I wish them well. Wait, I meant hell.
New publisher Spines aims to 'disrupt' industry by using AI to publish 8,000 books in 2025 alone
- Thread starter Introversion
- Start date
Let's see how these 'books' turn out. Then we mock and jeer. But not at the suckers writers who trusted them.
Aside from the fakery that this business encourages, I also have a commercial question.
I wonder what the purpose of publishing 8000 books a year is. I mean, I know that for the company is a money target from the writers. Fair enough, if you can find 8000 suckers to give you $5000, you just made $40mil.
But what do the writers think it's going to happen when 8000 titles that most likely sound the same hit the market? Will they sell them at a discount? Or is it just a vanity project for a writer to say, hey, here's my book?
Will these books be marked as AI generated?
What's 'disrupting' about this?
I wonder what the purpose of publishing 8000 books a year is. I mean, I know that for the company is a money target from the writers. Fair enough, if you can find 8000 suckers to give you $5000, you just made $40mil.
But what do the writers think it's going to happen when 8000 titles that most likely sound the same hit the market? Will they sell them at a discount? Or is it just a vanity project for a writer to say, hey, here's my book?
Will these books be marked as AI generated?
What's 'disrupting' about this?
When I first read this article, I thought these four *record scratch**running footsteps**breaking glass* outstanding individuals were going to "write" and release 8,000 books themselves. After all, there's no author involved anyway so what are they waiting for?
But at $5k per book, they're a vanity publisher so (unless I missed something) it's not like these *sound of something falling down the stairs**brakes squealing* fine gentlemen are going to be putting any resources at all into selling these, which are absolutely not copyright-able content being written 100% with AI. Presuming they can even get a coherent story line.
I am waiting for them to crash and burn, and I am not a gracious enough person to have any sympathy for the *running feet**house bursts into flames* authors who fall for this and throw away good money after bad.
ETA: I also look forward to AI training on them and destroying itself.
But at $5k per book, they're a vanity publisher so (unless I missed something) it's not like these *sound of something falling down the stairs**brakes squealing* fine gentlemen are going to be putting any resources at all into selling these, which are absolutely not copyright-able content being written 100% with AI. Presuming they can even get a coherent story line.
I am waiting for them to crash and burn, and I am not a gracious enough person to have any sympathy for the *running feet**house bursts into flames* authors who fall for this and throw away good money after bad.
ETA: I also look forward to AI training on them and destroying itself.
- Joined
- Oct 11, 2005
- Messages
- 6,704
- Reaction score
- 1,552
- Location
- The City Different
- Website
- www.chrisjohnsonmd.com
Inevitable, I suppose. I expect their first targets will be a couple of the genre areas.
RichardGarfinkle
Echolocating
Staff member
Super Moderator
Moderator
Kind Benefactor
Super Member
Registered
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2012
- Messages
- 11,571
- Reaction score
- 4,319
- Location
- Walking the Underworld
- Website
- www.richardgarfinkle.com
It’s a vanity press that looks like it’s trying to prey on people who wish they had written a book rather than the classic vanity press that preyed on people who wrote books and couldn’t get them published.
Self publishing and honest indy publishers have changed the situation of people who have written books. LLMs are dishonestly promising in effect to write the book someone wishes they could write. This seems to be combining that with vanity press predation strategies.
In short this synergizes classic predation with the most recent con. Blech.
Self publishing and honest indy publishers have changed the situation of people who have written books. LLMs are dishonestly promising in effect to write the book someone wishes they could write. This seems to be combining that with vanity press predation strategies.
In short this synergizes classic predation with the most recent con. Blech.
- Joined
- May 4, 2022
- Messages
- 1,185
- Reaction score
- 2,917
- Location
- Three Pines
- Website
- elaineburnes.com
They say you get 100% of royalties. Of what, though? I get 100% of my royalties through a traditional publisher (and I pay them nothing). What percent of the cover price is the royalty? Maybe they assume all authors have an agent taking a cut.
It looks like once they format the book, it’s up to you to find a distributor. All they do is generate the metadata. Does that get it into Ingram?
The book featured on the home page, Biological Transcendence and the Tao, has no ratings or reviews on Amazon though it came out in August. Also has no sales rank. There isn’t even an author bio. His other book, which came out in September, per Amazon, is out of print.
What exactly is an author getting here?
You pay extra if you want a human proofreader. One of the ones pictured is also available on Getty Images stock as “big man with beard and glasses.” (Not quite the same photo, so maybe the guy’s photographer took more and put some on Getty.) Another photo is all over the web. She’s a woman in Ghana praising a fence company. Under another name she’s a nonexistent design company praising a real estate site. She’s also associated with an AI voice company. (Spines will also be providing voice cloning for audio books.)
So a vanity publisher, but my guess is one that will take the authors’ works and dump them into LLM. They’ll probably make money from both the authors and whoever buys their works for training. Looks like a win-win-lose. With the author at the end.
It looks like once they format the book, it’s up to you to find a distributor. All they do is generate the metadata. Does that get it into Ingram?
The book featured on the home page, Biological Transcendence and the Tao, has no ratings or reviews on Amazon though it came out in August. Also has no sales rank. There isn’t even an author bio. His other book, which came out in September, per Amazon, is out of print.
What exactly is an author getting here?
You pay extra if you want a human proofreader. One of the ones pictured is also available on Getty Images stock as “big man with beard and glasses.” (Not quite the same photo, so maybe the guy’s photographer took more and put some on Getty.) Another photo is all over the web. She’s a woman in Ghana praising a fence company. Under another name she’s a nonexistent design company praising a real estate site. She’s also associated with an AI voice company. (Spines will also be providing voice cloning for audio books.)
So a vanity publisher, but my guess is one that will take the authors’ works and dump them into LLM. They’ll probably make money from both the authors and whoever buys their works for training. Looks like a win-win-lose. With the author at the end.
- Joined
- May 4, 2022
- Messages
- 1,185
- Reaction score
- 2,917
- Location
- Three Pines
- Website
- elaineburnes.com
The AI is the editing, proofing, and cover (which is where copyright could be violated). Authors bring a manuscript. Though I didn't see that they cared if it was AI written.
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2012
- Messages
- 17,537
- Reaction score
- 36,331
- Location
- Massachusetts
- Website
- elizabethbonesteel.com
They've already got your money. What happens next is irrelevant to them.
I am so rooting for that snake to choke on its own tail.
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2011
- Messages
- 17,443
- Reaction score
- 6,717
- Location
- Near the gargoyles
- Website
- www.alessandrakelley.com
They're a vanity publisher, a classic old-style predatory vanity publisher.
They're doing what vanity publishers always do, which is race to the bottom to extract as much wealth as possible from uninformed people while spending as little as possible to do it. The AI craze is simply the latest buzzword tool they are employing.
They're doing what vanity publishers always do, which is race to the bottom to extract as much wealth as possible from uninformed people while spending as little as possible to do it. The AI craze is simply the latest buzzword tool they are employing.
100% of royalties because the author already paid for the work so the publisher doesn't care after that.
Well well well. Apparently it's so shocking that someone would not support this that it made the news. 
- Joined
- Jan 21, 2024
- Messages
- 204
- Reaction score
- 382
As stupid as the whole concept is, it's actually a pretty impressive marketing tactic. I don't think I've ever seen a vanity publisher get this much press. That's probably to goal here, let's be real.
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2012
- Messages
- 17,537
- Reaction score
- 36,331
- Location
- Massachusetts
- Website
- elizabethbonesteel.com
OMG they're trotting out the old "you have to know someone to get published the usual way" myth. Sure sign of a grift.
I hate that line.
A few years back, I had a work manager who, upon hearing that Spouse had been trade published, wanted to know “who she knew” who “got her published”. He had many very deeply-held convictions about publishing, most of them very wrong.
- Joined
- Jul 5, 2012
- Messages
- 17,537
- Reaction score
- 36,331
- Location
- Massachusetts
- Website
- elizabethbonesteel.com
One of the reasons I dislike talking about trade pub in Other Areas of the Internet is this myth. An awful lot of people seem to hang their entire egos on it.
Well, to be fair, based on samples of his writing he’d constantly post at work, he was probably never going to be trade-published unless he married the publisher. And then, maybe.
But on the bright side, he got fired for being a bad manager and awful person, so maybe he’s had time to improve?
But on the bright side, he got fired for being a bad manager and awful person, so maybe he’s had time to improve?
Yeah! I know plenty of people and I'm not published! (Of course, none of them are in publishing...)
I know people who are published and it hasn't done me one damned bit of good! One of them is an editor at her own publishing outfit!