[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to another episode of Shooting the Shit with Literary Agents, Carly Waters, and CC Lyra.
[SPEAKER_01]: Where we dissect publishing gossip, discuss book industry trends, and the overall state of the book business.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you'd ever wanted to grab a coffee with two literary agents, grab your mug, and pull up a chair.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, CC.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's nice to see you after our week off as I made an Instagram reel about it was quite a week that we didn't choose to be off necessarily, but that was our by week, which for you non sports people means take a week off that is a sports term.
[SPEAKER_01]: I will admit, but yeah, how are you doing?
[SPEAKER_03]: And since I haven't seen you that was a sports term.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought you made it up.
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought it was a good no interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's like when you're in a tournament or you're doing a round robin.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know with your sports things against the various teams on your body is like your week off.
[SPEAKER_04]: Interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought it was a different thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's still a karate thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, yeah too much happened too much.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know.
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a lot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my gosh.
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like we were texting each other like all the things and
[SPEAKER_03]: What a week.
[SPEAKER_03]: What a week to be off.
[SPEAKER_03]: But today is April 1st, though.
[SPEAKER_03]: Which means it's April 1st.
[SPEAKER_03]: I know it's not April 1st, but we are recording on April Fools.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you partake in April Fools?
[SPEAKER_01]: Historically have you.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just looking back to my canva.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've like, you know, I've made him in just social media.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I did a good April Fools one time I can.
[SPEAKER_01]: But because I was all recycled, okay, I'm a post.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went back and I found one that I made for the podcast account.
[SPEAKER_01]: like three-ish years ago and any long time fans of the pod probably remember this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I posted early in the morning on April 1st.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it was kind of a multi-page carousel and it's like big news than the next carousel.
[SPEAKER_01]: The shit that we're tells you about writing has changed our stance on prologues.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've now, we've just after immense reflection, we have decided that we are actually favor of prologues.
[SPEAKER_01]: We were wrong along and we will now only accept submissions with prologues.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, I got a few people, but most people were like, oh my god, I knew it was a April Fools right away, but I'm not officially very good at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of forgot about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't try to punk me this morning.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have this like robotic list.
[SPEAKER_01]: They have multiple robotic things, but they've like sporadic lizard That climbs on the floor.
[SPEAKER_01]: They also have like a robotic bug that climbs on the walls They were like trying to get me with the robotic Insights That's cute I know they're not babies anymore, but I think as long as kids are little like called in babies.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, yeah, they're smaller than you.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm terrible at April Fool's.
[SPEAKER_03]: I always fall for the jokes and I'm like, I never realize it's April Fool's.
[SPEAKER_03]: I remind myself every morning, it is April Fool's.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do not believe things and I'm always like, huh?
[SPEAKER_03]: What?
[SPEAKER_03]: I always forget five minutes later, so.
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't see very many good ones today.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if it's because the world is just like, you know, the dumpster fire that it is.
[SPEAKER_01]: People are like, we don't need to cause more chaos today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, there was, there was that.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I just want to give a brief overview of the topics we're going to cover today and then I want to know about what you're reading right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a lot to cover, but we have a lot to talk with AI.
[SPEAKER_01]: The running joke down the show is like, we can't go week with like, can't we go week with our talk with AI?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then it was like, we cannot go week with our talk even AI.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we will definitely not go five minutes probably, especially this episode without talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a lot to talk about regards to AI.
[SPEAKER_01]: we also need to talk about different closures of imprints and publishing and kind of like layoffs that have been happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: We have three on the docket to talk about today and there's been some interesting Instagram threads.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how much time we're going to have today.
[SPEAKER_01]: We might run out of time but I also wanted to talk about nonfiction the state of nonfiction a little bit and if we don't get to that today that's going to get bumped to next week but what are you reading right now CC?
[SPEAKER_01]: I know we were talking before we hopped on to record that you're not sleeping very
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, always.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm always reading.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to get the author's name because I know the title of the book, but I don't know the author's name.
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're trying to practice name linkage.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just finished.
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh my god.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is going to be one of my top favorite books ever.
[SPEAKER_03]: That is how much I love this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm obsessed.
[SPEAKER_03]: So it is called Lady Tremaine.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: I was excited about it when I saw the announcement for it.
[SPEAKER_03]: And the author is Rachel Hokehuser.
[SPEAKER_03]: I hope I'm pronouncing Rachel's name, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like a Cinderella reimagining from the evil stepmother.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's air quotes around this perspective.
[SPEAKER_03]: And it is brilliant.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is Pacy and Plotty and Fun and Commercial and and Deep and Intelligent and Bill with Commentary and makes you prompt you to ask interesting questions like it is so good like I am completely obsessed with this book and it's going to become one of my all time favorites.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just know it.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just know it was when I finish a book that's really, really, really good so it happens inside of me where like
[SPEAKER_03]: My favorite's kind of just slot into place, you know, like, and I'm not completely obsessed with it.
[SPEAKER_01]: So imagining so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm imagining that happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: My client, E.J.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dickson, author of One Bad Mother, did a launch event with Rachel for Lady Trimane.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's an interesting linkage of those two books, One Bad Mother, Lady Trimane, because E.J.
[SPEAKER_01]: did an in conversation with the author a couple of weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love what I book worlds collide.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I got a great delivery.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got it well first.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got to show you my great deliveries that I've got.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been making some Instagram reels.
[SPEAKER_01]: I tried it every time a box, you know, a client box gets delivered.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get arcs delivered and I get finished copies delivered obviously of all my books as well as things that I ordered.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I got a great stack here right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this book, where the sea lavender grows.
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you Johnson?
[SPEAKER_01]: This book is an Amazon first reads pick today April 1st and so Anybody who is a subscriber to first reads can pick this up?
[SPEAKER_01]: Otherwise everybody else can grab it on May 1st.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this beautiful box just got delivered.
[SPEAKER_01]: The finished copies of Cleo Dang would rather be dead just got delivered.
[SPEAKER_03]: So I have made my video a couple of weeks, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm the fourth team.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and anybody in Toronto, I will be at the launch.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you go to my page, mine win is my author, Cleo Deng would rather be dead if you go to her page.
[SPEAKER_01]: It has all the information about who'd launch event in Toronto, downtown, on April 14th, I will be there.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, we got a beautiful finished copy is, which looks amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: And my is also going to be doing an event with me in Ottawa.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're bringing her absolutely Ottawa writers festival May 13th.
[SPEAKER_01]: So anybody in Ottawa, please come to that event through the Ottawa writers festival.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can also see me there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Another beautiful book I got the arcs for mid-Summer Nights.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the retelling.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm already told you guys about this one.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is my retelling of Shakespeare.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I've been keeping this nearby.
[SPEAKER_01]: Whenever I do editor calls, I like to have my books in your vibe, because when we're on Zoom, so I like to buy and pull them off.
[SPEAKER_01]: And our arcs for Lovewell's Cap, which is the final book in the Well's Ranch series, which is yeah, a little bit sad, and this one's coming out in the summertime.
[SPEAKER_01]: we got our arcs nice and early, but this one is about our rancher gets a traumatic brain injury and he doesn't remember his family and has to kind of fall back and love with his wife and his child again and so it's like really deep and obviously very emotional and I love my cowboy series and they're all, you know, have this extra layer of heart and family.
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's my huge stack that I have beside me that I've been sharing with editors.
[SPEAKER_04]: It's a lovely stack.
[SPEAKER_04]: I like so much the best.
[SPEAKER_04]: All right, so are the best.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's just a coolest thing to get an act.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, it is, you're the, wow, this is gonna be a book soon.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for fun, I started reading, well, I go through, I always do the, I look through the kind of award list, and the women's prize for nonfiction, short list was announced, probably one or two weeks ago, and I kind of scroll through, like, I don't know what's gonna catch my eye, but a really great book, because art here, and it's all about the science of art therapy,
[SPEAKER_01]: Really good, so I'm really enjoying that called art cure, and yeah, that's kind of what's what's in my head right now That's really cool.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to read that book now hard care.
[SPEAKER_03]: It sounds awesome My next read is also going to be an arc.
[SPEAKER_03]: I got the arc full of the shampoo effect by Jenny Jackson Oh, so excited to read.
[SPEAKER_03]: I loved pineapple street and I'm really excited for this.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's this thing that happens to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm so dumb
[SPEAKER_03]: Whenever I read a second book, by an author that I really, really loved, I'm always afraid to start the second book because what if I don't love the second book as much?
[SPEAKER_03]: But naturally, our drains, the push, this happened.
[SPEAKER_03]: I adored the push so much, and then I was about to read the whispers, it was also an arc, and I'm like, what if I don't love this as much?
[SPEAKER_03]: Who cares if I don't love it as much?
[SPEAKER_03]: Ash is not gonna care, but I am actually afraid.
[SPEAKER_03]: There should be a word for it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, so,
[SPEAKER_03]: I love the whispers and just as much as the push is so good.
[SPEAKER_03]: And again, I'm so excited to read the shampoo effect because it's me and like I'm governed by fear.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm like, oh my gosh, what if I don't love it as much as though as though that matters to anyone.
[SPEAKER_03]: But me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've already pre-ordered that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe I'll still your arc when you're done.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yes, it's already on its way to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Emma Straub's book, I also pre-ordered that one.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, lots of great stuff coming out as we move into the spring and summer reading time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so let's kind of get into things we have to talk about today.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't even know where to start at this point with all of the AI conversations, just because anybody who has been following all of the publishing news is probably familiar with a lot of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I also know that some of you guys aren't as glued to you
[SPEAKER_01]: screens like I am so that maybe we should give a little precursor to kind of what happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do want to run you guys through a little bit of factual information about some of the things that we're talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there was a book, which again you might have heard about it about by now called Shai Girl, author Mia Ballard, and this book was canceled because of
[SPEAKER_01]: suspected use, or depending on the way that you read it, prove in use of AI to create or co-create the text up the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm going to run you through just a quick little recap of the timeline, in case, again, people aren't familiar with the entire story.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm grabbing this timeline from Brooke Warner's sub-stack because she did such a great job of kind of summarizing it and writerly things with Brooke Warner.
[SPEAKER_01]: She said, how could this have happened?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to give you guys the recap from her article.
[SPEAKER_01]: So February 2025.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're going back a whole year here, 2025.
[SPEAKER_01]: Shag girl was self-published and according to Brooke well reviewed, you know, well received, had 5,000 ratings on good reads and average of three and a half stars
[SPEAKER_01]: July 2025, despite knowing that the author lifted the artwork from Win Lewis for her self-published edition, which is a whole other side story worth looking into, Brooks says, because it speaks to the author's lack of regard for ownership, has shut U.S. buys the North American rights to Shigerum.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're still in 2025, November of 2025, a shut U.K. publishes its edition with a new cover, March 19, now we're moving up to the present, March 19th,
[SPEAKER_01]: with yet another variation on the cover announces its canceling publication of the North American edition set to come out in April.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now is when you're probably a relatively caught up if you've been reading the news.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is multiple New York Times article about this.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is a wall risk piece.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I don't even know how many substance acts were written on the topic.
[SPEAKER_01]: CC did I miss anything?
[SPEAKER_01]: How does that sound?
[SPEAKER_01]: Did I get it all right?
[SPEAKER_03]: I will be honest with you, part of what I was going to say when we talked about this is I am confused on the facts, like I'm not saying I have no opinion on whether you're right or wrong, like I hope you're reading off the article, I am confused on the facts because I've read so much on this topic and I don't know what actually happened, like the authors claims she did not use AI, that's an important piece of the information.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it's one time she doesn't mention it to a girl, yeah, yeah, but like she says the editor she hired used it, yeah, but not her, if she like if she admitted it, I missed that I guess that's part of what there's so many articles on this topic.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I consider myself to be a reasonably intelligent person and I'm still confused over what happened because it's so hard to get facts straight in this flooding of information world be living.
[SPEAKER_03]: Anyway, yeah, what I'm saying is I am listening that's what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I totally agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think, you know, there's a lot of tannins we need to go off on in regards to this.
[SPEAKER_01]: But the fact that there is so much misinformation or half information, half baked thoughts.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm also confused a little bit about.
[SPEAKER_01]: So one of the reasons this came to the attention of the New York Times was because of a writer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't even know if they call themselves a journalist, but this writer, you know, came forth saying,
[SPEAKER_01]: I put this through AI software to figure out like AI identifying software to figure out whether this had AI in it because there was so many reports online and on Reddit and on YouTube about this potentially being AI.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they brought all of this reporting.
[SPEAKER_01]: to the New York Times, this person is that Mackle Roy publishing industry consultant, which is how they describe themselves to my knowledge, you know, they're a writer.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so that's the part that I'm like, okay, but did New York Times like verify all of this did a shit just react to the fact that
[SPEAKER_01]: The New York Times was coming at with this big expose and then feel like they had to react by pulling it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Clearly, a shout wasn't out in front of them for a nation or they were waiting to see if all of this, you know, kind of came to light.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the edge, all of it's very confusing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like a publisher would never intentionally try to get themselves in a legal situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's just very strange.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's very strange and I think that
[SPEAKER_03]: A bit so much that's happening and so much content being produced by it, the thing that really sticks with me is how much of all of this is about trust.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: We live in a world where trust is eroding, little by little, like almost every day, and so on so many fronts.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I experience it personally, I know you do too.
[SPEAKER_03]: We as humans trust is a big issue in our world right now, or lack thereof.
[SPEAKER_03]: trust in institutions like publishers like publishers need to vet the books they publish trust in me outlets you know how much fact checking is happening you know our sources being given credit and and trust of course in authors too and the part that most breaks my heart I'll be honest with you like the thing that most stands out to me is writers have it so hard as is
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
[SPEAKER_03]: And over the years, things have been getting harder and harder, declining readership, a huge number of new books being published.
[SPEAKER_03]: It just keeps increasing and increasing.
[SPEAKER_03]: Publishers grabbing more rights, attention spans declining, so much competition with social media and other media formats.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is just so hard to be an author.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we decided to add AI to the equation because the world apparently wasn't hard enough.
[SPEAKER_03]: I kept thinking about, you know,
[SPEAKER_03]: Now there's a new one that I didn't even think to consider and I should have, which is an author could be unfairly accused of using AI.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like an author was never touched AI, could be unfairly accused because of detectors are not reliable, at least it don't seem to be.
[SPEAKER_03]: People could be accused of doing something they didn't do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Now writers are living in fear of this unfair accusation, which is so messed up.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like so messed up, I heard of a writer, published author, or I should say, who, to avoid any potential AI allegations, has been inviting her top readers.
[SPEAKER_03]: to join in on Zoom, I think, while she writes so that they can actually testify on her behalf if need be, like a writer who's doing that should be doing that, because she wants to give her fans, you know, what's happening?
[SPEAKER_03]: It should be fun, it should be exciting, but it's not fun or exciting.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like, oh, I live in fear, so I'm inviting people to, you know, eventually one day be witnessed what, like, that's just terrible.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I have a lot of thoughts.
[SPEAKER_01]: I started actually working on some stack of buildings.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I need to organize my thoughts on this.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I wasn't going to write about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then like the dialogue, the discourse will not die.
[SPEAKER_01]: So by the time this episode comes out, so my subject will be out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have tentatively called this.
[SPEAKER_01]: book publishing has an AI shaped PR problem on its hands.
[SPEAKER_01]: In an age when institutional trust is at an all-time low, I don't know how we're going to climb out of this AI hell hole.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, there's a lot that you touched on that I definitely have touched on in my draft.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think one of the things, this like,
[SPEAKER_01]: the allegations that writers might face to me is also a very serious legal issue and I am not a lawyer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So none of this is legal advice.
[SPEAKER_01]: If authors are going to be accused of things, then like that's defamation.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a loss of revenue potentially for them, you know, if their books get pulled.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if there's a lot, there's a huge legal component to this that I think is also really a mental, a mental, a toll, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Like the toll, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, yes.
[SPEAKER_03]: That destroys a person.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_03]: What is happening?
[SPEAKER_01]: I know.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have so many notes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, you know, the deli, I get into the deliage of it all, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, just the amount of volume we're going to have to deal with.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a huge offshoot of this problem is going to be that readers will not trust us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Consumers will not trust us.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if this is happening to you, but friends are texting me like a book and they'll be like, hey, this book is published, but like is this written by AI they are now living in fear they don't want to spend their 20 to 40 dollars on something that's written by AI
[SPEAKER_01]: that's not interesting to them.
[SPEAKER_01]: In the witch hunt piece of it all, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, Mia Ballard was a black debut author.
[SPEAKER_01]: She's the one that we end up coming down on.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, say, we as like the industry and all this discourse, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Of all the cases to come down on, this is the case that's getting
[SPEAKER_01]: so much attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really curious.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be really hard to get out of this for a number of reasons, you know, publishing being so chronically understaffed as a huge issue.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, who's going to pick up the slack here with the fact checking in the editing?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I worry about young agents who are looking at tons of content, not knowing how to sort through it all, how are they going to know what's AI or not?
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we going to all have to buy this panogram software and run things through, but I always think, what am I going to do with that information say I go buy this AI detection software say I run things through I actually don't ethically think I as a literate agent have the right to do whatever I want with submissions I don't believe that I don't believe that when things come into me that I can just run them through any software.
[SPEAKER_01]: I believe that they live in my mail.
[SPEAKER_01]: I look at them, I review them, and then they kind of move on through the internet.
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe that's another legal conversation.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I just, I don't think I have the right to do whatever I want with people's work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then say something does come up 90% perceived to be written.
[SPEAKER_01]: By a, what do I do with that information?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm not going to go to accusing all of this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it reliable?
[SPEAKER_03]: Because no.
[SPEAKER_03]: What my understanding, again, too much information about that out there, and not enough clarity.
[SPEAKER_03]: My understanding is that there are lots of false positives.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm not saying every time it flags that it is a false positive, I'm just saying false positives exist, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's scary.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, my understanding is that neurodivergent writers and people who speak English as a second language are particularly vulnerable to false positives.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is extra scary.
[SPEAKER_03]: So,
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, you're saying, oh, I could do this, but then I can't cause it's not my right to run it through the software, is running it through the software even something that would help, you know?
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, like what protections are we looking for?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think the answer is, I'll say, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, and the one thing I will say is that
[SPEAKER_03]: a few weeks ago, you and I were discussing the whole Claude is the new Fabio, and you very intelligently asked, like, I wonder if we're in a bubble, I wonder if readers will care if something's written by AI.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think we have the answer to that, at least for now, readers will care.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, obviously every reader feels differently, every individual is different.
[SPEAKER_03]: We do not live in pleurabus, thank goodness.
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, it seems like a lot of people care, and that's something that came out of this very wild situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think it's really interesting and I talk about Jane Reben's hot sheet all the time, which is not called the hot shit anymore.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's it called now?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's called the bottom line.
[SPEAKER_01]: The bottom line.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some day I will get this right.
[SPEAKER_01]: But before she even published her bottom line, she wrote this big sub-stack note, you know how like, you don't just have to write a sub-stack post, you can also write a note, which is kind of like a long thread.
[SPEAKER_01]: Anyway, she had so many great questions.
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the questions she had, or one of the kind of comments she had was,
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think a chef fully understood the level of AI use in the book and I'd be truly surprised if the editors and leaders did know about the level of AI use in the book and just thought nobody else would notice.
[SPEAKER_01]: I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like a lot of times, people are picking up self-published titles.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's not a huge editing process that happens.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like run it through a style guide, you know, for the organization, you do a copy edit often, but because the book exists out there, there's not a lot of changes that usually happen because they don't want multiple editions of the book out there.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not the goal.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the idea is a very, very light hand.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the goal.
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I don't actually think people actually in there in that sense.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just, I continue to be deeply confused by everything that happened and just listen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I'm still in the gathering, processing, listening stage.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is a lot that is a lot that's happening to our world and it's scary.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and we also talked about, you know, our previous episode about how, you know, things can't be copyrighted if they're not, if they're not written by a human, right, and that could just continue to complicate the process here, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Because does that mean that published, because we've seen a lot of publishers picking up self published titles.
[SPEAKER_01]: Does this mean that publishers are going to pick up less self published titles because maybe there's no protections on them because if they're written by AI, then they can't copyright them and then we'll go down that whole rabbit hole.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be interested to see if we're still seeing the same amount of self-pub books bought and kind of flipped over to trade because I think that that's going to make some people really nervous and agents will have to vote for that right and there's a whole other conversation to be had here but what's the agent role in the process, how are agents talking to their authors about AI.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a conversation that many people are having.
[SPEAKER_03]: I have a definitive guide on AI use my clients.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's an actual document.
[SPEAKER_03]: That's good.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's really short.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: All it says is don't use it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
[SPEAKER_03]: One line.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's like a little picture of me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_03]: Go with this.
[SPEAKER_03]: Don't do that.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I'm joking.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't have a guide.
[SPEAKER_03]: But my point is like, if anyone wants advice on what to do by my advice, maybe it's wrong.
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe it's right.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just stay away from the thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: like stay away from it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, stay away.
[SPEAKER_01]: What is there to gain, you know, like I've had this rant before, like what is there to gain by using it, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you want to be a writer, you have to do the hard stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: There isn't no skipping the hard stuff.
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to do the work.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the documentation, you know, the showing multiple drafts.
[SPEAKER_01]: I understand why writers would do that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Honestly, if I was an author, I probably would do the same thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd be saving my drafts and folders that are labeled and time stamped.
[SPEAKER_01]: put an external height or hard drive if you're actually really scared about things.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would be recording my screen.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like that is how I'm going to do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
[SPEAKER_03]: I am a crazy person.
[SPEAKER_03]: I would be recording my screen every time I type.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like it would be and I might might install cameras.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like again, paranoid person no one listen to me.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like my level of paranoia is off the charts.
[SPEAKER_04]: So I don't like this.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, well, we're going to put a pin in AI for a very, very short break of word from our sponsors.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, we are back and we're going to talk about some closures of imprint, some layoffs, not really the fun stuff, obviously, to talk about, but it is nice to kind of, I don't know, bookmark it and parallel it against the first half of the conversation we just had about AI.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, CCC, do you want to run a story of some of the closures?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, when you were talking about how publishing houses are, you know, understaffed, people are overworked, and I don't have the time or the resources to do everything they have to do.
[SPEAKER_03]: In the AI discourse, we were chatting about a couple minutes ago.
[SPEAKER_03]: I just kept thinking of how it's only going to get worse.
[SPEAKER_03]: I decided I was going to be an optimist and life was not making a part.
[SPEAKER_03]: East for me.
[SPEAKER_03]: I had decided I was going to be an optimist.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is like, this is whatever.
[SPEAKER_03]: This is my life is ironic.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it feels like it's going to get worse potentially because there have been so many layoffs this year.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we started the year with layoffs on the adult side, nonfiction, and we talked about that.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then there were layoffs at the UME, right?
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, which I know is a different part, but it's still entertainment industry.
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we've had dial books for young readers, just clothes, just absolutely clothes, and like roaring brook imprint closed too.
[SPEAKER_03]: And all my friends who are, who specialize in Kiddlet, they are really sad and really worried.
[SPEAKER_03]: And one of my friends said that this reminds her of O-8.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know how true that is.
[SPEAKER_03]: Not of the sense of her feelings, but in the sense of like, you know, in O-8 there was also like a massive crisis happening in the stock market.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know how much of these things go hand in hand.
[SPEAKER_03]: But the fact that that's even something that's crossed her mind is really scary.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just it's heartening to see like jobs being lost in an industry that
[SPEAKER_03]: needs more people, not fewer people.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, it's really hard.
[SPEAKER_01]: Especially when a single pocket of the industry gets hit so hard with the rowing broke and the dial, like you wonder what coordination was happening and those are completely different publishers, but you know, you just wonder like what's in the water, the tea leaves that have been read or just the reports that have been coming through in terms of being in and not stalking that any kid book, kid lip books, you know, this might be a popular
[SPEAKER_01]: which is like the celebration of kidlets and how every celebrity has their picture book in their middle grade series and that space eats up a lot of the bookshelf space and it's just really hard for debut.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's two political component, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, look at the banings and libraries being underfunded.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I don't know because I can't possibly know.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not at the top making any decisions.
[SPEAKER_03]: But how much of this is coming from a place of, hey, let's not stir the pot.
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's just fold in prints instead of fighting back.
[SPEAKER_03]: Because you know, billionaires rule the world.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just, again, I was going to be an optimist in 2020.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so, you know, that's, that's really tough.
[SPEAKER_01]: One thing that, you know, semi related to that also is just the number of units of books that have been published.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a quote from Jane Freeman's bottom line that said, Alker, the agency that issues ISBN, so ISBN is, you know, the code that's connected with the book.
[SPEAKER_01]: in the United States reports that more than 4 million books were published in 2025, an increase of 32 and a half percent over the previous year, 2024.
[SPEAKER_01]: Self-published works were responsible for the most of the increase which grew from 2 and a half million to 3 and a half million.
[SPEAKER_01]: remember that Balker only reports on titles published with ISPN, so the number of titles on the market far exceeds that amount since Amazon in particular doesn't require an ISPN for an e-book.
[SPEAKER_01]: All that to say, like, so many more titles flooding the market.
[SPEAKER_01]: Consumers are, you know, just getting a fire hose of content and books, less people staffing all of these books, which just means the people who are doing the work at the publishing houses.
[SPEAKER_01]: How a lot to contact with, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: And tons of self-published titles out there, refer back to the first half of the conversation about are these written by AI or not.
[SPEAKER_04]: There's a lot of questions here about the future of content.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yep, it is tough.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were some really solid threads going around.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I saved a couple of them, CC.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if you kind of checked them out, but just talking about the editor turnover and what it's like when an editor leaves, oftentimes it will be halfway through.
[SPEAKER_01]: your book.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we talked in this before on various elements of this podcast, whether it's on the shooting the shit side or whether it's on the books with hook side, but it can be really hard when when you lose your your editor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rachel Cargo is an author and posted on threads on the 19th of March.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've been speaking with author so I'm with major publishing houses about the experience of high turnover with their publishing teams.
[SPEAKER_01]: From editor to marketing lead, is this something you experience?
[SPEAKER_01]: And then tons of just like best selling authors with blue check marks are kind of chiming in, you know, it's just really tough.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nicole Walters said, yes, the editor I signed with left in the middle of the process.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had another editor through the end who also left shortly after pub day.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was told this is common.
[SPEAKER_01]: My team was lovely, though, and I'm grateful.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the revolving door is so hard for people just to feel like settled in kind of understanding the mission of the imprint and there's just a million reasons why this is so tough.
[SPEAKER_01]: experienced it, Roxie and Gays said, yes, I've lost editors three times.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it literally happens to everybody.
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it happens to everyone.
[SPEAKER_03]: If you've been in publishing long enough, it's happened to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: And sometimes even if you've been in publishing for five minutes, it's happened to you.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's something that it underscores the importance of agents.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like obviously I have this perspective, I'm an agent.
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm super biased here.
[SPEAKER_03]: I recognize that, but the fact that there's so much turnover on the editor side means that
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, your relationship with your agent as a writer is even more important because that is stability for you If you have a good one Yeah, yeah, I know exactly right the to me I mean and coming back to this whole conversation that we started with about AI and I know a lot of people are worried about their jobs We talk about AI but I can lay off all these things.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just for one of the many many reasons feel so grateful for the role that I have and I've spoken about the before I'm I feel so grateful that I have a thinking job
[SPEAKER_01]: My job is using my brain, talking to people, potentially in the future, I can be replaced by a robot, but I really don't think a robot is going to have this much experience.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was how to do contracts, and it was how to do creative.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was how to do the business, understand the project manager.
[SPEAKER_01]: Some day that robot will exist, but I don't think in my working lifetime, and I feel really grateful that I get to use the expertise that I have.
[SPEAKER_01]: I made a comment on the sub stack on my threads about the idea where like if for the rest of our working lives were just using robot language to reply to each other in emails like I'm going to throw my computer into the sun that will like that is the exact opposite of what we go into the business to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's pick up the phone more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's zoom more.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's see each other at events because I don't want to use robots speak.
[SPEAKER_01]: AI, grammarally, fixed words to reply and emails.
[SPEAKER_01]: Back to people when we should just be using the way that we speak.
[SPEAKER_01]: The biggest flex is going to be little things, like tiny spelling mistakes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Those little bits, oh, that person made that grammar choice.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's really interesting.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's those little inflection points.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we're going to humanize everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I actually, I'm in a positive theory, I actually think literary fiction is going to have a comeback.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've talked it before about what I think is really going to quote unquote save the business.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just, I've been speaking about like really original books.
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually think literary fiction is going to be the thing that saves it at the end of the day, because we've talked so much about genre fiction.
[SPEAKER_01]: all of its pros and cons.
[SPEAKER_01]: But with literary fiction, such intentional choices have to be made about character, about structure, about everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they are incredibly original pieces of work.
[SPEAKER_01]: If at the end of the day, readers feel like they are losing faith in the institution of publishing, they are going to want to turn to things that they feel original, really original.
[SPEAKER_01]: Or else we're going to lose them.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, they're not going to want to spend their 20 to 40 bucks on a book.
[SPEAKER_03]: They really aren't.
[SPEAKER_03]: Of the importance of knowing what you want and what you want to read, I personally don't believe in censorship.
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't believe that I have the right to tell anyone what they can or can't do or write about.
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, if you want to write about XYZ, you go ahead and do it.
[SPEAKER_03]: It is none of my business.
[SPEAKER_03]: I do, however, while I don't believe in censorship, I believe in curation.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to choose what I read.
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to choose what I consume and what I digest.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I am not interested in consuming works written by AI, it's just not for me if it's for someone else, then that's their decision to make.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that what's really brilliant about literary fiction can bring to the table in this age of distrust is
[SPEAKER_03]: AI was trained by obviously being fed all sorts of literary works that exist from all sorts of genres and categories.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's an element of interiority and vulnerability that the greats can achieve that very few authors can do, even brilliant authors, commercial authors.
[SPEAKER_03]: And there's something to be said about, you know, really diving into the human psyche, the parts that we keep completely hidden, the parts that you can't analyze,
[SPEAKER_03]: the parts that you can't detect by looking at what we do.
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think that will be really interesting too, you know, how so much of the works that might stand out in the future will be peering behind the parts of ourselves that we aren't even prepared to look at yet and that
[SPEAKER_03]: beautiful, talented, amazing authors will to be a writer is to wrestle with the human condition and how much more wrestling can we do.
[SPEAKER_03]: I think there's still so much more to uncover.
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I think there's so much the human psyche that still has still can be explored, and it'll be really cool to see literature in the future doing that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I want to pivot to nonfiction for a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of our focus here has been on fiction.
[SPEAKER_01]: Nonfiction.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a really interesting article in the new Republic that came out on March 23rd, written by Paul Ellie, the nonfiction publishing under threat is more important than ever.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's just been so much talk about everything that we can get on the internet.
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a quote from the article that said,
[SPEAKER_01]: People looking for information can now easily turn to chat bots YouTube podcasts and other free online sources and so I actually had a call with an editor from a big five on the nonfiction was she actually did she does have fiction have nonfiction, but we were talking about Nonfiction specifically and she's talking about a couple books that did really well for them and why she thinks with again all this coming down on nonfiction why those ones particularly did really well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said, it's a mix of serious, but joyful or serious and hope.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, we can't really be all doing gloom right now because, again, that's everything we're getting from the news.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of fiction beaters want escapism, but with nonfiction, it's like, you want that information, but you need that joy and you need that hope and like, that's the reason that we're coming to nonfiction.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it reminds me of the book that I was talking about off the top, which is art here.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it's like it's the mix of arts and mix of science, you know, the knowledge of our therapy, the science of our therapy and how it all works and so there's things like that where I think there's still much so much to be uncovered on the nonfiction side, but we really need a path out the nonfiction that's not really working right now is just like it's all doing my glue, it's all doing my glue right because it's like, well, yeah, we can get that information from anywhere, but we need the experts that are going to help us find a way out and find a way through this with hope and with joy.
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, absolutely.
[SPEAKER_04]: Here here.
[SPEAKER_03]: So we will end on good news in the hopes of restoring optimism to my goals, the Harper Collins Union ratified a new contract and they secured the highest starting.
[SPEAKER_03]: pay in publishing.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is wonderful, wonderful news.
[SPEAKER_03]: Do I think the starting pay should be even higher?
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely, I do.
[SPEAKER_03]: Everyone does.
[SPEAKER_03]: But it is still good news.
[SPEAKER_03]: It's good news that not too long ago, I believe they had the lowest pay of the big five, where it was something similar to that, and now they have the highest.
[SPEAKER_03]: And that is a wonderful thing.
[SPEAKER_03]: So,
[SPEAKER_03]: The new contract mandates a starting salary of 52,500 for a 35-hour week, which again is the highest in the industry.
[SPEAKER_03]: There's also other great benefits too, like all covered employees will get annual paying increases, time and a half for over time.
[SPEAKER_03]: employees at the beginning of their careers can work up to three hours of overtime per week without prior approval.
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, it's actually really really good news and I'm excited about that and very, very proud of the worth that they've done and grateful that they are fighting the good fight because it is hard work to do and thanks to them, everyone's lives are going to be a little bit better.
[SPEAKER_01]: Totally, and that will help raise across the board, right, because that will help competition with the other large publisher.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we
[SPEAKER_01]: love to see it, happy about that.
[SPEAKER_01]: So let's pair people well.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why we've only had her today guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: So thanks for hanging out with us.
[SPEAKER_01]: It was jam packed.
[SPEAKER_01]: We look forward to hearing what you think.
[SPEAKER_01]: You can also head over to my sub stack that we can rant because I have posted a lot of my thoughts there on this topic as well.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we'll see you over there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bye, everyone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bye.
[SPEAKER_00]: CC Lera is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you'd like to query CC, please refer to the submission guidelines at www.wshermon.com.
[SPEAKER_00]: Carly Waters is a literary agent at PS Literary Agency, but a work on this podcast is not affiliated with the agency and the views expressed by Carly on this podcast.
[SPEAKER_00]: are solely that of her as a podcast co-host, they do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, policies, or position of PS Literary Agency.