Normally I stay out of the author and industry discussions. I’m too busy writing. But as I’m writing this on Saturday, Gordon slept in, and I can’t work on the explosion scene until he wakes up, so you get the tea. Here are some answers to assorted questions that floated into my inbox over the past week.
ARCs
ARCs are advance reader copies, which are the early copies of the book sent out to reviewers, librarians, etc. for the purposes of early publicity. ARCs are free. They are sent out with the hope of a review. A review is most helpful in the first couple of weeks before and after the book comes out, so a prompt review is much appreciated.
Where to get ARCs: the most frequently used source is Netgalley. Another is Edelweiss. Most publishers, especially the Big 5 houses, will take care of the ARCs for you. However, some authors distribute ARCs themselves or through their publicity firms.
Under no circumstances should you be charged for ARCs. (Yes, I know Baen does it, and we will not be discussing that right now.) The flip side of the coin is that it is in bad taste to sell the ARCs you received. Most of them are printed before the book’s final proofread and they clearly state “not for sale” on the cover.
ARCs exist for publicity purposes. To get one as a reader, you need to demonstrate that you have some social reach: you are popular on Goodreads or have a following on social media. The publisher is hoping to use you as a billboard for their book so they want to make sure that billboard isn’t going to be in the woods where nobody sees it. For our self-published books, some ARCs are also distributed to people in difficult circumstances. We only send a small number of those.
Apparently there is some controversy around the limitations some authors put on their ARCs. They have requirements such as posting reviews within 5 business days or policing the review’s content.
This is not typical to trad publishers. They operate under the idea that all publicity is publicity, so posting a negative review of the debut work is still somewhat beneficial to the book, because it gets the title out there. It is also understood that critics and reviewers receive a large volume of ARCs, so while timely reviews are appreciated, setting a hard time frame on it isn’t something the trad publishers do in my experience.
That said, I am aware of a few instances in which the publisher removed someone from our ARC list.
In one case the reviewer received 4 ARCS over the period of 3 years and reviewed none of them, which made them defunct as a publicity resource.
In another case, an ARC reviewer posted a review stating that they couldn’t be bothered to read the book, because it was so badly written and then spent the entirety of the review promoting their own book with the similar premise. Basically, they used our name as a click bait to pimp their stuff.
In a third case, the ARC was uploaded to the pirate site and it was traced to a particular reviewer, who admitted to posting it because she wanted the validation from the commenters on that site. She had other things going on at the time and was in a bad place, but she is, sadly, permanently banned from our ARC list.
This is very atypical. Most ARC reviewers honestly review the books provided to them. It’s a very clear transaction: the reviewer gets an early free copy and the publisher and author hope for a timely review. That’s it. ARCS are not a right, just as the reviews are not a right. Neither side is entitled to anything, and everyone hopes for an amazing book to publish and review.
Writing and Marketing Courses
There is no writing or marketing course out there that can guarantee a book deal or commercial success.
If you are thinking of paying for one of those courses, start with a little research. First question, who is the teacher? Read their writing. Do you like it? Is it wonderful, does it make you feel, do you wish you could write like that? No? Don’t buy the course.
Let’s take it a step further. You don’t have to be a commercially successful writer to teach and improve other people’s writing. You have to be a skilled editor.
Commercial success hinges on appealing to a large number of people. I knew an artist who did amazing work for hire. She produced beautiful portraits, but her own paintings were peculiar and niche. She would paint a bright blue stripe over a yellow rectangle, because it said something to her. She could absolutely teach her students how to draw a photorealistic portrait and frequently did, but her own work wasn’t commercially successful. It was art.
However, if the pitch for the course hinges on the promise of commercial success, that teacher better either be a bestselling author or be instrumental in creating bestsellers in the way editors and agents are. You want to see proof. You want to see numbers. You want to see testimonials from bestselling authors connected to this teacher. If there is no proof, no numbers to back things up, don’t take the course.
As part of Ilona Andrews, I have 25? I think 25, New York Times bestsellers in my resume. We are USAT bestselling, and WSJ bestselling, and internationally bestselling, and Amazon bestselling, and blah-blah-blah. I cannot teach you how to write a bestselling novel. This is not because I’m a crappy teacher. It’s because the market is volatile and telling stories is unique to each storyteller.
I can teach you how to improve the craft aspect of your work: how to fold time, how to write better descriptions, etc. But I can’t teach you how to write the kind of story that will get you published. I can’t teach you how to land a great deal either, because the answer to landing a great deal is “Write a good book people think will sell.”
I can only tell you how I do things, but it probably won’t work for you, because you are you and not me. And that’s a wonderful thing.
All of the industry-related information you need to get published is available on the internet for free. If you are getting rejected after multiple attempts and can’t figure out why, keep your money and join a workshop or give your manuscript to a friend you know won’t lie to you. They will tell you why they stopped reading.
AI Art
Over on Whatever, Scalzi is talking about AI art in book covers. It’s a good post, the gist of it being an Italian publisher used AI art on one of Scalzi’s books, and he is trying to hardwire no-AI-art clause into all future contracts.
We also support the no AI art on the covers position.
It is so difficult. AI art is cheap, fast, and readily available. AI art will never be a substitute for human art but when it comes to business, cheap and fast usually wins, and the cover process is not always straight forward. Contractually authors usually gets “cover consult,” not cover approval. We can’t block the cover. We can complain but often the publisher will make very minimal alterations in regard to complaints or none at all.
We are doing our best, but please cut us – I mean authors in general – a little bit of slack when it comes to foreign covers. We have very limited input, even less than in US covers. One of the foreign covers for the Edge featured a woman in a coat walking through a a gloomy November-looking park. The book takes place in summer, there was nothing magic on the cover, and it had zero to do with anything in the actual book. When we complained, we were told that this is what their readers like and that’s that.
If AI art shows up on one of our foreign covers, the best we can do is throw a fit. The publishers may or may not do something about it. I have no confidence that we could force a foreign publisher to abandon an AI cover. We would try our best. I can promise you no AI art on our self-published covers.
The AI is hitting the creative industry really hard across the board. Here is an WSJ article about it. Sadly, it’s likely paywalled, but worth a read if you have a subscription.
Agents
So this happened.
This is an ethical breach. When you send your pitch to an agent, there is an expectation of confidentiality.
And there you have it. Monday morning tea.
Somewhere, somehow, you should read “there’s a bimbo on the cover of my book” an old filk song from the 1950s…
Remember when all the historical romance books of the 80s-90s had Fabio on the cover in different hair colors and costumes? Now I’m wondering if all the AI algorithms will make a Fabio-like model for covers and put it everywhere.
Had to go find the lyrics.
https://pitviperofdoom.tumblr.com/post/98827153973/theres-a-bimbo-on-the-cover-of-my-book-theres-a/amp
That’s awesome! 😂
I used to post a lot and get ARCs but it just got to be too much. Was I thrilled to get early books from favorite authors, YES! Was the stress of getting all those books read and reviewed in a timely fashion ruining my reading fun, also yes! I no longer review and enjoy my reading so much more.
2? Dang.
Congrats!
Wise of you to realise this and then to act on that self-knowledge 🙂
My entire childhood and teens I expected (as did teachers and family) to study English Literature at university. But as I did the GCSE and then A-Level I realised that it was destroying my love of whichever books we studied. So instead I opted for Journalism and Philosophy which (very) quickly became just Philosophy. Some people can read critically and still enjoy the book but I can’t and I’m okay with that. I’d rather enjoy my novels and critique pure reason lol 😂
(Not to say I don’t enjoy philosophical treatises but in a different manner which allows me to argue them – plus you can entertain more ideas rather toeing the party line of supposed intent)
Morning Ilona. It is a good one. My 96-year-old mother is being discharged today. Her blood thinner levels were too high with subsequent bleeding issues. So happy she is coming home. We are having a beautiful day (87 degrees and humidity in the 40s, and breezy.). So much nicer than the high heat and humidity we have been having. I’m sure we’ll be back to the heat and slime tomorrow, but it’s so lovely today
Thank you for sharing….I read John Scalzi’s post as well…I can see how hard it will be to control the covers. I love how you all & other try to preserve your product covers,
Wow…..sorry for the writers affected…..
I love it when the tea is spilled!
Thanks for sharing these glimpses into your literary world.
Our new rescue dog, Decca, played so well with a dog friend today that he got so excited he didn’t notice where the bank was and fell in the canal. He’s a Labrador, can swim, and rather more importantly could get himself out of the canal, his owner thought it was funny. Decca did not join him mainly because her recall isn’t 100% yet so she was on the lead. It’s really good to have a dog that makes friends, our last two didn’t really, and I’ve missed it.
Decca might be a Belgian Malinois, although the rescue thought she was a German Shepherd, whatever she’s pretty as anything, red and black. Someone took the trouble to give her basic training, but she was taken in as a stray, did her time and now she’s with us.
This is so great to hear!
Years ago our rescue had a German shepard/mutt looking stray found in an urban city. As I recall red gold, with black muzzle. Malinois rescue saw her on petfinder, back when petfinder was new. They were positive she was a Malinois so we changed her description.
She went to live in a high end penthouse apartment. La Di da!
Whoa did not see that coming.
Thanks for sharing this info!
Thanks for sharing more insights into the world of writing.
I am firmly only a reader but like learning what happens on the other side.
+1
+1 and I now understand what the ARC is for
Back before I retired from Libraryland, almost 20 years ago, book distributors (like Baker and Taylor or Ingram) would send ARCs to the librarians making purchasing decisions to try to increase sales and pre-pub interest. I was able to read many early releases through the years because of this “perk”. 🧑🏻🦳
“… demonstrate that you have some social reach … have a following on social media.” And so, I’m outta there! And when you add my inability to write a decent review to my nearly invisible social media presence one gets the reason I don’t even try for ARCs.
Semi-related — are you going to do arcs for SANCTUARY?
House Andrews have already sent a few ARCs out to readers that needed it 🙂 . Since it was a serial first, usually the word already gets out in the months of blog presence but I can ask if the agency is also making it live on Netgalley.
I just checked today and it isn’t listed to request on NetGalley. I always check for IA books.
No, things aren’t set officially yet and it will likely only happen in July 🙂
So interesting, as usual! I can’t get over the agent who takes someone’s idea and tries to find another author. Omg! Unethical doesn’t quite cover that, I consider it stealing. And then announcing their theft of concept, too. Wow
Years ago I wrote regularly, including a year’s worth of monthly columns, for a special interest magazine with the highest circulation in its industry. Around the time a lot of mags started going to more reader-generated content, *for whatever reason,* the magazine ditched its longtime managing editor (20+ years) and hired a younger one. Then they started trying to pay me less and less money per word.
I sent in an article on spec and, after giving me the runaround for a few weeks, they told me they had lost it (this was back in the days of floppy discs). About a month after my article would have appeared (given the typical pub schedule) that magazine published an article on the same subject, and with roughly the same outline, as mine. The author was an industry regular who had never written for that particular mag before, but had previously called me for comment on articles for smaller industry publications. Per those conversations, I know that she typically worked for half of what the larger magazine paid me.
I don’t fault the writer; she may not have had any idea what was going on. Of course she had wanted to write for the magazine for some time. Most likely the editor just gave her the outline with no identifying info and asked her to write it. I never wrote for that mag again, and it kind of went downhill with a tailwind without the original editor. I let my subscription lapse when the trend because evident. It’s still around but a shadow of what it was back in the day, which is a real shame. There used to be a lot of useful info in it.
Ugh, how awful!
I don’t really understand the issue with AI generated content on book covers.
It’s just a new tool in the creation process, a new way to make art.
To have a nice result, you first need a good prompt. It can take a while to get exactly what you want. Then, you need classic tools like photoshop to improve the generated image.
This process takes a long time and definitely require a human artist. The AI doesn’t replace the artist.
A big advantage is that readers have a much higher chance of getting characters on the covers that look like their descriptions in the book.
With respect to the copyrights, I feel that AI are trained like humans in the end. Every artist studies his predecessors and is influenced by them. AI just do it faster and on a larger scale.
If the result is too close to the work of some artist, the user should be charged with plagiarism or forgery. But forgery is not a new problem and has always existed.
Marie, the issue comes from how the AI was trained. It sifted through copyrighted content without offering compensation to the artists who created it. Therefore, everything it generates is a product of a poisoned tree.
It is a brazen theft, just as Chat GPT read fiction on pirate sites without any compensation to the authors. This was done because it was free, i.e. stolen content. They didn’t want to pay anyone, they didn’t want to ask permission, they didn’t want to enter into contracts, because all of that would cut down on profits they are now reaping.
I see the problem for text as you should pay to read a copyrighted book but not for images, freely available on internet, copyrighted or not.
Those two things are exactly the same. Copyright is copyright, no matter the format of the artistic work.
Technically, we use AIs every time we take pictures with our phones, use recent versions of photoshop, make a query on google…
Why isn’t it an issue in these cases ?
None of those examples are generative AI trained on stolen protected work or being sold as art and replacing creativity.
Here are a few more resources for you on the topic 🙂, this thread will now close:
https://news.mit.edu/2023/explained-generative-ai-1109
https://hbr.org/2023/04/how-generative-ai-could-disrupt-creative-work#:~:text=In%20this%20scenario%2C%20generative%20AI,less%20new%20art%20and%20content.
https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-generative-ai
Wow, did not know that about chatGPT. It makes sense though. My resolve to never play with it has strengthened further
The issues are many: from copyright infringement, to delivering art with little value and variety, limiting human creativity by threatening the ability of real artists to make a living, as well as impact on resources and climate. Here is an article that summarises the main points 🙂 https://www.forbes.com/sites/danidiplacido/2023/12/30/ai-generated-art-was-a-mistake-and-heres-why/
Copyright is a tricky issue but you can get rid of it by using models trained only on not copyrighted data.
The problem of the impact on resources and climates is also debatable : small models can run on laptops.
I feel that creativity is the most important part of the equation as we are talking about art. But the AI output is just a start. If you want something unique, you need an artist to improve it. It doesn’t negate the need for creativity.
The use of stock images is much more damageable to creativity and diversity in my opinion.
Recently I have seen so many covers differing only because of the colour filter applied on the original stock image that I would like a quota of the number of time an image can be used for book covers !
I always find your comments interesting!
AI, I believe, in the future will be self limiting. they are now seeing AI picking up other AI art and using it to weird effects. its ionly useful when it pulls from human art so there will be an equilibrium. however sad that will be. they are poisoning their own pool
Explosion scene? Yay!
Good Grief, that [former] agent!
All the authors I like say the same thing about writing advice: “I can tell you what ~I~ do, but it won’t work for ~you~.”
Thanks for these Monday tidbits (I was going to say crumpets, but I’m more orange juice than tea in the morning)!
An author friend who writes epic, high fantasy (but isn’t as commercially successful) was recently bemoaning using AI art for his cover because nothing he prompted would get everything the way he wanted (like there was a Gorgon and the art kept adding snakes to the hair rather than having snakes FOR hair). He ended up pulling some elements from the results, photoshop removing what he didn’t like then essentially printing it out and painting in his edits and re-digitizing. I have to wonder if he actually saved time\frustration here.
I’m also very much a proponent of I want automation (I’m beginning to flat refuse to call what is out there “AI” – it’s not, but I digress) to help me with the MUNDANE things so I have time to do the artsy things. I don’t want something to do my art so I have more time for laundry and house cleaning.
I wish I was an ARC reader, sadly I’m a terrible review writer because I can rarely put into terms why I did or did not like something that would be remotely helpful. And it’s hard for me to switch to read something I’m not mentally prepped for (which is some strange realizations I’ve had recently at post-50 – I should have a handle on my life already LOL) so as much as I’d LOVE to help out authors in that manner (especially the few friends I have that write for a living) – I SUCK at it.
And that Agent? That’s HORRIBLE!
That part with the agent practically stealing a person’s work…I just shake my head about that. A lot of four letter words went through my head when I read that part. Sheesh!
AI and art work…that is a rabbit hole with no end until copyright laws cover this, unless the law already has established what AI, and the companies who created the AI, can and cannot do. Other than that…no comment whatsoever.
The joys of having a statistics background…I know too much what goes into AI, and why people need to keep track of their AI algorithms.
Dan Dos Santos created a new “I Hire Humans” graphic to help awareness of human artists vs AI generative art. It’s available on his FaceBook page.
Wait…. What explosion… who’s exploding?
That’s for House Andrews to know and us to find out 😂
Let the fluffy speculation begin! 😂😊🧐
When I was a child my most beloved author was Andre Norton. Her Witchworld series featered strong dark-haired women who were witches. They remained virgins to keep their power. (there were some manor issues when they married and still had powers.) Some of her stories might have a kiss at the end. I went to get the newest book at the library and the cover had a blond haired woman and a shirtless man and they were “all sexy and stuff.” I had such a panic. Then when I read the book and it was the same world as always. I felt such betrayal. I decided to never trust publishing companies.
There are a lot of considerations that go into selecting art for a cover and sadly, the content of the book is not always primary among them (I completely agree with you, it should be!).
Here are a couple more articles Ilona wrote on the topic, giving us insight into how the industry and especially marketing departments do everything possible to get the book sold – including manipulating reader interest with things like hinted at spice or trendy looking people or the same colour as everyone else gets on their genre cover that year.
https://ilona-andrews.com/blog/covers-and-genre/
https://ilona-andrews.com/blog/covers-costs-and-artists/
*major not manor
I saw some passing reference to bad agent behavior today but am not tuned in enough to have seen what the bad behavior was, so thank you for sharing that one.
Very much enjoyed reading your tea while having a cuppa on my morning tea break 😁
Waaay back in the day for a few authors, I could tell a book was theirs by the cover, because they always used the same artist and there was a theme to the art. Mercedes Lackey and Patricia Briggs are two authors that still do that.
Nalini Singh is another author who uses the same artist on her covers.
I love Lois McMaster Bujold. She used to send out ARCs and one person in UK used to, with her permission circulate that ARC to a group of her readers in Australia. This was before computers and ebooks. It used to be such a thrill to receive the copy and then post it on to the next person (either in Australia or New Zealand) We would all write comments in the front of the book and then the ARC was given back to Lois when the circle was completed. I think she used to be really pleased with that. But then she is an author who to my knowledge sent a copy of her book out early to a reader who only had a few months to live. It is nice to know that there are authors like Lois and Ilona and Gordon around 🙂 🙂
What a fun story about the ARC!
Adobe supposedly only trains their AI using art they already own.
Of course, the rest of their terms of use are appalling, as they consider everything you ever used an Adobe product to create, modify, or touch in any way to be theirs to do as they will, forever, without restriction or guilt. So an AI–theoretically–*could* be free of someone else’s hard work, but I’ve never seen it.
Maybe leprechauns and unicorns are bad programmers?
Love a cup of tea me!!!
Netgalley has a policy that if an ARC isn’t reviewed (I don’t know how many chances a reader gets) you will not receive more ARCs. This is for self-pubb’d books and trad published. It can be more difficult to obtain trad published ARCs from netgalley as they seem to do a lot of homework on whether you’ve reviewed before and on which platforms. If readers want some of the more coveted ARCs, be a reviewer of ANY books–ones you bought, library books, etc. You can use that history to help show you are an honest and timely reviewer. Keep in mind publishers (trad and self-published) pay to list ARCs on Netgalley. So it is an investment.
I have seen a number of self published authors put time requests on reviews. I’m not sure how that works out for them. All of us readers have a ton of things to read and also: life. Sometimes you can contact a self published author directly and ask about being on the ARC “team.” You can use previous reviews you’ve done to help your case!
This is such a conversational piece. I actually heard your voice as I was reading and feel like I was sitting down with you over a cup of tea. So good. Thanks
Thanks, Ilona. I always appreciate hearing industry gossip! Also, your commitment to protecting artists’ rights warms my heart.
AI is also a big problem for translators. Lots of people seem to think you can just feed the source text into DeepL and then it spits out a comparable text in the target language. But the IA doesn’t understand culture, cannot critically weigh different translations that best fit the context. It doesn’t understand jokes, doesn’t get nuance, but just churns out the most probable translation according to it’s algorithm. It’s good for invariable texts that consist of always the same building blocks like contracts, manuals, etc., but it is really terrible for fiction – written art – just as it is for the visual arts.
I can usually identify an AI translated fiction text after one to three paragraphs. Post-editing a text translated by AI does not save time, because you have to read the source text nonetheless and then carefully compare the target text to it. You not only have to correct semantic mistakes, but carefully check the meaning to find all the instances the IA just makes stuff up (that may sound reasonable, but aren’t what the source text says).
Even worse are some of the marketing mishaps I have recently come across: management wants to save money, uses DeepL for free and out comes garbage (in the target language), damaging your brand, the fixing of which ends up costing more than if you had engaged a human translator from the start! [end of rant]
I’ve certainy read some unintended hilarity in books that were badly translated. Having learnt a few languages at different times and made some shocking bloopers, can I just say I am in awe of the work you do.
Thank you so much for sharing industry insights – well, your take on things. I always marvel how much writers are doing for us readers nowadays. Compared to when I was a kid – just going to the local libarary in middle size Finnish town and having next to no access to the writers (foreign ones at least) – just reading the work.
It is such a facinating trade. Thank you for your time and effort on all fronts!
health insuranceI think that you could do with some pics to drive the message home a little bit,
I’m always fascinated by behind the scenes looks at other people’s industries
Such an interesting post. I’m an ARC reviewer with NetGalley and for me it’s about giving back. I often read books I don’t completely enjoy and writing a review that is truthful while being encouraging can be very hard work. Plus I need to write more than one review for each book. Sites like Amazon won’t use a review that has been posted elsewhere to ensure there is no plagiarism involved. I’m Australian and I try to prioritise Australian, and especially Australian indigenous writers. I’ve been doing this on and off for years, depending on Life. I’d be thrilled if I got one of your ARCs but I’m just not that well known or quick!! LOL. I rarely get to read my favourite authors and only find really great reads every so often, but I feel I get more than my money’s worth from my favourite authors, so giving back to support the industry – especially when I’m now retired – is the right thing to do.
I would also agree that a good set of readers and editor is essential. It is so distressing to have to say that the plot, characters and creativity were great but overwhelmed by the number of spelling, grammer and context errors. Surely this should be sorted well before publishing? I always want to say – get a new editor! I find language used in the wrong context is so grating. *No people, royals are not coronated: they are crowned. * For one provider, I was required to document the number of typos etc. If the number got to double figures, I had to provide my evidence and NOT write a review. It left me shaking my head.
None of these are issues I have with your writing, Ilona. I get how much work that can be and really appreciate the results of your labours.