised release, after which he will be deported.

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The Internet Archive has been operating on an open library concept where people can sign up and borrow digital copies of books. I was pointed to this place when I asked about books I can read for reviews or at least cross-check details such as ISBNs. Publishers aren't happy about this, citing copyright infringement, and recently a US court ruled in their favour:

“The publishers have established a prima facie case of copyright infringement,” writes Judge John G. Koeltl of the United States district court in the Southern District of New York in his 47-page decision, which includes a firm rebuke to the controversial concept of “controlled digital lending.”

IA isn't shutting down yet and of course I'll be tracking this.

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Roald Dahl, Ian Fleming, and now Agatha Christie? Yes, sensitivity readers are taking their scalpels to the works of the doyenne of crime fiction "in new editions of Poirot and Miss Marple mysteries published by HarperCollins."

I'm not a fan of this move and I might talk about this in more detail later. This risks putting new generations of readers in the dark of what these works read like originally and the kind of environment that shaped the minds of the authors involved. Whitewashing the past, that's what this is.

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Claire Handscombe at Book Riot talks about things readers find annoying about books. And she has quite a bit to say, having been...

...a writer, a bookish podcaster, a blogger, a Book Riot contributor, a bookstagrammer, a bookseller, and a marketing exec in publishing. So this is my world, and I love it.

But I love it the way we love our families. We know they’re not perfect. Sometimes we fondly or exasperatedly laugh at how not perfect they are. There are things that drive me round the bend about this whole word and its absurdities.

In other news:

• Here's a story of a widower's quest to keep his late wife's book alive, captured in his son's documentary, The Book Keepers. This looks like something many of us should watch: a dad's labour of love, told through his son's – at least, I hope so regarding the latter.
• This year's shortlist for the Stella prize, which celebrates “original, excellent, and engaging” writing by Australian women and non-binary writers, is dominated by books from small and independent publishers.
• For writers and authors at various stages and of all stripes, Electric Literature introduces seven newsletters that "offer the best insights and advice from abstract aspects of publishing to the smallest details, including market analysis, writing query emails and proposals, navigating contracts, marketing your work—and don’t forget much-needed emotional support and a laugh or two."
• Not one mention of chatGPT or AI in an op-ed titled, "Take That, ChatGPT!". Genius? I'm not sure. But how it just goes on.

Book Marks: BookTokers, Marketing, Stories Out of Time

BookTokers have been a hit for a while, especially those with ton of followers. Vox speaks with several BookTokers and dives into the trend to see why it's so popular.

One BookToker, Satoria Ray, says one main reason for BookTok's apparent persuasiveness is that "the average person on BookTok isn’t getting paid to give their reviews...

"There aren’t these big influencers with huge followings and all these brand deals and sponsorships flying all over the place. It’s usually a person in their car who just got out of work and is like, ‘I was reading this audiobook and I really enjoyed it.’ It’s moms who are cleaning the kitchen and just put the kids to bed and are like, ‘Hey, I just read this really cool book.’

That’s unique to BookTok.”

Even if some BookTokers could be paid to promote books on the platform? I guess that segment probably graduated to another level after making videos for some time, and who am I to say it's not "authentic" enough, as long as viewers are buying the pitches and the books being pitched? Well, let's hope for the best for these content creators, especially those in the United States as the spectre of a TikTok ban looms.

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Developmental editor Laura Portwood-Stacer, author of a guide to crafting a compelling scholarly book proposal, speaks with Princeton University Press's Assistant Promotions Director Maria Whelan about aspects of book promotion and how authors can collaborate with publishers on marketing and PR. Books don't sell themselves, and many authors are either oblivious to the need to market their books and themselves, or can't afford to put much into marketing.

Speaking of which, here are some tips on self-publishing and marketing your children's book, courtesy of author Karen Inglis. Or, if one prefers, given the advent of technology, an AI-powered book marketing tool – say hello to Ida, folks.

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Samira Azzam was a Palestinian writer, broadcaster and translator whose collections of short stories were acclaimed during her lifetime, only to fall into obscurity after her unexpected passing in 1967. A selection of her stories, translated from Arabic, has been published in a new collection titled Out of Time.

“When I first started reading her work, I found them strong and compelling,” translator Ranya Abdelrahman tells The National. “They are on the surface about people's everyday lives but her characters are so vivid. They make you think. These are stories that were written more than 50 years ago, and yet, I found them so relatable and relevant. That's the mark of really good literature. It stands the test of time.”

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Sarawak-born Nadia Mikail's debut novel The Cats We Meet Along the Way, about a teen's road trip through Malaysia set against the backdrop of a looming apocalypse, won this year's Waterstones Children's Book Prize in the older readers category and was named the overall winner. Nadia's anxieties over her family during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic gave rise to the book: "In the midst of trying to kind of work out those anxieties through writing, I realised the only thing we can do is care for the people we love every day and hope for a better future for them even when things seem hopeless.”

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In a candid video, Xiran Jay Zhao answers why the sequel to her bestselling Iron Widow, a sci-fi/alternate history mash-up of Pacific Rim and The Great Wall with miscellaneous hitsorical Chinese figures, is delayed. She claims the way and how much royalties are paid in the publishing industry left her with months of no money, forcing her to take gigs that paid sooner and thus delaying the release of Heavenly Tyrant. Considering the glacial agility of traditional publishers, Zhao's situation won't change soon, but one can hope.

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One sees notices on the copyright page of a book, but a prohibition to share the book and "if you want a copy, buy it"? Such a notice was found within the Zodiac Academy fantasy series, which has predictably drawn public ire and ridicule because, well, libraries? BookXcess-type stores? And friends share books with friends, too. It would be no surprise if this case was in the United States, arguably the most litigious country on the planet where even grapes have an end user licence agreement. Almost everyone involved with the book washed their hands off that "Do Not Share" notice, which is still inside one volume of the series on Amazon.

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Beijing-based OpenBook, an industry-data research firm, released charts of bestselling titles for February 2023, which I presume is for the Chinese market. Looking at lists from outside the West can be illuminating, but some common threads remain in reading trends, like the sellability of movie tie-ins. Headlining the article is how such a novel, based on a most-watched crime drama series, pushed Liu Cixin's title from the number one spot.

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Discussions over the use of AI in writing point include loosening one's writing gears but one author who doesn't appear to need such help is Amy Daws, whose book, Wait with Me, is about to be made into a movie. The inspiration for that book came to her while she was waiting to get her car serviced. If only more of us were visited by the muse in such convenient times...

Ghostwriter In The Machine: Much Closer Than We Think

Just days after my piece on ChatGPT's use in writing books went live, more developments in that field emerged. The AI interface is now cited as an author of more than 200 books on Amazon, and that number is set to grow. But over at Inside Hook, they aren't too concerned about AI overtaking humans in writing books:

As long as these books are properly labeled and part of Amazon’s self-publishing milieu, this might be more of a novelty at the moment. And we still approve of ChatGPT as a tool, even in publishing — but given that the program is still riddled with mistakes and odd errors, skilled human writers and editors are still 100% necessary, even for the most mundane of guides (or bad space erotica).

I'd have agreed with this a couple of weeks ago, except that OpenAI has announced the arrival of GPT4, said to be the advanced version of the AI model behind ChatGPT. Now some, like Kenneth Whyte at The Whig, are predicting the impending end of the human author in several sectors, including journalism where pithy, punchy machine-made copy will do for readers struggling against a tsunami of automated output...

...all of it optimized to outperform human product in algorithmic searches. The machine story will be good enough for most people and for most purposes. The content churned out by today’s media companies will be somewhere between worth less and worthless, making it difficult for those companies to afford original, high-value human journalism.

This avalanche will extend to book publishing, according to Whyte's projections, as the internet facilitates the (self-)publishing of AI-assisted books in genres where literary flair isn't a prerequisite, such as "guidebooks, basic biographies, basic histories, basic personal finance, basic personal advice, basic diet and health books, puzzle collections, and how-to series." There's even an AI-powered book-marketing service now.

Similar bells are also tolling for audiobook narrators as firms offer libraries of AI voices for various uses beyond Waze direction prompts, smart appliances and virtual assistants.

Against this wave of intelligent automation, The Writers Guild of America, a labour union of writers in numerous media sectors, seeks to ban AI work from being used as source material and introduce measures to protect their writers from being made redundant by AI. The guild also claimed that "AI software does not create anything. It generates a regurgitation of what it’s fed" and that "plagiarism is a feature of the AI process".

All these aside, the AI tsunami is all but inevitable as technology becomes even more essential to our lives. Over time, as the trend takes off, more will use AI to create content under shrinking time constraints. As quantity grows, quality will matter less and less, up to a point where writing is no longer art or "artsy" but a mass-consumed commodity. "In a nutshell," Whyte states, "generative AI has the potential to destroy a lot of value in the literary world without producing a single great work of literature."

But just as one out of a million monkeys at typewriters will somehow create a masterpiece, trained AI models can make art if given enough chances. An acquaintance playing around with ChatGPT Plus is startled (as am I) but pleased with the results, albeit with a little tweaking, and is planning a volume (or several) of AI-aided short fiction and poetry.

Yes, writers can finally write more and write often with AI and some seem fine with that, like romance authors. As more embrace AI as a writing tool, more books will be produced and, presumably, more gems and new voices will emerge and get read, and publishers will have to take notice as genres that were once considered niche enter the mainstream through sheer volume of work and readership. Though I don't think AI can crank out a romance novel because the writing for that genre is "formulaic".

Perhaps what fogeys like me will miss about publishing once AI assistance becomes the norm are the variety in our editing-room war tales, the joy of discovering the elusive sparkle in the mire, and the cataloguing of writer snafus for memoirs that may never see the light of day. Where's the allure in sifting through the slush pile when everything looks immaculately machine-manufactured? And AIs don't make hilarious typos, do they? Nor are they likely to engage in witty repartee. Y'know, human things.

Well, plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.

When the Gutenberg press was invented, it was a matter of time before books no longer belonged solely to the privileged. Then the internet happened and everyone can now be a writer, publisher, journalist, and opinion-shaper, for better or worse.

As treasure hunters of the literary kind, editors, publishers and agents now have a burgeoning galaxy of stars to search for the next supernova hit. The vastness of the infinite is daunting but I believe we're up to the challenge.

And it's not as if AI is infallible. There are cases where AI made mistakes and even amplified misinformation. Gatekeepers will not be out of a job, far from it. If the post-truth situation is projected to be as dire as this post says, we have our work cut out for us. Hiccups in these early AI assistants only mean we have more time to adapt.

Book Marks: The 'Script Thief, Awards, Regrets, Etc.

I used to do these "book marks" a lot when I was more active in monitoring goings-on in the industry that interest me, but seeing potentially multiple-figure counts of such posts tagged in the sidebar made me reconsider a few times. Then I hit a slump and stopped writing here for a while.

However, this habit helped to keep my toes in book- and publishing-related waters, so i'm getting back to it. And I have a lot to catch up on.

Let's start with the strange case of Filippo Bernardini, who stole hundreds of unpublished manuscripts, made ripples in the publishing sphere sometime back. Why would anyone want to pilfer 'scripts that would be kind of hard to monetise?

Recently, in a letter to a US federal judge, Bernardini claimed he stole the 'scripts because he wanted to read them. After failing to get hired at a literary agency where he had interned, he schemed to get people to send him manuscripts and it snowballed into a scam of sorts. But apparently his aim was not for profit:

“I wanted to keep [the manuscripts] closely to my chest and be one of the fewest to cherish them before anyone else, before they ended up in bookshops. There were times where I read the manuscripts and I felt a special and unique connection with the author, almost like I was the editor of that book.”

Kind of puts things in perspective for a certain segment of the publishing industry, doesn't it? And I speak as an editor of many books for a little over a decade. I've seen my share of 'scripts, some of it bad, and on certain days I wished I was doing something other than reading or editing them.

While some undoubtedly are calling for harsh penalties – theft of any kind in the book world is heavily frowned upon – someone at the Literary Hub thinks otherwise, because:

There are crimes and there are crimes, and this ... isn’t really a crime. Right? A lonely fantasist tricking a handful of agents into leaking manuscripts so that he can feel the illicit thrill of reading them a few months early is as close to a victimless offense as I can imagine. We didn’t send any bankers to jail after the financial collapse. No Sacklers will serve time for their part in the American opioid epidemic. Surely we can’t condemn this meek Italian bookworm to the depravity of the US prison system?

Not sure how much of this is tongue-in-cheek, but I think quite a few will get in line to vehemently disagree.

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Author Viji Krishnamoorthy's debut novel, 912 Batu Road, published by Clarity Publishing, has been longlisted for the Dublin Literary Award. The novel is about two Malayan families' ordeal through World War II and the early 2000s when their descendants' forbidden love affair threatens to tear both families apart. Yes, the longlist was apparently announced on 30 January this year so I'm late to the party.

Speaking of awards, Tom Benn has won the Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer Award for his novel, Oxblood, about an intergenerational family in a council house in the 1980s. The Jersey Evening Post adds that "Previous winners of the award – which comes with a £10,000 prize – include Normal People author Sally Rooney, Surge poet Jay Bernard and White Teeth novelist Zadie Smith."

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Writing in Book Riot, Alice Nuttall notes that...

Sometimes, authors deeply regret the books that they have published, even if – and sometimes because – those books made their names or brought them wild success. Arthur Conan Doyle famously hated Sherlock Holmes so much that he tried to kill the character off permanently, only to be forced to bring him back after public outcry. Agatha Christie resented the public demand for more Poirot novels; she found her creation irritating and hated all the idiosyncrasies she had given him, something she wryly references when writing crime author Ariadne Oliver’s hatred of her own fictional detective character.

But Nuttall adds that "nearly all of the authors who went on to regret their books are white and most are men", probably because "it’s likely that there are simply not enough books being published by authors of colour for those authors to have those same feelings of regret about the work they have struggled to get out there in the first place."

What stands out for me on the list is Peter Benchley, who of course wrote Jaws. The witch hunt against sharks that the novel and the film adaptation allegedly triggered appalled Benchley, who would spend the rest of his life championing sharks and their right to live unmolested in the oceans. I found his participation in a National Geographic special on sharks, with photographer David Doubilet and notable shark attack survivor Rodney Fox, quite exceptional.

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An unlikely path to publication for a Middle Eastern author spotlights "some of the setbacks facing regional authors in getting their work read globally." Simply put: the lack of bookshops and slow adoption of e-commerce in the Middle East and North Africa means publishers struggle to just stay afloat, missing opportunities that could be had if they networked with international firms interested in their output. Can networking at international book fairs be the answer?

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More bites from the Literary Hub: despite being labelled the most wired demographic, Gen-Z still prefer print to e-books, apparently. In the same tone as the plea to spare the manuscript thief Bernardini, the writer goes on: "Citing reasons like eye-strain, digital detoxification, BookTok, and new book smell (seriously, right?), an overwhelming percentage of readers born between 1997 and 2015 prefer old fashioned paper books."

And it seems the FBI made notes about Pilsen Community Books, a Chicago-based bookstore, which is said to be "a meeting place for 'anarchist violent extremists, or ‘AVEs,’ environmental violent extremists, or ‘EVEs’ and pro-abortion extremists.” Bookstores through the ages have cultivated certain reputations based on what they sell, who they platform, and who runs them but wow. And this news surfacing around this period in American history...

Pressed Over Bookshop Presence

Self-published author Grace G. Pacie can't seem to get her book into bookshops, a problem she shares with "other successful self-published authors". She reckons it's because...

...retail book buyers are hiding from us. Retail book buyers have concealed themselves behind such a curtain of secrecy, that we just can’t reach them to tell them about our success. ... I’ve met all their criteria, distributed my paperback through a non-Amazon channel and made it available through Gardners Books. Every attempt to reach the big retail decision-makers in this highly centralised market has ended in failure.

Even though the fruits of Pacie's research on managing time "has attracted such amazing media attention that my title hit number three in the Amazon Bestseller lists for Business Time Management Skills, and number four in Self Help Time Management this month"?

Some retailers tend to prefer names that sell by the score (each day, preferably), so that might not be a surprise. Other considerations might be due to retail agreements that favour big names and big presses even more, further relegating self-published titles to the wayside.

Which might not be wise, according to our self-published author who can't get into bookshops. Because: "While the global publishing market is predicted to grow at 1%, the self-publishing market is expected to grow at 17% per year, and with a self-published book market worth $1.25 billion a year, change is inevitable."

Now, among collections of self-published books one would find some with unappealing covers, back cover copy that goes over the top, and less-than-ideal editing. Some authors who "go it alone" because they feel shut out of traditional publishing ecosystems by what they see as excessive gatekeeping often do so without subjecting their work to rigorous refinement, eager to see their babies on the shelf. The growing use of AI in producing books, some of which still qualify as books even with low page counts, might also explain this growth. So kudos to self-published authors who take the time to improve their work before putting it out there.

Just as not all self-published work is unpresentable, not all bookshops are prejudiced against the self-published. Perhaps smaller neighbourhood bookstores might offer a spot on their shelves for independently published authors? They tend to because, for one, they're more amenable to small-scale, more personalised selling agreements. Also, stocking self-published works burnishes the image of the neighbourhood store as an indie outfit where hidden gems lurk.

In a similar vein, supporting small presses outside the publishing sphere dominated by the Big Five – or Big Four? – may pay off for the reader looking for something different as they contribute to the industry via their wallets.

Because, as Kendra Winchester writes in Book Riot, "big publishing isn’t the only place where excellent books are made."

Smaller presses provide a place for a lot of books big publishing doesn’t want to take a risk on, like books in translation, experimental works, and books by authors from marginalized identities. Smaller presses know their communities and invest in the literature that they specialize in, making a way for a wider range of books to be published.

Winchester goes on to build her case for indie presses, which also include university presses, as publishers of works from the communities they serve and are, thus, platforms for the voices of these communities, as opposed to big-name presses that mainly push marquee names and blockbusting titles.

Not getting a space at brick-and-mortar bookshops shouldn't be a downer, considering that a lot of commerce happens online these days. Surely the fact that Pacie's book was well-received despite its apparent absence in bookstores means it's worth checking out. Perhaps it's because bookstores have an edge, according to a Forbes Advisor analysis, based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and Google Trends: they are looking like the most recession-proof type of U.S. business in 2023.

Forbes Advisor ... calculated that the number of bookstores in the U.S. increased by 43% during the latter part of the pandemic and they also “enjoyed steady wage growth” during this time (+16%) as well as during the Great Recession (+13%). These stats, plus their “moderate startup cost” (around $75k, apparently), earned bookstores the top spot in the recession-proof rankings.

Regardless, books don't write themselves and bookstores, digital or terrestrial, need books to sell. And if people want to read something, they will look for it. So, authors, get your work out and put it where it can be found. But please, get it proofed and edited.

Growing Job Scope, Plus More Writing

More than half a year passed since I wrote a journalistic piece, let alone anything substantial and book-related. But among some additional responsibilities at work include blogging for the company's online retail portal, and in between the prerequisite promotions was this piece about how ChatGPT is helping people write their books.

When diving deep into the subject, I've had to revise my viewpoints and phrasing of some passages in the drfat a few times. Doubts over whether I did a good job – not great but merely good – still linger, mixed up with their counterparts from previous projects, and are unlikely to remain and feed new doubts raised while writing the next post.

Nevertheless, I'm pleased with the results, not just because it's been a while since I've done something like this and it seems to have jolted my writing gears loose after such a long while. Hence, I'd like to furnish the full text of the post here but given the nature of the new arrangements and to be on the safe side, I settled for a partial copy-paste with a link to the actual post.

Wish I could say "it's good to be back" but I think it's still too soon. I'll be fretting over what to write about next but until then, let me savour the relief of being able to write again.

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ChatGPT – the ghostwriter in the machine

In a book titled The Wise Little Squirrel: A Tale of Saving and Investing, a squirrel named Sammy finds a gold coin while picking up acorns. Sammy's friends Benny the Bear and Lily the Chipmunk then help the squirrel learn about the importance and benefits of saving and investing.

Sounds normal, except that the author, Brett Schickler, had help writing it: the software sensation ChatGPT, an AI interface developed by artificial intelligence research lab OpenAI that produces replies based on user queries. Schickler "wrote" The Wise Little Squirrel by prompting ChatGPT with queries like "write a story about a dad teaching his son about financial literacy". He also employed AI to design the cover...


Read in full here.

Love (Of A Language) Shouldn't Be Forced

The Malaysian Institute of Language and Literature (DBP) has proposed amendments to the DBP Act 1959 to give it more bite in policing usage of the Malay language.

News reports about the matter stated that "Individuals who do not respect the national language can be fined up to RM50,000 or sentenced to imprisonment."

“This is not about grammar or spelling errors, but disrespect for the national language. The proposed fine is not to punish but to evoke love and patriotism to the country,” said the chairman of the Institute's board of governors.

The proposed amendments will reportedly be tabled at the next Parliament session and likely to be passed, but I doubt the aims will be achieved without some collateral damage.

The news reports reveal little about the nature or details of the offences worthy of the ehnanced penaltiess. Even if grammar and spelling errors will not penalised, given the way Malaysian authorities work, one gets an idea of what "offences" might be targeted and who would be most affected: the poor, migrants, older people, and those not sufficiently schooled in BM.

Instead of evoking evoke "love and patriotism to the country", offenders are more likely to end up hating the laws and the Institute. Instead of uniting people, sections of society are pigeonholed based on their proficiency in Malay.

In many ways, how DBP polices language is the same as how the religious authorities police religion in this country, steadfast in the belief that the heavier the mallet, the easier their job. But mangling words or grammar in a language shouldn't be a crime, especially if done unintentionally. As a Finance Minister put it, "why use a sledgehammer to crack a nut?"

More egregious uses of BM can be found on social media. For one, the proliferation of bahasa WeChat needs to be checked.

Language is a living thing, and as in all living things, evolution and growth needs to be organic, and that involves making and learning from mistakes. How will anyone grow if they're made to fear making mistakes?

As much as the authorities like to think harsh punishments will lead to better things, it's not often the case. A conducive learning environment needs to be nurtured, not enforced. Unfortunately, the authorities penchant for the latter seems to suggest they don't have the aptitude for the former.

Love for something needs to be nurtured with knowledge, compassion and forgiveness. Teach and guide people through the basics, be patient with their progress (or initial lack thereof), and be kind when they stumble. Only then will people be more encouraged to learn and participate.

One example is how Indonesian VTubers from the Indonesian branch of the Hololive VTuber agency got their Japanese counterparts to use Indonesian. Never mind that most of what they picked up were swear words, at least they're learning.

A better instance is the collab streams by Hololive Indonesia's Pavolia Reine, where she teaches Indonesian to other Hololivers. Reine's a pretty good tutor, and watching her students pick up choice Indonesian phrases - and throw them back at her - is fun.

Yes, fun. Learning and using languages should be fun. Not an obstacle course at a boot camp for the US Marines. For an example of fun, DBP's official Twitter taps into the pulse of the local daily news cycle by serving up related word or phrase lessons, and poetry - enriching and entertaining.

I felt pangs of grief and a little pride as the Japanese VTubers threw choice phrases at each other and no one in general. Indonesian VTubers are building bridges to Japan, thrilling Indonesian audiences, while DBP fantasises about being a language sheriff.

Relentlessly controlling language - or any form of art, for that matter - will only stifle its growth and lead to fear of its adoption due to such unnecessary pitfalls as fines and jail time for any "disrespect".

And it's not as if the learning will stop with swear words. When the gates and penalties are gone, curiosity will take over and a new world will beckon. What kind of world that would be, depends on those who champion the language.

I think one way to get people curious about language is to tell stories. Well-told stories can be compelling especially if the tales being told share the same culture as the language used to tell it. The writing and production of recent mainland Chinese animated series such as Fairy Album and White Cat Legend got me picking up and rehearsing Chinese off and on. But that's just me.

Malay does have a use beyond urusan kerajaan, beyond an instrument of jingoistic nationalism. We just have to work out what that is.