Speaker 1: They are not prepared for what's about to happen, or
Speaker 1: what is already happening, which is this flood of AI
Speaker 1: generated material being uploaded.
Speaker 2: There are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 3: As a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget
Speaker 3: Todd and this is there are no girls on the Internet.
Speaker 3: Our names hold so much power. When Anna made Bullock
Speaker 3: left her abusive husband Ike, she famously said that she
Speaker 3: didn't want any assets, only the stage name that he
Speaker 3: had given her, Tina Turner. So much of our reputation
Speaker 3: and who we are to the outside world it's wrapped
Speaker 3: up in our names. So what if someone was using
Speaker 3: AI to scam people using your name? This is exactly
Speaker 3: what writer Jane Friedman woke up to find last week.
Speaker 3: Someone was selling bad AI versions of books with her
Speaker 3: name listed at the office and selling them on Amazon.
Speaker 2: When we sat down.
Speaker 3: To talk about it, I quickly realized that I had
Speaker 3: Jane mixed up with another woman who is also a
Speaker 3: big name in publishing, who was also named Jane Friedman.
Speaker 1: Well, you may want to back up and reconsider that question,
Speaker 1: because there's another Jane Friedman in publishing who is the
Speaker 1: former suit you of HarperCollins and the founder of Open Road.
Speaker 1: So you fight want her instead for this podcast?
Speaker 3: Out embarrassing, right, I know, not an ideal way to
Speaker 3: start an interview, and I wouldn't ordinarily include my mistakes
Speaker 3: in the show, but I felt like it highlighted the
Speaker 3: importance of and complexities around names, especially in a field
Speaker 3: like publishing. Jane says that she gets confused for the
Speaker 3: other Jane all the time, and I was struck by
Speaker 3: what a headspinner this all was. Jane having to differentiate
Speaker 3: her name from another Jane in publishing, while also going
Speaker 3: up against Amazon to differentiate her name from an AI
Speaker 3: enabled scammer. Well, I hate that I am starting off
Speaker 3: this interview with a big mistake, but it does kind.
Speaker 2: Of feel relevant to the conversation.
Speaker 1: No, it's totally all right, I completely understand. So I
Speaker 1: started in publishing right out of college. Actually, while I
Speaker 1: was still in college, I had an internship at a
Speaker 1: traditional publishing house in the Midwest in Cincinnati. I stayed
Speaker 1: there for twelve years, which was pretty unusual. Most people
Speaker 1: hop around in publishing jobs, but I stayed put. I
Speaker 1: took a dtour as a writing professor for a couple
Speaker 1: of years went back into publishing, working for a literary journal,
Speaker 1: the Virginia Quarterly Review, and then around let's see, this
Speaker 1: was twenty fourteen, I went full time freelance entrepreneur, and
Speaker 1: so as of today, I write I published mainly for
Speaker 1: an audience of writers and publishers. So it's a very
Speaker 1: meta career that I've developed.
Speaker 3: Something that I read about you in my research for this,
Speaker 3: which hopefully is the right Jane Friedman, is that you
Speaker 3: have this reputation of being like an honest broker of
Speaker 3: information about the publishing space, and it's a space that
Speaker 3: can sometimes be kind of opaque, kind of murky. Do
Speaker 3: you think that's one of the reasons why whoever was
Speaker 3: trying to use your name to publish these fraudulent books
Speaker 3: targeted you as someone who is known for giving honest information.
Speaker 1: It's a fascinating question because I would really love to
Speaker 1: know what motivated them to target me and my name.
Speaker 1: Was it actual knowledge of what I do, or was
Speaker 1: it some spreadsheet that told them my name ranks well
Speaker 1: for the topic of e books and publishing and they're
Speaker 1: just like that, you know, and I was just picked
Speaker 1: out of a hat. I'm not sure, but certainly there's
Speaker 1: demand surrounding what I do because I'm seen as trustworthy
Speaker 1: and i' I mean, and that's very intentional. I try
Speaker 1: to be to give people a three hundred and sixty
Speaker 1: degree view of the publishing industry. I don't consider myself
Speaker 1: necessarily by a for any publishing path. It's really what
Speaker 1: suits this author at this time, what's going to best
Speaker 1: further their career goals.
Speaker 3: I do feel like it is a space where there's
Speaker 3: a lot of people selling a lot of things, whether
Speaker 3: it's their course or whether it's you know, oh, you
Speaker 3: should be doing xyz on Amazon, You're going to make
Speaker 3: so much money. And I think the space can be tough,
Speaker 3: and I think someone giving people like the honest rundown
Speaker 3: of what's happening is really really valuable.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so too, because there are a lot
Speaker 1: of promises made. Writers are also susceptible to flattery, and
Speaker 1: there are a lot of people services companies that pray
Speaker 1: on writers' dreams for their work, and I find it
Speaker 1: pretty shameful because I think what's not really understood is
Speaker 1: that sometimes there's more money to be made from the
Speaker 1: writers themselves than from actually selling their writers work.
Speaker 2: That's pretty disappointing to hear.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes it is, and I don't candy coat things,
Speaker 1: so yeah, I think that's why people trust me to
Speaker 1: tell it like it is.
Speaker 3: Last week, Jane Friedman was alerted to the fact that
Speaker 3: someone who wasn't her was publishing books under her name.
Speaker 3: Those titles were added to her Goodreads author page and
Speaker 3: Amazon page, so a casual observer would probably think they
Speaker 3: were written by Jane. Jane tweeted, as of today, there
Speaker 3: are about half a dozen books being sold on Amazon
Speaker 3: with my name on them that I did not write
Speaker 3: or publish. Some huckster generated them using AI. This promise
Speaker 3: is to be a serious problem for the book publishing world.
Speaker 3: So you wake up one day and you see a
Speaker 3: bunch of books on your Goodreads profile. For folks who
Speaker 3: don't know Goodreads is owned by Amazon, is it. What's
Speaker 3: your first reaction when you see this?
Speaker 1: A panic? Panic, because I know how hard it's going
Speaker 1: to be to correct, being very familiar with Amazon's procedures
Speaker 1: and policies, which I've dealt with in the past. I
Speaker 1: know countless authors who have to deal with this, and
Speaker 1: it's like banging your head against the wall. And I
Speaker 1: was notified by someone who was aware of my name
Speaker 1: and my work. Not super like fan, but someone who
Speaker 1: you know, was just curious enough to go looking for
Speaker 1: what I've written and published in book form, and you know,
Speaker 1: it's these fraudulent books that they stumbled on first. And
Speaker 1: thank god they had the critical thinking skills to alert me,
Speaker 1: rather than assuming I was trying some new, weird experiment.
Speaker 3: Like Jane's writing has really gone down of you not
Speaker 3: just right exactly. Okay, So, I, like a lot of
Speaker 3: people listening a thousand percent assumed that the way that
Speaker 3: you that a writer controls what shows up under their
Speaker 3: name on their good Reads page.
Speaker 2: But that is actually not the case.
Speaker 3: And so what did it actually look like to get
Speaker 3: a book removed from your good week page?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of insane. You know, most social media
Speaker 1: sites or community sites, you do have one hundred percent
Speaker 1: control over your profile. But that's not the case that
Speaker 1: good Reads, nor do they notify you when something has
Speaker 1: changed on your profile as sub like as substantial as
Speaker 1: a new book has been added. You have no idea
Speaker 1: unless you're monitoring it yourself. So if you want to
Speaker 1: get a book removed from your profile, which just to
Speaker 1: be clear, it's automatically added by Amazon. Also, individuals can
Speaker 1: manually add books to an author's profile. So like any
Speaker 1: any like Rando can go and just look for the
Speaker 1: fine print. You can find it. If you really want
Speaker 1: to screw with someone, I don't suggest you do that,
Speaker 1: but if you really had you know, an enemy out
Speaker 1: there anyway, So if you want to get the book
Speaker 1: removed or books removed in my case, there's a Librarians group.
Speaker 1: It's a group of volunteers who try to keep the
Speaker 1: good Reads data appropriate, in line, clean, useful. And if
Speaker 1: you go into this group, you'll see that there's like
Speaker 1: thousands upon thousands of requests from authors to have their
Speaker 1: profiles corrected. And so I just had to join the
Speaker 1: line please correct my profile.
Speaker 3: So the Librarians group, these are like unpaid volunteers.
Speaker 1: That's correct.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's what's.
Speaker 3: Wild to me about this is that both the way
Speaker 3: that it works, this Librarians group, and the way that
Speaker 3: you had to really raise hell on social media to
Speaker 3: get Amazon to do anything. Yeah, Amazon is this billion
Speaker 3: dollar global company. They don't have people internally who could
Speaker 3: be paid to keep their platforms reliable, safe, accurate, etc.
Speaker 2: Etc.
Speaker 3: It's curious to me that they would not be invested
Speaker 3: in that and instead are relying on the labor of
Speaker 3: volunteers and people who have no business doing this, like
Speaker 3: it's not your job to do this as a writer.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could and agree more, and that there are
Speaker 1: two sets of problems here. Unfortunately, there's the Goodreads problem,
Speaker 1: which that's a company that they bought. It's been maybe
Speaker 1: ten years ago, and they basically bought it and abandoned it.
Speaker 1: And I've been told by people behind the scenes that
Speaker 1: the coding of that side and just the whole like
Speaker 1: structure and ability to change it is not straightforward. So
Speaker 1: rather than do the right thing and improve it, they're
Speaker 1: just kind of letting it decay. Is that the right word.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, duct tape. That's how it's surviving
Speaker 1: at this point. So like I could understand, maybe like
Speaker 1: they don't want to get into that mess. However, the
Speaker 1: other side of this is Amazon itself and how books
Speaker 1: get uploaded to their site, and there are more formal
Speaker 1: processes with what I assume are paid employees looking at
Speaker 1: these infringement claims, which is what I had to submit.
Speaker 1: But there are different tiers and you know, you're our
Speaker 1: initial request is going to go to the lowest level tier,
Speaker 1: and it's like corresponding with AI. Ironically, you don't get
Speaker 1: any sense of if it's a human being. On the
Speaker 1: other side, you feel like they're going through this really
Speaker 1: rigid rule book of you know, did they provide X,
Speaker 1: did they provide Y? And if not, close the case.
Speaker 1: So they're trying to get rid of you, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: as quickly as possible. And I have a tiny bit
Speaker 1: of sympathy just because I've been around writers for so long.
Speaker 1: A lot of them are going to be upset annoyed
Speaker 1: by all sorts of things that happen on Amazon site
Speaker 1: that really don't constitute infringement or what I would call
Speaker 1: more of an annoyance. And so Amazon must have to
Speaker 1: filter through thousands of these things a day, so I
Speaker 1: get it, but they are not prepared for what's about
Speaker 1: to happen, or what is already happening, which is this
Speaker 1: flood of AI generated material being uploaded.
Speaker 3: So when you first alerted Amazon to what was going on,
Speaker 3: how did they initially react that The person that you
Speaker 3: reached out to first was what was the vibe?
Speaker 1: So the first response I got was it felt very automated,
Speaker 1: which was it wanted me to itemize the offending products
Speaker 1: or books and then also linked to what work was
Speaker 1: being infringed upon. So it wanted to know you're the
Speaker 1: copyright owner of what book and what are the books
Speaker 1: that are infringing on it? And of course if it's
Speaker 1: AI generated, well, A, it's not copyright protected in the
Speaker 1: first place, and B it's not necessarily infringing on existing work.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's creating new work in the style of
Speaker 1: So when I said, when I tried to explain this,
Speaker 1: I was asked for my trademark registration numbers instead. But
Speaker 1: most authors do not trademark their name. It's a pretty
Speaker 1: expensive process and also would only pertain very narrowly to
Speaker 1: your work. And so I couldn't satisfy that request either.
Speaker 1: But I tried to, you know, explain and look, this
Speaker 1: is false advertising. Nay, my name is being abused here.
Speaker 1: It's trying to pass off work as mine when it's not.
Speaker 1: But you know, I couldn't check any of the boxes
Speaker 1: for them, so they closed the case without removing the books.
Speaker 4: Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 2: At our back.
Speaker 3: Amazon made Jane jump through a lot of hoops to
Speaker 3: deal with this issue. After she couldn't produce a trademark
Speaker 3: for her own name, who could or the copyright for
Speaker 3: the sham books on Amazon. Amazon closed the case and
Speaker 3: said they would not be removing the books, but Jane
Speaker 3: kept at it. She tweeted, and she published a piece
Speaker 3: on her own website called I would rather see my
Speaker 3: books get pirated than this or why Goodreads and Amazon
Speaker 3: are becoming dumpster fires? And eventually, after lots and lots
Speaker 3: of back and forth and raising hell on social media,
Speaker 3: Amazon did remove the books. But still Amazon is creating
Speaker 3: a system that forces individuals to have to do an
Speaker 3: incredible amount of labor just to protect their names and
Speaker 3: reputations online. And it shouldn't be the job of writers
Speaker 3: like Jane to keep Amazon's platforms authentic and accurate. And
Speaker 3: it seems like the only reason that it worked out
Speaker 3: in Jane's case is because she already has a well
Speaker 3: respected platform. But what about authors who don't, As she
Speaker 3: writes in her piece, I'm sure that's in no small
Speaker 3: part due to my visibility and reputation in the writing
Speaker 3: and publishing community. What will authors, what smaller profiles do
Speaker 3: when this happens to them. So first of all, it
Speaker 3: just seems like so much work on your behalf to
Speaker 3: have to do to like prove that this is going on.
Speaker 3: And then also just the idea, like you said, not
Speaker 3: many people out there trademark their name, and so it's
Speaker 3: just an incredible burden on the harmed impacted party. Meanwhile,
Speaker 3: Amazon is just like, Okay, well, can you prove your
Speaker 3: case to us? It doesn't seem like the right dynamic
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, at minimum, I think they have to
Speaker 1: implement probably a new process or procedure for this sort
Speaker 1: of complaint because it just doesn't fall along the same
Speaker 1: lines as a traditional copywriter infringement claim.
Speaker 3: So I know that eventually, luckily, probably because of your
Speaker 3: platform on social media and like being a loud, respected
Speaker 3: voice in the space, Amazon did do. I was gonna
Speaker 3: say the right thing, but I guess really more the
Speaker 3: reasonable thing and remove these titles from your Goodreads page.
Speaker 3: But I guess my question is what about writers who
Speaker 3: maybe don't have the time, the resources, the platform, the
Speaker 3: energy to go through this incredibly laborious process just to
Speaker 3: have your Amazon Goodreads page be accurate. Is it creating
Speaker 3: the system where it's this incredible burden on them, and
Speaker 3: they maybe wouldn't be able to have success at doing this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this is the big, big, big problem
Speaker 1: that we're now facing because anyone with a name that
Speaker 1: carries value, if it's a name that can be profited on,
Speaker 1: which describes a lot of authors who depend on their
Speaker 1: writing for a living, You're now in this position of
Speaker 1: having to police use of that name on two sites
Speaker 1: that do a terrible job of policing or verifying author
Speaker 1: identities and pretty much have a policy if anything goes
Speaker 1: as long as it's not blatantly illegal. So I don't
Speaker 1: know how that system can stand moving forward, which is
Speaker 1: why I made such a big stink. That said, I
Speaker 1: do think authors have remedies that are maybe less laborious
Speaker 1: when they find infringement. So, for example, if you have
Speaker 1: a traditional publisher, I would certainly be calling them if
Speaker 1: you have, if you still have a relationship with them,
Speaker 1: if you have a point of contact, they need to know.
Speaker 1: If that's not possible, then hopefully you belong to a
Speaker 1: writer's organization. The Author's Guild here is particularly helpful, and
Speaker 1: they did see what was happening with my case and
Speaker 1: we're assisting in the background, so they're very effective at
Speaker 1: getting really clear problem material taken down. You know, it
Speaker 1: might not happen overnight, but I would say it would
Speaker 1: happen in a few days if it's a clear case.
Speaker 1: So those are some remedies. But as far as having
Speaker 1: to police your profiles and all of that, I don't
Speaker 1: know what to say other than I think there are
Speaker 1: some tools out there that like will alert you maybe
Speaker 1: via email, that oh, this page has seen an update
Speaker 1: or a change, so at least you get some sort
Speaker 1: of automated notification. But at least on Amazon dot Com.
Speaker 1: You know, you can't set up an alert that way,
Speaker 1: but maybe a Google alert or other things that would help, yeah,
Speaker 1: so that you don't have to be visiting these sites
Speaker 1: every day.
Speaker 3: I mean, I do think we're in this weird space
Speaker 3: now where technology is really progress at this fast speed,
Speaker 3: faster than folks can like make new rules for or
Speaker 3: like anticipate, and now we're all just stuck with this
Speaker 3: Internet where the bottom line default assumption is that it's
Speaker 3: going to be full of scams and fraud and people
Speaker 3: misusing your name for their own profit. I just feel
Speaker 3: like we deserve better writers deserve better, like we deserve
Speaker 3: an Internet landscape that is not trying to screw you
Speaker 3: at every turn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, and some of there are certain companies
Speaker 1: that I think have the ability and the resources to
Speaker 1: be helpful. So Amazon being a case in point, they
Speaker 1: sit at a very important waypoint for all sorts of
Speaker 1: activity that's both good and bad, and they could do
Speaker 1: so much better. They could take more responsibility. I think
Speaker 1: they have a duty of care. Why they don't know
Speaker 1: wake up to that. It's hard for me to say
Speaker 1: other than capitalism, but I think they're one of quite
Speaker 1: a number of companies that I hope that can be
Speaker 1: pressured to do better.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and something about Amazon is because they're such a
Speaker 3: big player in the space. You know, so goes Amazon,
Speaker 3: so goes the rest, and so they really a big
Speaker 3: platform takes a step to make their platform safer better.
Speaker 3: A lot of other smaller platforms get in line because
Speaker 3: they really set the tone. And so if Amazon is
Speaker 3: not setting that tone, they really have this opportunity to
Speaker 3: be a leader and a good actor and a you know,
Speaker 3: a force for good of the Internet.
Speaker 2: But they're just not doing it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more, and I really wish I understood
Speaker 1: the motivations or lack of motivation, as the case might be,
Speaker 1: because it certainly doesn't lead to a good customer experience
Speaker 1: with which they're supposedly concerned about. You know, if people
Speaker 1: can't trust what they find there, what.
Speaker 3: Made you suspect that those books were written by AI?
Speaker 1: I think, like many writers, I've done my own little
Speaker 1: experiments with chat GPT in particular, and I've used all
Speaker 1: sorts of vanity prompts because I'm curious what it's capable of.
Speaker 1: And I know for sure that these models have scraped
Speaker 1: years of my writing off of my blog, and so,
Speaker 1: you know, all inputs something like how do I get
Speaker 1: a book published? Or what does Jane Friedman say about
Speaker 1: how to get a book club published? Or who is
Speaker 1: Jane Friedman? And so I've seen the sorts of material
Speaker 1: it's capable of generating, especially in my category. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's very surface level, It's not it has some substance,
Speaker 1: but if you try to push it, it starts to
Speaker 1: repeat itself. Forget, it gets more and more generic. So
Speaker 1: when I saw the opening pages of these fraudulent books,
Speaker 1: and I read the bio, especially reading the bio. I
Speaker 1: could tell I'm pretty sure this has been AI generated.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just kind of like bloviating student padded
Speaker 1: essay material. It's not you know, it's not someone writing
Speaker 1: down and actually trying to present a cogent, you know,
Speaker 1: instruction guide.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so.
Speaker 3: I mean, I've certainly done what you've just described of,
Speaker 3: like what can you tell me about Bridget padd as
Speaker 3: a podcaster? And it's exactly that. It's exactly that I mean,
Speaker 3: and everybody's done it. But it's one of those things where, like,
Speaker 3: you know, when something was written by a human, even
Speaker 3: written badly by a human, like yeah, and when something
Speaker 3: was written by AI, you can.
Speaker 1: Just tell yeah, yeah. It may not always be that way,
Speaker 1: but at least today it's painfully obvious.
Speaker 2: More after a.
Speaker 3: Quick break, let's get right back into it. Jane's situation
Speaker 3: is just another example of the let's say, complicated relationship
Speaker 3: that Amazon has with the publishing industry. Back in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one, three of the biggest names in publishing, the
Speaker 3: Association of American Publishers, the Author's Guild, and the American
Speaker 3: Booksellers Association, sent a joint letter to US lawmakers to
Speaker 3: crying Amazon's dominance over publishing and warning that it's threatening
Speaker 3: the entire industry.
Speaker 2: Amazon no longer.
Speaker 3: Competes on a level playing field when it comes to
Speaker 3: book distribution, but rather owns and manipulates the playing field,
Speaker 3: leveraging practices across its platform that appear to be well
Speaker 3: outside of fair and transparent competition. The letter reads, and now,
Speaker 3: in light of Jane situation, it seems like Amazon could
Speaker 3: be doing a lot to make it easier for authors
Speaker 3: to resolve issues that arise from technology like AI, but
Speaker 3: they're not. In response to Jane situation, an Amazon spokesperson said,
Speaker 3: we invest heavily to provide a trustworthy shopping experience and
Speaker 3: protect customers and authors from misuse of our services, But
Speaker 3: currently Amazon doesn't really have any kind of plan to
Speaker 3: prevent scam books from proliferating on their platform, which is
Speaker 3: a real problem. How can Amazon say that they're interested
Speaker 3: in providing a trustworthy experience if they aren't doing anything
Speaker 3: to ensure that and instead are just moving that burden
Speaker 3: onto authors like Jane. What's the relationship between Amazon and
Speaker 3: the publishing industry right now?
Speaker 1: Oh, that's a big question. So it's always been a
Speaker 1: frenemy situation. Publishers have generally not been that thrilled with
Speaker 1: Amazon's dominance, and I would say, unfortunately, it's about I
Speaker 1: want to say, around sixty percent of books now, regardless
Speaker 1: of format, are now sold through Amazon. So despite them
Speaker 1: not always you know, being on the same side of
Speaker 1: Amazon in terms of their practices, they also can't necessarily
Speaker 1: afford to piss off Amazon either, So it's just a
Speaker 1: it's a very tortured relationship with the self published author community.
Speaker 1: That's yet another side of the story where initially self
Speaker 1: published authors kind of saw Amazon as a savior figure
Speaker 1: might be going a little far, but finally opening up
Speaker 1: paths to a sustainable career without having to rely on
Speaker 1: the gatekeepers of traditional publishing. And so many fabulous author
Speaker 1: careers have been launched because of Amazon services, and they
Speaker 1: do provide something that's super valuable. However, as time has
Speaker 1: gone on, I think everyone's realizing the devil's bargain that's
Speaker 1: been struck here and how Amazon at any time can
Speaker 1: change the rules to press earnings make it so you
Speaker 1: have to advertise in order to get your books noticed
Speaker 1: at all. So it's I think everyone at this point
Speaker 1: today is looking to not have all of their eggs
Speaker 1: in the Amazon basket and try to strengthen their careers
Speaker 1: so that if Amazon does change something in a dramatic
Speaker 1: way that makes people unhappy, they still have a career.
Speaker 3: That is something I always tell folks about navigating this
Speaker 3: weird tech time of ours, is like, do not put
Speaker 3: all of your eggs in one digital basket, because you
Speaker 3: never know what might change. You know, Bezos can make
Speaker 3: up tomorrow and be like, no, it's this, It's been that,
Speaker 3: but now it's this, and your whole thing could be
Speaker 3: could be threatened.
Speaker 2: So really sad. Spread things around.
Speaker 3: Have your own platforms that you own that you can say,
Speaker 3: you know, you'll be able to invest in if something changes.
Speaker 3: But it just I think that's good advice, But it
Speaker 3: makes me sad that that's advice that folks like you
Speaker 3: have to give creatives.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it's become more and more essential over time,
Speaker 1: and you know, if anyone doesn't grasp it. Just looking
Speaker 1: at what's happened with Twitter, it is like, you know,
Speaker 1: exhibit A for what happens if you rely too much
Speaker 1: on a single platform. So yeah, I've I want to
Speaker 1: say that from the beginning I've always been about diversifying,
Speaker 1: but I think today people are really listening to that message.
Speaker 2: What do you think I.
Speaker 3: Think is at stake if Amazon just continues to kind
Speaker 3: of not hold up their end of the of the
Speaker 3: bargain on responsibility, If we're keeping platforms accurate, you know,
Speaker 3: with accurate information and accurate titles and stuff on there, like,
Speaker 3: what's at stake for the industry?
Speaker 1: Well, fortunately, I think there are chinks in Amazon's armor.
Speaker 1: I do think I've noticed a definite tide change in
Speaker 1: how people think about Amazon and shopping at Amazon. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at this from the consumer side first, but I
Speaker 1: have seen so many people shift their purchasing habits to
Speaker 1: places like Bookshop, which is what people call the virtuous
Speaker 1: alternative divine from Amazon, at least on the book side.
Speaker 1: And so you know, when and when I went through
Speaker 1: this myself on social media, a lot of people said, well,
Speaker 1: that's it, I'm never buying from Amazon again. You know,
Speaker 1: these were authors, so just people, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: the final straw has occurred for a lot of people
Speaker 1: over the last few years, and that has to hurt.
Speaker 1: I would expect Amazon, the negative publicity they get from
Speaker 1: things happening and publishing or from their marketplace where there's
Speaker 1: a lot of knockoffs, counterfeits. I think it has an effect.
Speaker 1: Publishing is in a fortunate position at this moment in
Speaker 1: time because they're starting to see the potential for reaching
Speaker 1: people that's more organic, that's more community driven, that's not
Speaker 1: reliant on Amazon. And here I'm thinking of book talk,
Speaker 1: so you know that, of course, there are some problems
Speaker 1: associated with that as well. I would aid to see
Speaker 1: publishers now just lean on TikTok to solve all their problems.
Speaker 1: But I think certainly over the last five years, in particular,
Speaker 1: the biggest publishers have been more serious about establishing direct
Speaker 1: to consumer relationships, whether that's through email, newsletters, social media,
Speaker 1: or other efforts. And certainly small and independent publishers they
Speaker 1: actually had some of their best performance during the pandemic
Speaker 1: when people were more conscious of why don't we buy
Speaker 1: direct from the publisher? They probably need our help. Let's
Speaker 1: support the things that we believe in. Let's support the
Speaker 1: companies that share our values.
Speaker 2: That's really good to see.
Speaker 3: And I have to say, like I am right there
Speaker 3: with you with the problems around book talk, but I
Speaker 3: genuinely do feel like I have never felt like I
Speaker 3: was more part of an engaged community of like minded
Speaker 3: readers than with book Talk. Like I know, it definitely
Speaker 3: has its problems, which maybe we'll do another episode on that,
Speaker 3: but you know, I like to read thriller books, and
Speaker 3: you know, I have gotten connected with so many different
Speaker 3: authors and titles that I would have never found otherwise.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, I think that.
Speaker 3: Something about what you're saying, it feels like a double
Speaker 3: edged sword when it comes to tech right now, that
Speaker 3: there are all these threats and scams and liabilities, but
Speaker 3: also all of these really exciting ways to use technology
Speaker 3: for readers and authors and publishers to find each other
Speaker 3: and connect in these new ways that are also kind
Speaker 3: of exciting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, despite everything that's happened to me and the
Speaker 1: last week or so, I still remain fairly optimistic. I
Speaker 1: think that despite some of these scary things that are happening,
Speaker 1: I think things the ship will right itself. I don't
Speaker 1: think we're I don't think we're headed towards total dystopia yet.
Speaker 1: And there's the so called creator economy too, has opened
Speaker 1: up a lot of options for writers and all types
Speaker 1: of creative people to figure out the business model that
Speaker 1: fits them, so no one has to be reliant on
Speaker 1: Amazon or a publishing company or a TikTok. I think
Speaker 1: there are lots of ways to go about this. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of freedom.
Speaker 3: As all of this was happening to Jane, another AI
Speaker 3: firestorm was brewing. A computer scientist and computational linguist named
Speaker 3: Benji Smith was taking a lot of heat from writers
Speaker 3: on Twitter for his platform prose Craft, a platform that
Speaker 3: he built quote dedicated to the linguistic analysis of literature
Speaker 3: where basically twenty five thousand books were mined, maybe from
Speaker 3: pirated sources online to train machine learning algorithms to recognize
Speaker 3: which kinds of words can be used and which kinds
Speaker 3: of contexts. And authors were pissed. They were pissed that
Speaker 3: Benji used their books without permission or consent. Benji apologized
Speaker 3: and took the entire platform down. Jane says that it
Speaker 3: makes sense that authors were upset, especially out of time
Speaker 3: and being in the creative fields feels so fraud and threatened.
Speaker 3: But Jane wonders if this was a distraction from some
Speaker 3: of the bigger issues in the space. I have to
Speaker 3: ask because the situation that you had with Amazon was
Speaker 3: happening against the backdrop of that prose craft mess. Like,
Speaker 3: I saw that from beginning to end, and I thought
Speaker 3: all those writers rightfully being like, hey, you can't just
Speaker 3: take our books to train your AI, Like what are
Speaker 3: you doing?
Speaker 2: What do you think that? First of all, what did
Speaker 2: you think about that? As a as somebody who knows
Speaker 2: the space very well?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is where my views tend to diverge
Speaker 1: from the average author. I tend to stay pretty calm
Speaker 1: and rational and look at is there actual harm occurring here,
Speaker 1: and who's behind it? And what are their motivations? And
Speaker 1: how far did this reach? And like, because I know
Speaker 1: how writers can like jump to fear, anxiety and outrage
Speaker 1: very quickly, especially right now with the whole AI situation,
Speaker 1: everyone is just like on a knife's edge. So it
Speaker 1: took me a little while to catch up with that situation.
Speaker 3: Because you were going through your own situation, that's right.
Speaker 1: But when I did, what I saw was a fairly
Speaker 1: benign project, like a linguistic analysis, a text and data
Speaker 1: mining thing. And yeah, sure, he scooped up a lot
Speaker 1: of books that looks like they were from pirate sites.
Speaker 1: I don't know if he did that intentionally or if
Speaker 1: he kind of like you know, turned the other way
Speaker 1: when that when his crawler scooped up these books. But
Speaker 1: I don't, like, I just can't ascribe malicious intentions to
Speaker 1: this guy. And he's just a guy, Like he's not Amazon, right,
Speaker 1: So I think there are like I look at situations
Speaker 1: differently depending on who has the power. And so I
Speaker 1: saw author. I saw how Authors really acted swiftly got
Speaker 1: him to take the site down, and I think the
Speaker 1: fact he took it down so quickly indicates he what
Speaker 1: his intentions were. He didn't want to upset people, so
Speaker 1: when the whole thing came down, Authors got to claim
Speaker 1: a huge victory. But what I saw was a distraction
Speaker 1: from what the real problems are. This wasn't an AI tool.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess sure he could have somehow profited
Speaker 1: off that data set, maybe like who knows if he
Speaker 1: would have if he could have, And so maybe it
Speaker 1: was right for that to just be nipped in the
Speaker 1: bud right away. But I just think they're bigger fish
Speaker 1: to fry here. And I'm also not a fan of
Speaker 1: like piling on someone like that in a way that
Speaker 1: felt just maybe a little mean spirited. And the other
Speaker 1: thing is that authors don't have the strongest grasp of
Speaker 1: copyright law, what their rights are, what others rights might be.
Speaker 1: And as someone who's followed a lot of legal cases
Speaker 1: surrounding copyright and fair use, especially, there's a really monumental case,
Speaker 1: the Google Books scanning case that was decided some years ago.
Speaker 1: It took a long time to be decided, but Google
Speaker 1: scanned millions of books in partnership with libraries. The author's
Speaker 1: guild brought a lawsuit against this to prevent it, but
Speaker 1: Google ended up winning. It was even though it was
Speaker 1: ingesting all of these works without compensation to the author,
Speaker 1: the use was considered transformative and permissible under the law.
Speaker 1: So the books remain scanned. You can still, you know,
Speaker 1: you can go to Google Books and get all sorts
Speaker 1: of information from that data set. And I think that
Speaker 1: was the correct outcome. Not all authors agree with me,
Speaker 1: but I think it was the correct outcome. So this,
Speaker 1: to me, prosecraft seemed like this text and data mining
Speaker 1: project that had pretty low potential harm.
Speaker 3: I was like surprised to see how big the reaction was,
Speaker 3: and some of the authors were like you will never
Speaker 3: like it was a lot of big reactions.
Speaker 1: I'll just say that, yes, big, very big.
Speaker 3: It seemed to me the point of prosecraft was to
Speaker 3: for potential author to be able to glean information about
Speaker 3: books to help themselves as authors.
Speaker 2: So if I know that like.
Speaker 3: X novel that I'm trying to write a similar novel
Speaker 3: to uses passive voice x percent of the time, I
Speaker 3: guess my question is is.
Speaker 2: That useful information for a potential author?
Speaker 3: That part of me is like, is this person taking
Speaker 3: the books and minings up totally?
Speaker 2: Ask good, good question.
Speaker 3: But in addition to that, is this person trying to
Speaker 3: sell potential authors on something that maybe they don't really
Speaker 3: need and try to convince them like, oh, this is
Speaker 3: going to be the magic bullet that makes your writing
Speaker 3: a success. And maybe kind of praying on the need
Speaker 3: that potential authors might have for a tool that they're
Speaker 3: being told is going to be the thing that makes
Speaker 3: them successful.
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure if I'm asking that in a
Speaker 1: way that makes sense. No, I think I understand what
Speaker 1: you're saying. A lot he got criticized a lot for
Speaker 1: the sort of data, the usefulness of the data that
Speaker 1: he was presenting got I mean, people were so harsh
Speaker 1: about his the passive voice active voice thing.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: I have a very personal reaction to that, which is
Speaker 1: I was once married to a PhD in computer science,
Speaker 1: and he approached the world in a very different way
Speaker 1: than I did. And so knowing that this guy, Benji
Speaker 1: Smith is a computer scientist and on top of that,
Speaker 1: a linguist like interested in linguistic analysis, to me, he
Speaker 1: was just nerding out.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it might have only been of interest to him,
Speaker 1: and that's okay. I don't necessarily think anything that he
Speaker 1: was doing was of real value to the average writer,
Speaker 1: but it was interesting to him, Okay.
Speaker 3: I think that a lot of that is easily lost
Speaker 3: in our conversations online, especially conversations of communities that don't
Speaker 3: always feel heard. Right, if you're someone trying to break
Speaker 3: into publishing, I could imagine that that is a dam
Speaker 3: where it's easy to feel like your voice is just
Speaker 3: lost all the time and that you're constantly pushing up
Speaker 3: an uphill struggle. And so I wonder if that played
Speaker 3: into some of the big reactions of like, these are
Speaker 3: a community.
Speaker 2: Of people who feel unheard a lot.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, one hundred percent, one hundred percent. Writers feel vulnerable,
Speaker 1: like they're getting the short end of the stick, that
Speaker 1: they're under attack, that everyone's trying to take away the
Speaker 1: value that they offer the world, and so like from
Speaker 1: a psychological perspective or from our the social cultural political
Speaker 1: moment we're in right now, I totally get it, very
Speaker 1: predictable outcome, but I still wish that people could just
Speaker 1: take a breath and you know, apply more critical thinking.
Speaker 3: How do you stay so grounded, Like in a space
Speaker 3: at a time where it feels like there are technology
Speaker 3: enabled threats to the industry, how do you stay so pragmatic,
Speaker 3: so clear eyed, so grounded.
Speaker 1: Some of it's just probably inherent in my nature, but
Speaker 1: also having been in the same industry now for going
Speaker 1: on almost three decades, like I do feel like I've
Speaker 1: kind of seen it all now. I'm there are surprises,
Speaker 1: there's no question, But I've spoken to so many writers
Speaker 1: over the years, I've spoken at so many conferences, seeing
Speaker 1: every kind of perspective and outrage, and so it's I
Speaker 1: I feel like I can step back from it all
Speaker 1: and see just the patterning. It's all just patterns and
Speaker 1: a lot of things, a lot of the same dynamics
Speaker 1: just repeat themselves again and again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've talked to a lot of like technologists and
Speaker 3: AI ethics folks, and they say, most of them have
Speaker 3: said some version of what you've just said, that it
Speaker 3: actually benefits people who make AI when we sort of
Speaker 3: doom and gloom and catastrophe catastropsize that's the right word, catastrophize.
Speaker 2: Around things like AI.
Speaker 3: That like, that's what they want us to be saying,
Speaker 3: And that there have been hype cycles where different kinds
Speaker 3: of technology we're going to change certain industries, decimate certain industries,
Speaker 3: and those things didn't always come to fruition. So recognize
Speaker 3: that pattern, and rather than following in that pattern again
Speaker 3: and again and again, stop and ask, like, am I
Speaker 3: actually amplifying a hype cycle that we don't actually know
Speaker 3: is going to shift this industry the way it's telling
Speaker 3: us the way it's telling us it will.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. There's a wonderful project. I think it started as
Speaker 1: a podcast and it's now just a website called The
Speaker 1: Pessimist's Archive that really I think introduces it really shows
Speaker 1: this concept and action over many, many decades, and it
Speaker 1: will dig up old articles like from one hundred two
Speaker 1: hundred years ago about how this or that technology is
Speaker 1: going to destroy everything that's good. And I did a
Speaker 1: little bit of the of my own research too, inspired
Speaker 1: by what they do, to look up what were writers
Speaker 1: saying about word processing, you know, like when it became
Speaker 1: possible for basically anyone to start writing and typing and
Speaker 1: doing their own thing or with desktop publishing. I went
Speaker 1: to the New York Times specifically to see what was
Speaker 1: the reaction, and there was one person who felt like
Speaker 1: women would no longer have jobs as a result of
Speaker 1: word processing, because who you know, if everyone was typing
Speaker 1: their own stuff, what would women have left to do?
Speaker 3: Jade, I have to tell you, like, this is not
Speaker 3: at all the perspective I thought you were going to have.
Speaker 3: It is so refreshing, it like, it is just really
Speaker 3: refreshing to hear someone be like, let's not all like
Speaker 3: lose it over this just yet. You know, let's take
Speaker 3: a step back and really do some comparison about how
Speaker 3: we talked about things before. There's so many insights from
Speaker 3: history that we can that we can find the way
Speaker 3: that we've talked about emerging technology. And I'm just happy
Speaker 3: that someone who is such a voice in the space
Speaker 3: is doing that as opposed to sort of jumping on
Speaker 3: the bandwagon of like completely catastrophizing online.
Speaker 1: Right right, thank you. I I this situation that happened
Speaker 1: this week was very unusual because prior to this, I've
Speaker 1: always been fairly artificial intelligence neutral or generative AI neutral,
Speaker 1: and I've gotten taken to task for that by people
Speaker 1: in my community. They think that I am promoting harm
Speaker 1: or a dangerous technology, and I respect their feelings, like,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to say nothing bad is going to
Speaker 1: happen as a result. Obviously bad things are going to happen.
Speaker 1: And I had someone actually get in touch with me
Speaker 1: a second time after taking me to task when she
Speaker 1: saw the news cycle. She said, now, have you changed
Speaker 1: your mind? And I said, no, no, I haven't. I'm
Speaker 1: still on the same page as before.
Speaker 3: Well, are there guardrails that you would like to see
Speaker 3: platforms like Amazon and goodreaths take to make to try
Speaker 3: to keep the harm to a minimum when it comes
Speaker 3: to AI and creative.
Speaker 1: Yes, they can do so much better, and that's really
Speaker 1: why I raise the flag. They can do better, they
Speaker 1: must do better, and why they haven't is beyond me.
Speaker 1: I really I'm not so cynical to say, oh, it's
Speaker 1: just about profits. I think this harms them in the
Speaker 1: long run too, So yes, and I would like for
Speaker 1: them to be respect and transparency from all of the
Speaker 1: companies that are putting forth this technology, whether it's open
Speaker 1: AI or Microsoft or Google. I think authors deserve to
Speaker 1: know if their works have been used in the training
Speaker 1: of these moms. I think they should have the right
Speaker 1: to opt out. Like, I believe in moral rights for authors,
Speaker 1: and I understand why they're upset because they're not getting
Speaker 1: really access to those moral rights in this situation. So
Speaker 1: I hope to see that come to pass. I believe
Speaker 1: in more legislation around AI. I hope it doesn't take
Speaker 1: too much longer. But I don't think we should just
Speaker 1: be shutting the whole thing down.
Speaker 3: What do you think is next for the publishing industry.
Speaker 1: Well, what's so fascinating, at least from my industry perch,
Speaker 1: is watching publishers navigate this in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: upset the author core. So they're definitely looking at these
Speaker 1: tools as ways to be better marketers and promoters. Because
Speaker 1: publishing companies marketing departments are desperately understaffed, they have so
Speaker 1: little money and resource to promote the books they publish,
Speaker 1: So I think they're looking at AI as a way
Speaker 1: to immediately address that situation. And Penguin Random House, the
Speaker 1: biggest of the publishers, already has an AI person on staff,
Speaker 1: someone who's like a computer scientist type who's looking at
Speaker 1: how to use this in a responsible way. And Penguin
Speaker 1: Random House is also setting up their own internal models,
Speaker 1: you know, so they're not feeding the general models. But
Speaker 1: you know, authors are starting to ask for contractual protections.
Speaker 1: You know, they're asking publishers, I want you to promise
Speaker 1: you're not going to train my work on AI. I
Speaker 1: want you to make these other promises too. Some publishers
Speaker 1: have been very willing to put that kind of language
Speaker 1: in the contract, and others aren't. So I am a
Speaker 1: little bit worried that. You know, the biggest five publishers
Speaker 1: in the United States have kind of worked authors into
Speaker 1: a corner on other issues, like it's really hard to
Speaker 1: sell a book today without also selling the ebook rights
Speaker 1: and the audiobook rights. It's kind of it's it's an
Speaker 1: all or nothing sort of situation. Same with ebook royalties.
Speaker 1: You can't really go shape those even with a great
Speaker 1: literary agent. So I'm really concerned that if all of
Speaker 1: these big publishers kind of they're not supposed to collude,
Speaker 1: of course, but if they somehow or to unilaterally come
Speaker 1: to the same conclusion, I would feel bad. I don't
Speaker 1: think it would be right for authors to feel like
Speaker 1: they have to give up certain rights in order to
Speaker 1: have a decent publisher if that's what they want.
Speaker 3: Well, that's a great segue to my one of my
Speaker 3: last questions, which is that you've been giving advice to
Speaker 3: like generations of writers. Where can folks find your advice?
Speaker 3: Where can folks connect with you? What's next for Jane?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the best place is my author website, that's Janefriedman
Speaker 1: dot com. I do have a range of newsletters, both
Speaker 1: free and paid, that people can subscribe to, and then
Speaker 1: a blog which can be delivered via email as well.
Speaker 1: So those are the best places to start.
Speaker 3: Is there anything that I did not ask that you
Speaker 3: want to make sure it gets included in this conversation?
Speaker 1: I don't think. So. That was really thorough and great
Speaker 1: questions to thank.
Speaker 3: You, except for the first one I got you confused
Speaker 3: with another Jane Freed, Well, what's it like? Having like
Speaker 3: another another like prominent person in the space with your
Speaker 3: same name, and then be trying to fight with Amazon
Speaker 3: about having I know, like it's just a head fuck
Speaker 3: a little bit.
Speaker 2: It is, it is.
Speaker 1: I get the other Jane's emails frequently. Actually, when I
Speaker 1: was interviewed by the BBC a few days ago, they
Speaker 1: introduced me as the CEO of HarperCollins, and I have
Speaker 1: to wonder, like, on her end, I've actually met her
Speaker 1: and I've interviewed her and it was delightful. I have
Speaker 1: to wonder on her end if if she finds it
Speaker 1: as humorous as I do, or if if she's just
Speaker 1: supremely annoyed.
Speaker 3: Well, I'll have to get her on and then give
Speaker 3: her your bio. Yes, got a story about an interesting
Speaker 3: thing in tech, or just want to say hi? You
Speaker 3: can reach us at Hello at tangody dot com. You
Speaker 3: can also find transcripts for today's episode at tenggody dot com.
Speaker 3: There Are No Girls on the Internet was created by
Speaker 3: me Bridget tod It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed
Speaker 3: creative Jonathan Strickland is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is
Speaker 3: our producer and sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer.
Speaker 3: I'm your host, bridget Tood. If you want to help
Speaker 3: us grow, rate and review.
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