The Mob and the Machine: Public Judgment in the Age of Invisible Authorship Artificial intelligence is reshaping authorship in ways both visible and unseen. As debates over AI writing, authenticity, and creative integrity intensify, a new phenomenon has emerged: the AI authorship controversy. Writers are increasingly facing accusations of using artificial intelligence, often without evidence,…
We did not begin worrying about the cost of computation when it was industrial.We began worrying when it became personal. The Machine, Before It Had a Face Early in my career, I worked at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory in Princeton, NJ. My role was not glamorous. I ran calculations—submitted jobs, processed outputs, waited for…
By Robin Trent | Dark Muse Press Lessons From the Indie Publishing Trenches Self-publishing is often described as a revolution in modern literature. With a few clicks, an author can upload a manuscript, design a cover, and distribute a book to readers around the world. Platforms such as Amazon KDP, Apple Books, and Kobo have…
What Authors Actually Spend—and How to Spend Wisely Self-publishing has often been described as “free.” In the strictest sense, that statement is technically true: an author can upload a manuscript to platforms such as Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing and publish a book without paying an upfront fee. Yet anyone who has traveled the road of…
A Strange Reality of Self-Publishing Metadata One of the stranger moments in a self-publisher’s journey can arrive unexpectedly: you search for your book online and discover it listed for sale somewhere you never placed it. This happened to me recently. While searching for my novel Moonshine, I discovered a listing for the book on eBay….
I have seen a lot of conversation on the Author / ARC (Advanced Reader Copies) Reader Facebook groups about AI Detectors. There have even been ARC Readers who run people’s manuscripts through AI Detectors, get a false positive, and then go “Ah ha! I caught you!” This behavior stems from being misinformed, performative and actively…
Part 3: When Bookstores Actually Make Sense Bookstores aren’t irrelevant. They’re just no longer the foundation. Despite everything that’s changed in the publishing landscape, bookstores still hold real value for authors. The mistake is assuming that value is universal or required. What bookstores offer today is no longer a mandatory pathway to success, but a…
Part 2: What Replaced Bookstores as the Gatekeeper Discovery didn’t disappear when bookstores lost their monopoly, it moved. As physical retail ceased to be the primary gateway, discovery migrated to spaces where readers were already spending their time: online storefronts, search engines, social platforms, review sites, and reader communities. Instead of being driven by limited…
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