The Literary Rants: Content Creator Expectations, Book Flippers, and A.I. vs. Old Stuff
Even though I try to maintain a calm demeanor in most situations, I know that every once in a while it’s good to unleash a satisfying rant. Despite what people might think, a rant doesn’t need to be out of control or explosively loud. A rant should, however, be one-sided and uninterrupted. A rant is not a debate, at least not while I’m ranting. So I’m going to rant.
If you want to argue or discuss the rant afterward, that’s fine, but it’s considered rude to interrupt a rant, especially when the ranter has announced the rant ahead of time.
I haven’t done a series of literary rants in a long time because I’ve been doing a better job of not being bothered by the stuff that I can’t control. That’s great in my personal life, but it’s not necessarily good for a blog when I need good topics. So, here we go… If I still let stuff like this bother me, this is what I would rant about. I mean, this is the stuff that I’m going to rant about.
Why Should Writers and Other Content Creators Expect To Get Paid?
Lately I’ve seen and read about multiple writers and video content creators complaining that their revenues have been dropping over the last few months. Most say these revenues are decreasing so much that the content creators claim that they might have to find real jobs to replace the revenue from their content creation.
Part of me is amazed that these creators get paid in the first place. When I check out their videos, websites, substacks, Patreons, Discords, and whatever else is out there, I think, “Who pays for this?” or “Why would anybody pay $10 a month (or more) for this?” That might sound harsh, but these creators have so much competition from other creators that potential subscribers have too many choices and not enough money to support everybody begging for money.
Another part of me is amazed at how entitled these creators seem to be. They act like (maybe they’re faking it) they expect to be paid enough to make a living off of only making content. Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to make enough money to live off from writing books and a blog, but I also know that’s a lot to ask out of life. Some of these creators seem mad that they might have to get real jobs.
But then if they try to make content while they’re on a real job, they’ll probably get fired and the whole world, including potential future employers, will see it. Now THAT’S entertainment almost worth paying for. Almost.
A.I. vs. Old Stuff
Book readers today are paranoid that current books are being written (or are overly influenced) by A.I., and I can understand why they think this. Proponents of A.I. are constantly droning on (loaded phrase) about how A.I. is here to stay and that if you don’t get on board with using it, you’ll be left behind. What’s an aspiring author supposed to do? Using the A.I. proponent’s logic, it makes sense for a writer to implement A.I. to write more efficiently since that’s what corporations and (maybe by association) publishing companies want.
Hey, I don’t agree with that previous sentence. I’m just speculating why an author might be using A.I. in today’s economic environment. Or maybe those authors are just dirty scumbag cheaters.
But that’s not the point of my rant. If you’re paranoid about reading any recently published novels, then just read an older book. Countless great novels are already out there, and they’ve been vetted by the general public for years, if not decades or even centuries. In fact, I bet we could put a moratorium on book publishing, and even the most voracious of readers would have no problem being entertained by novels written over the last hundreds of years.
I’m not saying that we SHOULD put a moratorium on new books; I’m just saying that we could, and we’d still have more than enough awesome reading material to be enlightened and entertained for infinity (whatever that means) because… right now there are too many darn writers out there and not enough readers. A good moratorium would fix that.
Now, go read Finnegans Wake by James Joyce… and then explain it to me in simple terms that I would understand.
Book Flippers Getting Carried Away
Collectors of all kinds are going back to owning real books and vinyl and CDs and other stuff like that because digital platforms can’t be trusted to allow you to keep your digital ‘purchases.’ Platforms can change their terms of service without warning and even change the content of the stuff that you own on your devices without your permission. I think the phrase going around now is ‘buying is now renting.’
Because of a surge of interest in physical copies of old books, book flippers are jacking up prices of the somewhat rare stuff, which by itself I have no issue with. The problem is that I’ve seen too many of these flippers on the collectors sites that I use getting overly aggressive with their prices and just letting these books sit for long periods of time. I know this because I’ve been wanting to buy a few of these books, but I refuse to pay the current going rate. I don’t like encouraging bad behavior.
My disgust with overly-aggressive book flipping might seem hypocritical because I kind of do something similar. I buy stuff that I want to read, read it, and then usually resell it when I’m done, and if I can get a little profit, I’ll go for it. My goal, though, is to keep everything moving. I want the books that I’m selling to move. I want the money I have allocated for buying and selling to move. I want my collection (what’s left of it) to keep changing. I don’t want any of this stuff to stay in the same place for very long.
Even though everybody hates concert ticker flippers and trading card flippers and flippers in general, book flippers can behave badly too. I’ve seen a book flipper take all the books out of a Little Library without replacing them (I don’t know if the books were any good). I’ve seen a book flipper grab all the old paperbacks in a Nostalgia section of a used book store and stick them in a shopping cart while he looked up prices on his device. If he liked the price, he kept the book in his cart. If he didn’t like the price, he put the book back on the shelf and he guarded the unchecked books as if they were already his.
If you’re stealing books from a Little Library, then your business model sucks. If you think you’e going to find a bunch of bargains in used book stores anymore, then you don’t know the book market enough to flip books. Either that, or you’re wasting your time on really low profit margins.
AGGRESSIVE BOOK FLIPPERS! YOU SUCK! AND YOU’RE WASTING YOUR TIME! AND NOBODY LIKES YOU! HAHA! Yeah, that might be a little harsh, but it’s my rant.
I think that’s the end of my rants. ALL CAPS is a great way to finish a rant on a strong note, but you don’t want to rely on it the whole time because people don’t like getting yelled at. Plus, I’m a naturally quiet guy, so throwing in the occasional ALL CAPS with a nice “YOU SUCK!!!” is a great change of pace at the end that often makes the audience wanting more. Always leave your audience wanting more.
Maybe I should have only done one rant instead of three. Oops!
*****
Thank you Steve Ditko, Stan Lee, and J. Jonah Jameson for the wonderful rant pictures from early 1960s Amazing Spider-Man reprints in this blog post.
*****
Enough about me and my opinions! What do you think? What literary topics are currently getting under your skin? Should I limit my rants to one per blog post, or is it better to give readers their money’s worth by providing three at a time? Is it rude to interrupt a rant, or did I make that up? Was I too harsh at the end of my rant, or do overly-aggressive book flippers have it coming? Please show that you’re a proponent of rants by leaving a comment below.
*****
For more Literary Rants, see…
The Literary Rants: Amazon, Game of Thrones, and Playboy
The Literary Rants: Unrealistic Writing Goals
The Literary Rants: The Oxford Comma
*****
After that last rant, I don’t think any aggressive book flippers are going to be buying my ONE and only novel.
A grammar-obsessed English teacher falls in ‘luuuvvv’ but discovers how chaotic and dangerous ‘luuuvvv’ can really be. It’s a romantic comedy from an ‘average’ guy’s point of view!
The Sunset Rises: A 1990s Romantic Comedy is now available on Amazon!
Fiction needs a voice. AI can’t fake a voice. I can kind of see a role for AI in non-fiction, but even non-fiction needs an author’s voice. Or at least a human’s unique take. Incorporating AI into writing is kind of like sending AI out on stage to do stand-up. There’s would be some novelty in seeing a robot do stand-up, but after a few minutes, or a few robots at open-mic night, we’d be craving a real personality, a unique view. We’re already getting good at spotting AI writing. AI writing may be informative, but it’s rarely creative. (I have to admit that I did ask AI to write something for me once with some humor in it and it did manage to make me laugh.)
Was it a genuine laugh, or a ‘this is is really stoopid’ laugh?
Also, what about those occasions where authors are losing awards or contracts because of A.I. accusations later on? Did publishers and critics just miss the lack of voice, or are these accusations false? Or did the alleged A.I. writing match up with how people today write?
The only instance I recall offhand is a sample where the author (whether human or A.I. or both) had established a mood at least, but the metaphors didn’t make sense. That could have been either A.I. or a clumsy writer trying too hard (but still getting the book deal, haha).
These are just general questions. I’m not expecting answers. I just like to ask.
It was an actual laugh. Not an intellectual “that’s kind of clever” laugh, but an actual laugh-out-loud laugh.
Swell! Now, besides looking out for fake music, fake art, fake authors, we have to watch out for fake humor… all while A.I. plots (or hallucinates its way to) our destruction.
To be fair, I’ve seen videos of a comedian who compares his humor to that of (allegedly) A.I. It was a good routine. I laughed out loud too.
Re: content creatorsI don’t think there’s anything wrong with leaving out a donation jar, but I agree that it’s not too reasonable to ask everyone to subscribe and pay monthly for otherwise hidden content when hundreds of others are doing the same. That’s already what many corporations ask of us: to juggle monthly subscriptions and expenses every month.
As for AI, it is probably going to get increasingly worse at creative writing since large models are becoming more tailored towards coding and “safety-aligned” to avoid lawsuits (even though they should be getting sued for “hacking, out-of-control models” anyways). And companies are running out of quality training data. There is a finite amount of writing created before 2022, and new, non-AI material cannot sustain significant model improvements at the rate it is being created. AI ingesting its own outputs as training data tends towards “sloppy” results.
Since I don’t use A.I. when I write on this blog, A.I. writing systems could still train themselves with my latest blog … uh, I mean, I DO…ahem, I DO use A.I. in my writing. I DO!
So… uh.. what do you think about overly aggressive book flippers?
Book flippers are an unfortunate product of our society’s hustle culture. As such, they will target any trends and items that will make them money, whether that be rare books or vinyl or Beanie Babies.
The margins are likely rather low, indeed, but there are also reasons besides money that people would choose to hustle, such as experiencing the feeling of independence or control.