4 ms·
Is a mid-century paperback author, who published several books a year (100+ over their career) with the same plot, less of an "author" than someone who publishe
by pphysch 1y ago
Is a mid-century paperback author, who published several books a year (100+ over their career) with the same plot, less of an "author" than someone who publishes a handful of original works over their career?
Literary slop long predates AI.
- dvfjsdhgfv 1y agoTrue, but as usual the differentiator is the scale.
- bee_rider 1y agoThere are good authors and bad authors. But if you ask for a book to be made, maybe suggest some little changes, you are an editor. If you don’t even check it closely enough to remove all the AI prompts, you are a sort of bad editor.
- WalterBright 1y agoI read that many prolific authors don't write their books. They write an outline, and have a paid staff of writers fill it in, without credit. It's a business like those assembly line Kinkade paintings. (I actually have one of them on the wall, and like it.) In high school, I decided to read all the James Bond novels. After reading about 8 of them, I realized they all had the same plot, and abandoned that project.
- api 1y agoMost truly original art and literature doesn’t sell well, or if it does it’s a slow burn where sales very gradually creep up. Often popularity is achieved after the artist’s death. The way to make money is to find a schtick that works and repeat and market it. There’s a funny Behind the Bastards podcast episode on Kinkade, who apparently was kind of an asshole IRL.
- levocardia 1y agoIndeed. Even before LLMs you could hire a cheap ghostwriter on upwork. Or even better, hire one to write the outline, another to flesh out the outline into a book, and a third to proof it. Get a cover on fiverr and upload. Then rinse and repeat. Fiction, nonfiction, doesn't matter. Whatever sells. Amazon's KDP program had to institute (very modest) upload limits for this reason. People were turning capital into a deluge of slop books -- hundreds per day in some cases. As usual, the real money is in selling courses that "teach" people how to do this technique.
- bombcar 1y agoSome authors like pG Wodehouse could slop out the same story over and over and over again (boy meets girl, elder aunt doesn’t like it, boy gets girl) and yet each one is unique and interesting. Meanwhile other authors shovel out the exact same story (I found literal cut and paste more than once).
- mcv 1y agoRomance novels are notorious for this, but Campbell's Hero's Journey also identifies a constantly reused plot. But ultimately books aren't just about the plot (some don't even have one), but also about the execution.