Quick reminders before today’s excellent guest post!

• The Last Ferry Out, my queer, puzzle-box mystery set on an island with creepy ruins and stunning beaches and secretive expats, is out in paperback June 16! Laura Dave said it’s “twisty, shocking, and riveting—with a narrator you won’t stop rooting for.” while Ashley Elston called it “immersive, tense, and masterful.” I’d be honored if you purchased a copy or requested it from your library.

• I have upcoming book events in Kalispell, Brooklyn, Minneapolis, the Hudson Valley, and more. I’d love to see you!

That’s right, it’s a guest post! Because I don’t actually know everything, I’m excited to share from-the-trenches pieces by authors and publishing professionals. This heartening one is from Heather Eng, whose emotionally layered love story, Double Happiness, is out now. Enjoy!

Writing—and publishing—a novel depends on your mental health. In addition to being in a good enough headspace to think creatively, you have to bet on yourself for years, putting yourself out there again and again, despite countless rejections, before you’re paid a cent.

And once your novel comes out, unless you’re one of the lucky few, many of your big author dreams won’t come true. There were 642,242 traditionally published books in the U.S. last year; only a tiny fraction of those authors became celebrity book club picks, got profiled in major outlets like the New York Times, and sold millions of books.

That’s why every writer needs to keep a running list of wins and refer to it often.

This list isn’t a replacement for therapy, medication, or having a strong support system. It’s an extra mental health tool you can use whenever you need a confidence boost—because even if you have people cheering you on, your writing career ultimately hinges on your belief in yourself, and your willingness to keep going.

And so, here’s why every writer needs this list—whether they’re drafting their first novel or publishing their tenth.

You’ll remember all the times you were told “Yes.”

Whether querying agents, going on submission, or seeking promotion for your book, you will hear “No” many more times than “Yes.” Even though every writer expects rejection, it’s still disheartening when yet another agent or editor politely tells you they “just didn’t fall in love with your story.”

When it feels like everyone is telling you “No,” your list can remind you of all the people who believe in you. After my first round of querying Double Happiness, twenty-one agents rejected me. To rebuild my confidence, I reminded myself that my novel workshop teacher, a well-respected author, told me: “I’d read anything you write.” A fellow student from that workshop also asked to stay in touch because she loved my book. Their praise buoyed me enough to revise my query package and keep at it.

You’ll get an ego boost when you desperately need it.

Even if you have the thickest skin, your feelings will, at times, get hurt. During my seven years writing, revising, and selling Double Happiness, well-meaning acquaintances occasionally asked questions that, well, stung: “Why is it taking so long for your novel to come out?” “Your book is a rom-com? At least writing it is pretty formulaic, right?”

And then there are reviews. Negative ones are inevitable, which is why many authors (including myself) stay off Goodreads and avoid seeking out reviews. Even so, you may still come across someone bashing your book. That’s when your list can help.

A few months ago, I stumbled upon a review eviscerating Double Happiness. Whenever it popped into my head, I reminded myself that seven authors I admired—most whom I’d never even met—blurbed my book. Their belief in me restored my self-confidence.

You’ll reframe your thinking when it seems like everyone is doing better than you.

Self-promotion is part of the writing life. Anytime you scroll through Instagram, you may feel like every writer is way more successful than you are. Your feed is likely filled with clips of authors speaking on the Today show, or celebrating how they were a Reese’s Book Club pick.

I wasn’t either of those. But my list of wins reminded me that I was lucky to be a panelist at several well-attended events. I loved speaking to librarians about Double Happiness at a Penguin Random House Winter Book & Author Festival, and connecting with enthusiastic readers at a New York Public Library event.

You’ll remember you’re making progress, even when it feels like you’re not.

As a mom to a three-year-old, I never have as much writing time as I’d like. Something always cuts into my schedule: a snow day closes school, childcare falls through, there’s yet another holiday break. I’m trying to give myself grace and remember that any progress I make on my second novel is worth celebrating—even though it often doesn’t feel like it.

My list of wins reminds me that I’ve written through tough times before: when I was pregnant and deathly ill with hyperemesis gravidarum, and when I was squeezing in an hour of revising my novel here and there when my new-mom brain was barely functioning. If I did it then, I can do it now.

You’ll push past self-doubt.

No matter how many books you’ve written, at some point, when you’re drafting a new novel, that unhelpful little voice may start whispering in your ear: Your story is so lame/pointless/boring. Why are you writing it?

Your list of wins can shut down negative self-talk. Every time I start to psych myself out, I think about readers who reached out to tell me that Double Happiness made them feel seen. They help me remember that I am a good writer and my stories deserve to be told.

So make your list, keep it close, and refer to it often. You’ll see how many people believe in you and are cheering you on in those moments when you need it the most.

Giveaway!

Heather will send a signed copy of Double Happiness to one lucky paid subscriber. (Contest open to those residing in the lower 48 states; enter by 11:59pm ET on Friday, June 19.)

Caught between a relentless tech job, her adoring fiancé, and an unexpected new flame, Mei must learn what it means to choose herself.

When Mei Li runs into Alexandre Brodeur at a family function, there’s no denying their chemistry. It turns out Alexandre, whose brother is married to Mei’s younger sister, is back in New York rebuilding his life after two decades toiling away in academic research. Somehow, Alexandre’s different from the young scientist Mei met years ago. His intelligent eyes and quiet air of mystery have a magnetic effect, drawing her in like never before.

But Mei’s carefully constructed life has no room for Alexandre. She’s engaged to Joey, a fellow Queens native who keeps her grounded as she pulls eighty-hour weeks at Livin, the tech world’s hottest startup. After a childhood marked by financial and emotional turmoil, Mei finally has the stability she’s always craved.

In Mei’s brief moments away from her crushing workload, Alexandre is an uncomfortably enticing presence. It doesn’t take long for their thoughtful conversations and his electric gaze to get under her skin, leaving Mei to wonder what she really wants in work, life, and love.

With her wedding date fast approaching, Mei has to make an impossible choice between two very different men. And after she does, she still must figure out what it truly means to have it all.

To enter, comment #doublehappiness below.

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Organizers asked if I’d like to give a brief acceptance speech, and I said yes! In the audience were publishers, editors, booksellers, agents, audiobook narrators, and many incredible authors (including—pinch me—R. L. Stine, Lisa Scottoline, Harlan Coben, and so many more of my heroes). My hands shook as I spoke, but I’m proud I used the opportunity to tell my community, in no uncertain terms, that where we’re headed is not okay.

By popular demand, I’m sharing the remarks I delivered that night (full video above, full transcript below). May it be a counterpoint to all those awful graduation speeches cluelessly thrusting generative AI onto future generations. Resist!

“On behalf of Charlie [Graeber, author of THE GOOD NURSE], our fellow class rep Kirk Wallace Johnson, and myself, thank you for this recognition.

To paraphrase Kirk, whose true-crime book THE FEATHER THIEF you should all purchase: There were plenty of moments along the way when the three of us felt awfully alone, so to receive this award on the other side of it all is truly heartening. We were honored to take up this fight on behalf of our fellow creatives, and we’re proud of this crucial victory.

And here I’m speaking for myself and not on behalf of my fellow plaintiffs or counsel: “Victory” might not be the right word. We haven’t vanquished anyone, obviously. This settlement is a first, corrective step. And in my opinion, the fight is so much bigger than that.

This isn’t just a battle over copyright. It’s a battle for our souls.

I know that sounds bombastic. But what are our books, if not our innermost selves made manifest? We write to wrestle with the human condition, to explore universal themes and alchemize our humanity into words and bravely beg of strangers: Please tell me I’m not alone. Please say you feel the same.

Chatbots are sycophantic and seductive, convincing users that there’s no real reason for them to think critically or deal with human conflict or consider something from someone else’s point of view.

Generative AI is sending people into delusional spirals, egging on self-harm and withdrawal from the world. OpenAI estimates that every week, a half-million ChatGPT users show signs of mania or psychosis.

And even in less-extreme situations, the facts are sobering. “Therapy and companionship” are now the most-common use case for generative AI, having surpassed technical tasks.

My own therapist told me that when she encourages clients to go home and spend time reflecting on something, she now gets the reply: “I’ll talk to ChatGPT about it.”

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The reason LLMs can ape empathy and human connection so well is because they were trained on our books—actual expressions of vulnerability and tender contemplation. We are the reason that chatbots wield so much power over their users.

And that’s to say nothing of LLM’s devastating environmental impact, the terrifying ways developers are already losing control of their creation, and the companies’ sociopathic CEOs, all so breathtakingly villainous that if I wrote one into a book, my editor, Hilary, would say, I dunno, Andi, that’s a little on the nose.

It sometimes feels like there are too many big, bad things happening at once, and AI is just part of the horrific tornado. But I believe it’s the most crucial battle of our time. And writing is very much a form of fighting.

We were given the power to infiltrate strangers’ imaginations, helping them conceive of the way the world could be. We can force readers to experience compassion and conflict. Across time and space, we make people laugh and tear up and gasp with staggering revelations.

And we’re doing it all via a one-way medium. Teaching them a swiftly vanishing life skill: the ability to sit and listen and think critically…without talking back.

Thank you again for the Trailblazer Award, and let this be a reminder that the trail is blazed and you’re not walking it alone. AI isn’t some unstoppable tsunami just because a handful of unhappy men who’ve never once picked up a pen and written something emotionally resonant say it is. The future is unwritten, because we haven’t written it yet.

I hope this settlement reminds you that you can loudly and proudly say no to using generative AI, that you have a sacred duty to lovingly push your friends and family and coworkers and readers to resist, and that you don’t have to start dialoguing with ChatGPT lest you “fall behind.”

We’re not “falling behind”, friends. We are grabbing our pens and sprinting ahead.

Right onto the battlefield.

Thank you.”

Further reading:

• How do you gauge if an in-store event was a “success”?

• How can authors let bookstores know about their upcoming release?

• Can stores return autographed copies to the publisher?

Be sure to give the bookshops helping us out lots of love (and traffic), and comment to share the questions you’d like answered. (And if you run an indie bookstore and would like to be featured, hit me up!)

Today’s bookseller is bestselling author (whose latest thriller, THE PARISIAN HEIST, hits shelves July 14). I loved her breakdown of how The Bookcase, her pop-up (and, soon, pull-behind trailer) bookstore, is part of her author ecosystem. Enjoy!

Please tell me about your store!

The Bookcase is a traveling bookstore dreamed up by bestselling author and journalist and her husband, Nick Aster. We roll across the Catskills and Philly in a lovingly restored vintage camper trailer, and sometimes pop up in a bar or coffeeshop with antique suitcases filled with books (hence, the Bookcase).

We’re highly curated. Jo chooses all of the books and chooses from books she reads and genuinely loves so that they are easy to handpress on people. We also choose a lot of books that are incredible and may have fallen through the cracks. We also have a ton of my books that I personalize on site.

Part of the vision is to simply get more books in front of more people from avid readers the not-so-avid. We love popping up at popular gathering spots that don’t typically sell books. When we do, the response is universally positive, people want to talk to us, talk to each other, compare notes on books and learn about new ones.

What made you decide to launch a mobile bookshop, and how is running it different from running a brick-and-mortar one?

We love bookstores and love to talk to people. With retail seeming to be collapsing everywhere we look, people crave a human connection, and so do we. Plus it’s fun!

The obvious difference is we make our own hours and pop up when we like. This is not our full time job, yet. So, on the downside it’s not always easy to find us, but the upside is we always create a buzz when we do pop up. Not having to pay rent lets us truly choose books we love instead of the ones being pushed hard at any given moment by a book club or a publisher. We also get to create community on the go. We aren’t just bringing books to people, we’re bringing conversations and connections and all those things we are craving right now.

What has being a bookseller taught you about what readers want? Has it affected how you write or market your own books?

The number one thing we’ve found is that people want a recommendation. They want to feel like you really love something and they want to hear why. My bestsellers have often come as recs from my other favorite booksellers. Shoutout to Flannery at Bluebird & Co. Also the last great book I read that was under the radar was Welcome to Glorious Tuga. A goddamn delight. I’ve also found that readers are excited to read across genre, but sometimes they’re scared so that is where good recs come in.

If you, as a bookseller, could snap your fingers and change something about how publishers do things, what would it be?

I would change a lot. One of the best things about the Bookcase is that I can give books a longer shelf life. Too many books come out on too quick of a schedule and discovery often feels impossible. I would love there to be less books published and more attention paid to the ones that are published.

I would like more marketing and publicity put behind books throughout the course of a year because it takes a long time for readers to discover books and for word of mouth to catch on. To that extent I would like bestseller lists to take a longer view. What books have sold for the past month or six months. I hate, hate, hate that preorders have to matter so much for authors and bestseller lists. The majority of the books we feature at the Bookcase have been out for a year plus to help readers find what they may have missed.

Follow along for upcoming pop-ups and literary adventures on Instagram at @bookcase.books!

Thank you so much, Jo! Friends, be sure to give The Bookcase some love, preorder her book, and sign up for her Substack, Over the Influence, and let me know in the comments what else you’d like to learn from booksellers.

Quick reminders before today’s excellent guest post!

• The Last Ferry Out, my queer, puzzle-box mystery set on an island with creepy ruins and stunning beaches and secretive expats, is out in paperback June 16! NPR's Fresh Air praised its "evocative writing and propulsive, intricate mystery," while Publishers Weekly called it a "stylish, serpentine thriller…pairing tender explorations of grief and homophobia with a series of horrifying twists." I’d be honored if you purchased a copy or requested it from your library.

• I have upcoming book events in Kalispell, Brooklyn, Minneapolis, the Hudson Valley, and more. I’d love to see you!

That’s right, it’s a guest post! Because I don’t actually know everything, I’m excited to share from-the-trenches pieces by authors and publishing professionals. This must-read one is from , whose unputdownable Psycho retelling, MARION, is out today. Enjoy!

Writer’s block. We’ve seen it portrayed, in movies, in shows, in some of our favorite books about writers. We’ve lived it. We’ve stared, panicky, at a blank page. Watched the cursor blink metronomically, taunting. We’ve read articles on how to solve it (and yes, here I unironically present another one). We’ve done challenges to get us through it. If you’ve ever wanted to tell a story, chances are, there are times that you’ve felt impossibly, incredibly STUCK. And what then?

I used to say, hopefully not too smugly, that I didn’t really believe in it. That writing was a job like anything else, and just as you wouldn’t feel “blocked” enough to stop doing your job, say, building marketing decks or fixing leaky faucets, you shouldn’t simply quit writing, either, just because you’re not feeling it. And to a point, I still do believe that regular writing practice is the best prevention for getting stuck.

But still, at some point or another, it comes for us all—for me, it’s often when I’m trying to think of a new idea, when I’m trying to figure out what to write next.

Choosing to commit to a project is scary. If you’re a fiction writer seeking a traditional path to publishing, you know this is going to dominate anywhere from 3-5 (or more) years of your life, between ideation, drafting, revising, selling, editing, copy-editing, packaging, publishing. That’s longer than most celebrity relationships. That’s longer than your undergraduate studies. That’s about the length of my children’s lives. Wow. Is it any wonder we get nervous, our brain says, no no no, I cannot commit now, no thank you, we get, shall we say, blocked?

That’s where I found myself three winters ago. I’d written 5 YA books, 5 adult thrillers. My career was in stagnation. There had been highs and lows but none had really “worked,” not in a big breakout way, at least. I wasn’t sure how to write another domestic suspense, how I could spin a new web of twists and turns. I wasn’t sure if I even wanted to.

I had stops and starts. I read about coming up with ideas. I did the tricks I’d learned in a creative writing course in college, saving unusual news articles, word association. I watched TV shows and then brainstormed ideas that were pretty much exactly the same as those TV shows, knowing full well that they were derivative. (Bad Sisters was big at the time; maybe I could write a book about women who kill a bad man their friend is stuck with together, but it’s college friends, not sisters … what a revelation!)

The crappy thing about being blocked is you start to beat yourself up. Other writers are so good at coming up with their ideas, they have drawers and digital desktops full of brilliance! You start to think, if I were a real writer, it wouldn’t actually be this difficult. You start to feel deeply that Stephen King would have had this solved by now. You know from reading Big Magic that both Elizabeth Gilbert and Ann Patchett were gifted from the writing gods the same idea at the same time. You know that if you were one of those people you wouldn’t have this problem.

A therapist once told me, when talking about interpersonal conflict, that when you take a “time out” it doesn’t really count as a time out if you go off in your corner and ruminate about all the ways you were wronged, or all the fear you have that you were in the wrong and that the other person won’t get over it. A true time out has to be a break from thinking about the conflict.

So here’s my hack. Give yourself a time out. A real one.

What does a time out look like for a writer? Pencils down, as they say during the SATs. No laptops. No notebooks. No Post-Its. No texts to your writing friends about how you need to think of your idea. Go a step further. Tell yourself you are absolutely, under no circumstances, to work on writing for a set period of time. It can be a day, a week, an hour, a month, a year. You know yourself, what you need, and what you’re comfortable with.

Fill the time you would spend writing (or staring at a blank page and self-flagellating) doing something that gives you no access to jot anything down. Long walks without your phone (or at least with it off). Yoga classes. A hike. Even a trip, if you can make that happen.

Capitalism tells us we must always be “productive,” even in rest. Well, screw that. Pick an amount of time, and choose to be anything but productive.

But here’s the catch: You are not allowed to ruminate about all the writing or ideating you need to do. You aren’t even allowed to talk about it. You will start to do it, but just like in meditation, once you realize it, acknowledge it, and move on.

And then, the other part. Forgive yourself. I know it sounds dramatic, but do it. Forgive yourself for not being as brilliant as you wanted. Forgive yourself for hitting the arbitrary writing goals you set for yourself at sixteen, twenty-six, thirty-six, sixty-six. Forgive yourself for being a human with flaws who sometimes gets blocked and fears they may never write again. Hell, even let yourself have that thought: “I may never write again.” And instead of reassuring yourself, just accept it. Sit with it. And then go on another walk.

It was during this time of letting go that I decided to take a long shower. I have two young children so uninterrupted showers now feel like a luxury akin to a spa day. But the kids were in school, and instead of working out or putting in an extra load of laundry, I just decided to take a moment for myself. Instead of rushing through washing my hair, etc., so I could get onto the next thing, I was going to go slow.

I wasn’t three minutes in before it popped into my head. You know, that scene, the one that it feels like every woman who’s seen that movie thinks about occasionally when she’s in the shower. Norman effing Bates. I mean, how dare he, really. Marion Crane had had a hard day! She had just stolen money, she was trying to get to her emotionally unavailable boyfriend, she was on the run. Didn’t she deserve a few moments of peace? And then there he is, being a perv, spying on her, attacking her with his mommy issues and big-old knife. And I truly thought, LOL, if that actually happened, I’d try and knee the guy in the balls.

And then, my mind was spinning. Then I was thinking, well, what if he dropped the knife? Well, I’d grab it, of course. And then, I mean, if you’re standing there, fully naked, a knife in your hands. You have to stab, right? You’ve earned it at that point, haven’t you?

And then I thought, oh sh&t, this is an idea. This is a BIG idea.

My hair was still wet when I sent the email to my agent.

She wrote back minutes later, thrilled. Ecstatic. Telling me I had to write it.

And that turned into Marion, my modern feminist reimagining of Psycho where the leading lady doesn’t die but turns the knife on Norm, setting off a crime spree that turns her into a heroine for our times. It’s the book that Library Journal gave a starred review to, that Publisher’s Weekly called “a fiendishly clever feminist remix of Psycho.” It’s an Indie Next pick, a Library Reads selection, and a most anticipated book in Goodreads, People, SheReads, Buzzfeed, Time Out, Scary Mommy and more.

It releases today, and I’m so thrilled to share it with the world.

And I don’t think I would have gotten the idea if I hadn’t given myself a time out. I don’t think any of us get our big ideas, the ones our creative hearts are dying to write, unless we foster a space of care and forgiveness for the ups and downs of our careers, one that allows those big ideas to flourish.

Happy reading and happy writing!

Giveaway!

Leah will send a signed copy of Marion to one lucky paid subscriber. (Contest open to those residing in the lower 48 states; enter by 11:59pm ET on Friday, June 5.)

AN INDIE NEXT PICK • A LIBRARY READS SELECTION • Named a Most Anticipated Book of Summer by Goodreads • People • Buzzfeed • SheReads • Scary Mommy

"A fiendishly clever feminist remix of Psycho. Rowan’s bold take on Hitchcock’s classic benefits from wicked humor, a well-rounded heroine fueled by righteous anger, and a breakneck pace." —Publishers Weekly

NORMAN WAS HER FIRST...

Marion is in deep. She's stolen money from the Manhattan ad agency where she works in a desperate bid to help her sister escape an abusive marriage, but the bus breaks down before she can make it to Saratoga Springs. It's late at night, and the only place with vacancies is an old set of cabins on the outskirts of town. She pays for a room in cash, and ends up chatting with Norm, the young innkeeper who's handsome, charming and a touch hung-up on his elderly mother. Back in her room, she steps into the shower, scrubbing off the late-summer heat, when the curtain is pulled back...

Norm Billings is there with a knife. He raises his arm to strike, but before he does, Marion knees him in the balls, grabs the knife, and stabs the life out of him. Now, she's covered in blood, and she's a woman on the run—not just a thief, but a killer, too. Where will she go? How will she save both herself and her sister? And what mysteries will she uncover as she does?

In Psycho, Hitchcock shocked audiences when he killed off his protagonist. But what if the leading lady had fought back? Marion offers an alternate history of the most famous dead blonde to ever grace the silver screen. Only this time, the knife is in her hands—and she's no victim.

To enter, comment #marion below.

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Futher reading:

Me: Sarah, hi!

Sarah: Good morning!!

How are you doing? Big congrats on SOFT LAUNCH!

I’m completely in a nostalgia balloon right now

it’s like a dreamscape

I haven

I haven’t g-chatted in over a decade

Haha, it’s like writing a book!1

omg it is so is

also -- the AI prompted responses were definitely not there the last time I used this haha

and given that you’re the modern copyright warrior I will not dare use one of them

Thank you for that!!

They’re always pretty bad, too

I say “I love that!” like 5 times in every interview, yet it never suggests that as a response

Annnnyway, let’s talk about SOFT LAUNCH! Can you share what it’s about?

yes!!!

Soft Launch is about a woman who gets married and divorced before thirty, then moves to NYC to start a new life that’s fully untethered to the domestic life of her twenties.

it’s a throwback to the glossy women’s fiction of the early 2000s (but it takes place circa 2012ish)

What was the inspiration for the book?

It’s completely autofictional. I got married when I was 21 and divorced in my late twenties, literally right as I graduated from law school and was taking the bar

I moved to new york and had absolutely no idea who I was or how I was going to navigate this new life. I’d never been single in my twenties. I was about to turn thirty. I felt great on paper -- law degree from Duke, a job at one of the top Big Law firms, and I was personally a hot mess

My therapy was going back to the books, movies & shows that had (kind of) been the roadmap I thought adulthood was supposed to be like. Lots of Emily Giffen and Devil Wears Prada, Bridget Jones, SATC

I wasn’t finding anything contemporary that was quite doing it for me

so I started writing

and 13 years later my book came out!!

I wrote it very casually from like 2013-2020

on the Subway, on a plane, NJ transit to see my family

and then Covid happened and for the first time I wasn’t structuring my day around going to an office, and I committed to finishing it. It felt like the manuscript was about halfway done at that point

I finished it in 2021 and started querying

I thought my query letter was so great

and I got a few bites, but most of the positive responses were some version of “we like the writing but can’t place this in the market”

I work in film and I am very familiar with that response haha

but I kept querying... I think I had a query tracker with about 50 subs on it when I finally put everything on pause because I got pregnant, found out we were moving from NYC to Los Angeles, got married and started a new job in the span of 3 months

3 years later, a woman who had read it in 2021 (as a friend - just to give feedback) emailed me asking if I’d ever sold the book - she was working at Lake Union (the book club imprint of Amazon Publishing) and thought her colleague in the upmarket women’s imprint would like it

How serendipitous!

I told her I’d barely had time to think about it since 2021

and had definitely not read it in 3 years

but I sent it to her, and 6 months later, her colleague / now my editor at Little A reached out, and two weeks later they sent an offer

Omg! So a book deal without the agent. What did you do next?

Read more

• How Abra became the director of an event that draws more than 300 authors and 100,000 book-lovers

• How planners decide which authors to invite

• Where book festivals fit into the book-event ecosystem for writers

• How authors can figure out which book fests might be a fit—and put themselves in the best possible position to be invited

• The question you must ask before committing to a festival

• The mistake some attending authors make days before the fest—and how authors can make organizers’ lives easy

• Abra’s best advice for someone thinking about starting their own book fest

…and more! Be sure to sign up for Abra’s newsletter, The Booktender, where she shares delightful monthly reading lists and commentary about what she’s reading.

Thank you , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with ! You can check out my past Substack Lives here and listen to any of them in your favorite podcast app (including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and others linked to the right or using the “Listen via…” button).

A few announcements before we get into today’s lovely guest post:

• On Wednesday, 5/20 at noon ET, I’ll be doing a Substack Live about everything authors need to know about book festivals with the amazing , who writes The Booktender and is the executive director of the . Here’s the link! Watch and participate on the Substack app or desktop (or stream afterward as a video or podcast).

• I have upcoming book events in Kalispell, Brooklyn, Minneapolis, the Hudson Valley, and more, in part to mark the 6/16 paperback publication of The Last Ferry Out, my queer, puzzle-box mystery set on an island with creepy ruins and stunning beaches and secretive expats and many more fun things. (If you like my newsletter, I think you’ll love it.)

That’s right, it’s a guest post! Because I don’t actually know everything, I’m excited to share from-the-trenches pieces by authors and publishing professionals. This from-the-trenches one is from , whose enormously fun non-fiction book, PARKS AND REC, is out now. Enjoy!

It’s hard to say when I knew I really nailed my book events this time around, for the release of my new book Parks and Rec: The Story of the Underdog TV Show That Lit’rally Inspired a Vision for a Better America.

It may have been when I was introduced at the storied 92^nd Street Y in New York City along with my conversation partner for the evening, Pulitzer Prize winner and New Yorker critic Emily Nussbaum. Or when I was in Chicago at the American Writers Museum chatting with Nick Offerman’s amiable father, Ric. Or when I was sitting next to a crackling fire at the picturesque Starlite Motel in Upstate New York, sharing stories with a local mayor while we ate and drank Parks and Rec-themed snacks and cocktails.

What I’ve learned over time—over nine books and 15 years as a traditionally published author—is that events do make a difference, despite what your publisher will tell you. (To me, there is something essential about getting out and talking to humans about the book, and especially making meaningful connections with booksellers.)

But I have also learned that playacting at “book tour” doesn’t get the job done; it’s putting the effort in to craft a special experience that makes all the difference, especially in these post-pandemic times, when it’s harder than ever to get folks out of the house, even though they also really want to do cool stuff IRL.

Besides the writing itself, event planning is one of the few things we have some control over in this process. We can put on a good show. I write about pop culture history, so I’m keenly aware of the power of a little razzle dazzle.

Once upon a time, the bar was lower. We could simply show up and read a few pages, answer a few questions, drink cheap wine and call it a night. I did roughly this up through my fourth book (and my bestseller) Seinfeldia in 2016. It’s tempting to play the part of “author” by simply “going on tour,” booking yourself at a few bookstores, and then being sad when no one shows up—but I’ve come to believe that giving people a special experience is where it’s at. This gets easier the more you build a track record and relationships with venues and booksellers, but here are some of the key things I’ve done to nail it this time around:

1. Choose your venue carefully, and ask questions.

For starters, propose events only in places you know you can draw a crowd on your own—i.e., you have friends and family there. (If a venue invites you, that’s different; that means the crowd is on them. It doesn’t mean they’ll definitely get you a crowd, just that it’s not your problem.)

Standards are rising; I’ve heard from some venues that you need to be able to draw at least 50 people (!) or it’s not worth the financial investment in books and extra staff for them. It’s not a bad idea to actually ask whether they have a minimum crowd size in mind. I’ve had this come up way too late in the game—like two weeks before the event—when a venue threatened to cancel because they hadn’t sold enough tickets yet. (It worked out great, we had 100 people, but it was stressful.)

In related news, don’t try to make the most of a trip to another city by double- or triple-booking yourself for multiple events in a short period of time. You’ll only dilute your pull.

And finally, if you do find places that have built-in audiences, hold onto them for dear life. I’ve had wonderful luck with the American Writers Museum in Chicago (where my friend Alison does a beautiful job running programming) and The Common Good bookstore in Upstate New York, which prides itself on being a community gathering spot.

2. Make it special.

This one is key in 2026 and beyond, and it’s what I’m most proud of on this tour. I learned what this really looked like when I did the Jewish Book Council for Seinfeldia. Sub-lesson here: If you’re not familiar, this group actually books authors to come out to Jewish centers across the country, and covers travel. This means every stop is of the “they invited me” variety, so you don’t have to worry about your crowds. (To qualify, basically you and/or your book must be Jewish.)

Some stops were great, some were duds, but one taught me the true meaning of “book event”: In Louisville, the local JCC produced a beautiful evening at a local restaurant, where we had Seinfeld-themed cocktails and I spoke along with Jonathan Wolff, the composer responsible for the Seinfeld theme, who also played some of his theme creations on piano.

Since then, I’ve had a cosmos-and-cupcakes party at the Ace Hotel in New York City for Sex and the City and Us and the aforementioned Starlite Motel event for Parks and Rec (masterminded by The Common Good’s Matthew Goldman).

3. Add other elements.

Even if you can’t get a slick venue or themed cocktails, you can always add a unique element or two. I’m genuinely grateful, as an attendee of others’ events, that novelists have gotten hip to the idea of having conversation partners instead of just reading from their books. (It’s hard to do a good reading!)

My go-to, if I have to present alone, is to show some clips from the shows I’ve written about and then share some stories and insights about them. This is obvious for the kind of work I do, but you can use this as a jumping-off point for your own creativity. Can you show some photos or clips of inspirations behind your book?

I’ve also tried to get slightly more creative with my conversation partners this time, inviting Parks and Rec star Nick Offerman’s dad, Ric, who is the mayor of the small Illinois town where Nick grew up (above), and Kingston Mayor Steve Noble, who started his own career in the parks and recreation department. There could be equally fun, thematic guests for novels, like a real-life detective for a mystery. Lastly, I try to dress at least subtly on theme, whether it’s a blouse the character of Leslie Knope wore or a T-shirt for a band featured on a show.

4. Go to Canada.

This is something you’d have to work out through your publisher, but it’s magical if you can make it happen. Canada appears to still operate on an older (better!) version of authorhood. My Canadian publisher invited me out to promote Sex and the City and Us, and I felt like I suddenly had a Fairy Godmother of Publishing.

They put me up in a beautiful hotel, paid for everything, and took me on rounds to many, many daytime news and talk shows before my perfectly executed event that night, which I did not have to plan. I had a similar experience when I pitched Canada for promotion of my Mean Girls book, So Fetch, because it was filmed in Toronto and many of the supporting cast live there.

5. Consider alternatives to the traditional “event.”

Andi and I discovered this together when we visited a meet-and-greet with promoter extraordinaire at the upstate bookstore Rough Draft. She just hung out at a table and chatted with people and signed books while everyone milled about on a busy weekend afternoon. No pressure to corral a crowd, just a way of meeting folks and telling them about the book.

I did something similar at the Newburgh Brewing Company during their regular trivia night. They invited me to do a Parks and Rec trivia round and give away a few books. I talked to people who were obvious fans during the breaks, had some great conversations, and made real connections. Perfect.

After my stellar run of events this time, I have vowed not to do events in the future just to look like an author, but instead to make them indispensable. Good events also make for better photo ops for social, and they’ll make people more likely to come out for your events in the future.

I do have one more event for Parks and Rec, in LA, on June 2! If you’re there, join me at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, blocks away from the building that stands in for city hall on the show, with actress Allison Becker, who played reporter Shauna Malwae-Tweep.

Giveaway!

Jennifer will send a signed copy of Parks and Rec to one lucky paid subscriber. (Contest open to those residing in the lower 48 states; enter by 11:59pm ET on Friday, May 22.)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Seinfeldia, the definitive story of the creation and legacy of Parks and Recreation, with exclusive interview content from its cast, crew, and creators

More than fifteen years after Parks and Recreation premiered, it has become a streaming staple. It’s beloved for its jokes, characters, and expressions—the show even created a now widely observed holiday, Galentine’s Day. How did it all happen and how did the show transform from a ratings disappointment into a cult classic? Pop culture historian Jennifer Keishin Armstrong reveals all this and more in the authoritative history of the show, which is as full of humor, optimism, and heart as Parks and Recreation itself.

Through new and exclusive interviews, as well as deep insight and smart and entertaining pop culture analysis, Armstrong tells the story of how Parks and Recreation came to be: how it grew from The Office’s success and Obama-inspired optimism, how producers assembled one of TV’s most lovable casts but barely survived a mediocre first season, how the show found its voice by getting more political and more romantic, and how it became a cultural force despite middling ratings during its network run, going on to become a television savior of the Trump era and a modern classic.

Lovingly told and deeply researched, Parks and Rec is the ultimate history of the show that taught us what’s important in life: friends, waffles, and work.

To enter, comment #parksandrec below (and feel free to ask Jennifer any questions about nailing a book tour!).

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Futher reading:

It’s a feeling I haven’t had in a while, that odd, wistful sea wave of traveling solo, finding yourself abruptly alone with your thoughts, keyed-up and weary all at once. No one else to weigh in on what to do, when. Which is blissful, in many ways. So why do I feel a sort of yawning aversion to my own company?1

I’m sure exhaustion is at least some of it, after I chased a big birthday with a fantastic but socially depleting stint at Thrillerfest, capped by giving a relatively scorched-Earth speech in front of—no big deal—R.L. Stine and Harlan Coben and David Baldacci and just about every other author I’ve looked up to for decades. (I’ll be sharing said speech here soon!)

I was the belle of the ball, riding high on a wave of validation. And now that I’m in a quiet room with no sound but someone else’s TV a few rooms away…reader, I do not feel like a princess. In fact, I worry the empress has no clothes.

It’s both public and personal. So many conversations I’ve had over the last month or two have boiled down to: The wheels are coming off the buses. Every bus. AI. War. The White House. The climate. Education. Human rights. All of them.

And set against that backdrop, when the world feels like a hurricane of horrible things, the personal unknowns and setbacks hit harder, don’t they? To give a snapshot of my own precariously spinning plates (paywalled because I’m sharing numbers and details here):

Read more

Hello, friends! A few quick announcements before today’s spectacular bookseller Q&A:

• I’ll be discussing The Last Ferry Out and all things generative AI with the brilliant Paul Bradley Carr (author of The Confessions) tomorrow, 5/12, in San Francisco’s wonderful Best Bookstore in Union Square. RSVP here (it’s free)!

• Speaking of, I have upcoming book events in Kalispell, Brooklyn, Minneapolis, and more, in part to mark the 6/16 paperback publication of The Last Ferry Out, a queer puzzle-box mystery on a tropical island populated by enigmatic expats and tight-lipped locals.

• On Wednesday, 5/20 at noon ET, I’ll be chatting with , executive director of the Tucson Festival of Books (and writer of The Booktender), about everything authors need to know about book festivals. I’m so excited! It’ll stream here.

Welcome back to Ask a Bookseller, a monthly column in which folks from amazing indie bookstores across the nation WORLD answer authors’ burning questions. Y’know, stuff that’s obvious to booksellers but shrouded in mystery to us writers, a la…

• How do you gauge if an in-store event was a “success”?

• How can authors let bookstores know about their upcoming release?

• Can stores return autographed copies to the publisher?

Be sure to give the bookshops helping us out lots of love (and traffic), and comment to share the questions you’d like answered. (And if you run an indie bookstore and would like to be featured, hit me up!)

Today’s booksellers is of Storytellers, Inc., a shop in St. Annes on Sea in Lancashire. Her book, Receipts from the Bookshop, based on her Substack of the same name, will be published in the US with William Morrow in September. Preorder it from—obviously—your local independent bookshop!

I loved Katie’s thoughtful commentary on how AI creeps into the industry and how bookselling is different across the pond. Enjoy!

Please tell me about your store!

I own Storytellers, Inc., an independent bookshop in St. Annes on Sea in Lancashire, with my mum. We opened in December 2010 as a children’s bookshop, and extended into a general independent in 2015. It’s a two-room shop, but we keep quite a small stock. There isn’t much storage beyond the shop floor itself so everything we have is out for sale, and we tend to only stock single copies of anything – even new titles. We can get restocked within a day or two from our main distributor for things we sell regularly, so we receive small deliveries several times a week with customer orders, restocks and new titles. Every Friday, I detail a full day’s trade in the shop on my Substack – .

Has generative AI affected how you run the shop?

I hope my answer to this is momentarily heartening – with my own eyes, I currently see no evidence of generative AI in the bookshop so far. Of course I can’t know where someone has picked up their shopping list, but no one has shown me a list of AI recommendations to enquire about, no one has queried if a book is written by AI and to my knowledge, we do not stock any titles that are AI-authored.

I know this will change – books will sneak in under the radar if publishers become adept at hiding when a book is written with AI (Is there suddenly a shortage of talented humans?!) but as our stock is very personally selected by us, my hope is that we can try and avoid this for as long as possible.

I think this is a scary moment in publishing, and of course, I know why a publisher would use a free robot tool instead of a human who needs to be paid, but I believe in the art of great publishing, and while discount shops and supermarkets might end up populated with AI-generated genre titles and picture books with AI-generated illustrations, my hope is that real-people-based-publishing will soar in response.

Unfortunately, this means AI slop will become a class issue in publishing, with human-made books becoming more expensive as a result, once again creating accessibility issues for people on lower incomes. This is why libraries, and school libraries must be protected at all costs.

Independent bookshops won’t suffer because of AI, because they will always prioritise writing by real writers and we have relationships with publishers, editors and the writers themselves, that help us select our stock. Plus, events are such a huge part of the independent bookshop culture and you can’t host an evening with someone who doesn’t exist.

I don’t worry about AI books encroaching on my shop, but I do worry for the generations of children who will be forced to endure them and miss out on the magical books that might make them a reader for life.

Any sense of how running an independent bookstore is different in the UK vs the US? (To put it another way: Would anything surprise US authors about how books are sold across the pond?)

I suspect that running an independent bookshop is a pretty similar story all around the world. Independent bookshops are at once entirely unique, but cut from the same cloth. I think, and I’m having this thought right now so it might not be coherent, it’s because an independent bookshop has to be instigated by a person who loves books and bookshops.

It’s entirely optional to open an independent bookshop, and it’s a really risky financial decision, so you’d only do it if you really, really, wanted to. You do it for the people, for the place, and for the books. Those are really the only three reasons you’d open an independent bookshop, so I think my small shop on the North West coast of England will have plenty of similarities to a bookshop across the pond.

Publishing-wise, I guess I don’t know what I don’t know. I mean, there’s no reason why there’d be any major structural differences within the industry, other than the scale, but I can’t speak with any authority on the matter. I am currently in the process of being published in the US for the first time and so far, it’s been a pretty similar process.

Here in the UK, publishers get the attention of indie bookshops through proofs (the US calls them something different – galleys maybe?!) and advanced information from the reps, or through targeted mailing lists on emails from the overall publicity teams. I’ve had comments from my readers on my Substack that the book post that I receive is quite extravagant in comparison to what other booksellers are receiving in other countries – the proofs/galleys can be beautifully produced and sometimes they’re sent with little treats to tempt the booksellers into noticing them more (it works!).

I don’t know if that’s a UK thing, or just that I’m lucky enough to be on some particularly good mailing lists sometimes. So perhaps the smaller nature of publishing in the UK allows for some closer relationships between publishers and booksellers.

How do you decide which foreign books (American ones, in particular!) to stock?

Of course, a huge portion of our stock is by American authors, but these will be UK editions because that’s what’s available to us. We don’t order anything directly from any overseas publishers ourselves, so we’re working within what’s available to us from our UK distributors. Because they’re not translated titles, American titles are very much mixed in with the UK books in terms of how they’re pitched to us, so the only real differences with American books that come to us is that they might already be a big hit in the US by the time they’re published here, or that the authors won’t be available for events.

I suppose by the nature of the business, only a small portion of what is published in the US will also have a UK deal, so the selection is already really whittled down before we’re choosing from it. But there are plenty of American authors who sell really well in the UK, so it feels like our stock always has a strong representation of US writers.

What I’d be really interested to know is how US bookshops stock UK writers; it’ll be a much smaller percentage of their stock, so does it become more foreign because of that? Does a US shop have a ‘UK’ shelf the way my shop has a Japanese fiction shelf? Asian fiction sells really well in our shop, by the way, and I’d love to say I’m cultured enough to be hand-selecting those translated titles based on something other than what the publishers tell me is good, but we’re very much at the mercy of what they’re trying to sell us. Though, that’s as true for all books as it is for translated titles - I just mean there’s a clear reason why some translated titles really take off and others barely get started and it might just be a really good publicity campaign.

Here I feel I should just add that obviously I don’t stock everything that is published and that I can’t even stock everything that I think sounds good. The constant whittling of the great abundance of books that are published every day continues when I buy my stock, which is really just based on what I want to read, plus some big-name stuff that lots of people might ask for.

My understanding is that in the UK (vs the US), far fewer books start as hardcovers, and far more books are sold in supermarkets and other general stores. Is that more or less right, and how do independent bookshops fit into the bookselling ecosystem there?

This sounds right to me. It’s been a while since I was last in a US bookstore but I remember being blown away by how many hardback picture books were available. It differs between areas of publishing but certainly in my shop we struggle to sell picture books in a hardback format unless it’s Julia Donaldson’s latest. Customers generally want to wait for a cheaper paperback so we stock very few in hardback in that area. Children’s fiction also generally goes straight to paperback unless it’s a very big name or a gift edition of some sort.

Non-fiction for adults in hardback can sell well at Christmastime, but they’re often titles that are hugely discounted in chain shops or online, so it might not do so well for us in my shop. Hardback fiction is something I’m still stubbornly stocking, because otherwise you feel like you’ve got no literary new releases at all, but it is hard to sell and you do get asked when the paperback will be out.

Something we are seeing a rise of sales in are special edition hardbacks – sprayed edges, special endpapers or signed editions, anything that can makes the book a little bit more luxurious is a good way to get a place on our main display table, and they seem to put the customers in much more of an impulse purchase frame of mind. They’re often limited editions so if you don’t buy them when you see them, chances are they’ll be gone next time. I like this trend because it’s where an independent bookshop can really shine – if there’s a special edition, or some matching merchandise for example, that can be the difference between a customer buying it on Amazon or coming to buy it from us.

Supermarkets are a bit of a bugbear for us. It didn’t use to be as much of a problem as they stuck to commercial/genre paperback fiction series and the sort of massively popular commercial children’s books that we didn’t have too much stock overlap anyway. But supermarkets seem to have doubled down on books - even though I am sure they’re often selling them for a loss - and the range of titles they offer has really expanded to include big new literary fiction titles that they can sell for cheaper than we can stock them.

It’s very galling because it makes us feel like we’re the bad guys for selling books at their RRP, but we don’t have the margins to offer those sorts of discounts. If you can pick up the latest Sally Rooney for half price with your groceries, then an independent bookshop has to be able to offer you the signed special edition Sally Rooney just to get you back into the bookshop. Sometimes that’s possible, sometimes it isn’t!

Is there something US publishers are doing right that you wish UK publishers would do too—or vice versa?

Well, it’s a small thing, but I’ve always been a big fan of the American use of ‘A novel’ on the cover. It’s elegant and useful. Sometimes stating the obvious is actually very helpful. I wish we used it here, I think it looks very chic.

Thank you so much, Katie! Friends, be sure to give Storytellers, Inc. some love, and let me know in the comments what else you’d like to learn from booksellers. And don’t forget to preorder Katie’s September release, Receipts from the Bookshop!

• Why now is such a crucial time for us to be having these discussions—and taking action

• The shockingly within-our-grasp environmental solutions we can push for (and how)

• How to break down the overwhelming concept of AI into actionable arenas and causes

• Why community is the backbone of effective activism—and how to find it (or build it)

• The reason “call trains” and “co-hosts” are powerful grassroots tools

• The exact bills you should be paying attention to, plus how to push for the right outcomes

• The surprising reason even small fundraisers are effective against multi-billion-dollar companies

• The most effective way to talk to someone who’s new to the topic of AI

…and more! Be sure to follow both guests, sign up to follow Users Union’s progress, and order Saul’s book for more. (We didn’t discuss this in the call, but I’m also a fan of The AI Doc’s cheat sheet for ways to get involved. What other resources are y’all using to turn your anger into action?)

Thank you , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with and ! You can check out my past Substack Lives here and listen to any of them in your favorite podcast app.

My next one will be on May 20 at noon ET, when I’ll be discussing everything authors need to know about book festivals with , executive director of the Tucson Festival of Books and author of the excellent Substack The Booktender. Here’s that link. See you there!

• When agents burst onto the scene (and why publishers loathed them at first)

• Where the title comes from and why her book cover is giving midcentury glam

• Why agents are so secretive about their day-to-day

• The surprising reason her book research—and access to pros—took a big turn midway through her project

• Why the introduction of paperbacks upended agents’ role

• The questions you should ask an agent before signing—and the convo you must have with your agent after working together for a while

• How she sees agenting changing in 5-10 years

• Why you should pick up the book for “a whole lot of quantitative data about what contemporary literature is and what it’s turned into thanks to the agents’ influence.”

…and more! Be sure to sign up for Laura’s newsletter, , where she shares fascinating, data-driven research about books, publishing, and culture—and order her book for more.

During the Live, we discussed agent calls, and I promised to share the link to this helpful post from Sally Ekus:

Not So Secret Agent

What Is the Role of a Literary Agent?

Dear Not So Secret Agent readers…

Read more

2 months ago · 57 likes · 18 comments · Sally Ekus

Here’s another great one from author :

To Tell a Story

What I'd tell you on an author call: Agent edition

Ok we’ve talked advice about the querying process. What if you asked me for a call because you’ve received some offers from agents and you’re deciding between them? Or what if you have an agent but you’re thinking of jumping ship? Or what if you’re making your agent list and you need to know what qualities are importa…

Read more

a year ago · 105 likes · 32 comments · Leah Rowan

Finally, here’s my compendium of successful query letters, with additional resources at the end:

Thank you , , , , , and many others for tuning into my live video with ! You can check out my past Substack Lives here and listen to any of them in your favorite podcast app.

My next one will be on Wednesday, 5/8 at noon ET, when I’ll be discussing Activism 101: How to Hold Big AI Accountable with Saul Austerlitz (author of How to Assemble an Activist) and Aurelio Aguirre (software developer and cofounder of Users Union). Here’s that link. See you there!

A few announcements before we get into today’s lovely guest post.

• I have not one but two fantastic Substack Lives coming up next week:

  On Monday, 5/4 at noon ET, I’ll be chatting with about literary agents and her new book, Middlemen: Literary Agents and the Making of American Fiction, with a focus on key takeaways for authors. It’ll stream here.

  On Wednesday, 5/6 at noon ET, I’ll be discussing Activism 101: How to Hold Big AI Accountable with (author of How to Assemble an Activist) and Aurelio Aguirre (software developer and cofounder of Users Union). Here’s that link.

  Watch on the Substack app or desktop (or stream afterward as a video or podcast). We’ll take comments and questions live!

• I have upcoming book events in San Francisco, Kalispell, Brooklyn, Minneapolis, and more, in part to mark the 6/16 paperback publication of The Last Ferry Out, my puzzle-box mystery set on an island with creepy ruins and stunning beaches and secretive expats and many more fun things. (If you like my newsletter, I think you’ll love it.)

• And finally, if I may: Today is my 40th birthday! I’ll be offline for the May Day data and general strike, but it’s a great weekend to buy yourself the gift of one of my books. :)

That’s right, it’s a guest post! Because I don’t actually know everything, I’m excited to share from-the-trenches pieces by authors and publishing professionals. This resonant one is from Stacey Lee, whose gothic YA mystery, Heiress of Nowhere, is out now. Enjoy!

There was a moment at a book festival this past weekend that caught me off guard in the best possible way.

A couple of authors I deeply admire, writers who have been ‘in the biz’ longer than I have and who I never would have imagined casually chatting with when I was a baby author, looked at me and said, “Oh, it’s one of the OGs. Stacey Lee.”

I laughed, but privately, I felt my chest swell a little. Not because I think of myself as legendary or particularly wise, but because I realized: I have been doing this for awhile. Not as long as some, but longer than many. And in publishing, staying in the game is half the battle.

The longer I do this work, the more convinced I am that the only thing a writer can truly control is the writing itself. You can pursue excellence through revision, honing the craft, and simply doing the work. Those out of our control things, market trends, politics (shudder), an unknown virus that makes us shelter in place? Those out of our control things plot many a course in this industry.

Success isn’t exactly a destination with clear coordinates. To me, publishing feels much like sailing. The ship that survives is the one that stays seaworthy. You keep sealing the cracks and swabbing the decks. You watch the skies for storms. Through time, you learn how to navigate rough waters. And yes, sometimes you wish on the stars.

You do these things so that when the right wind finally comes, your ship is strong enough to catch it.

I think often about The Downstairs Girl, which became my biggest netter so far, and was chosen as a Reese Witherspoon Book Club YA pick. I would love to tell you I masterminded every bit of that success, but the truth is, so much of it was timing and luck. I did not control Reese Witherspoon reading the book. I did not control the market. I did not control the way the industry happened to align around that title at that particular moment.

What I could control was writing the strongest book I knew how to write at the time.

That was my job: keep the ship ready.

Recently, I ran into a writer who has had the kind of success most authors dream about—the kind that can change your fortunes overnight. But she told me there had been a point in her career when she considered using a pen name because her sales track record wasn’t strong enough. This was after more than twenty books.

Twenty.

That stopped me in my tracks because from the outside, we so often assume success is linear. We imagine that once someone “makes it,” they stay safely afloat forever. But publishing doesn’t work that way. Careers rise and fall as trends change. Winds shift.

What happened for this writer was not that she suddenly became talented overnight. It was that one particular book finally met the right moment: the market was hungry for it and the publisher got behind it. Stars aligned. The book exploded. That fickle wind blew her way.

But the important part is this: she stayed in the race long enough to catch it. If you want to make it in publishing, you have to last long enough for luck to find you.

That’s what I want writers to remember, especially now, when social media makes everything so visible. It’s so easy to measure ourselves against others. To believe our worth depends on lists and numbers. Those things can matter professionally, yes. But they are not the same thing as the work. They are not the same thing as endurance.

If you want to make it in this industry, be tenacious and last. Keep your ship strong. Stay in the game long enough for the wind to change.

One day, someone may look at you and say, “Oh, it’s one of the OGs.”

Giveaway!

Stacey will send a signed copy of Heiress of Nowhere (which got four starred reviews!) to one lucky paid subscriber. (Contest open to those residing in the lower 48 states; enter by 11:59pm ET on Wednesday, May 6.)

An orphaned teen races to uncover a killer—who may have come from the sea—when she and her beloved orcas fall under suspicion in this “dark, vibrant, and thrilling adventure” (BookPage, starred review) and historical gothic mystery from the New York Times bestselling author of The Downstairs Girl, Stacey Lee.

1918. Orcas Island, Washington.

Lucy Nowhere has spent her eighteen years working on the vast estate of the eccentric shipbuilder who took her in after she washed ashore in a green canoe as a baby. But she has long wished for a life off the island, and in a matter of days, she is set to leave for college—and, for the first time, choose her own future.

Then she finds her employer’s severed head on the beach. Rumors swirl that a mischievous spirit and its minions, the sea wolves, have struck again. Lucy doesn’t believe in myths. She knows that a human—a human murderer—killed him. And when she is unexpectedly named heiress to the estate, she understands the next target is her.

Her closest friend, the estate’s vigilant young guard, begs her to escape while she can. But Lucy knows the only way she can discover who she is, and free the island of its curse, is to find the real killer—before she becomes the next victim.

To enter, comment #heiress below.

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Kate: Hi there! Are we connecting for our Q&A through here?

Can you see this?

Me: Hi!!

Yay!

So sorry about that! This morning I somehow rejected an important international WhatsApp call when I tried to pick it up

Something is in the air!

No worries!

I’m so excited to be talking to you about your beautiful, NYT bestselling book! Congratulations!!!

Has your tour wrapped up? How are you feeling a bit post-launch?

I am finally done with book tour and profoundly exhausted. It was a lovely time meeting so many amazing readers, but a different city every day is a lot for this introvert! My friend Allison Pataki put it perfectly by describing the feeling as “exhausterwhelmulated”: a state of being when one feels simultaneously exhausted, overstimulated and overwhelmed at once. That’s where I am, and I’m doing my best just to rest and refill the well, but I think as a fellow type-A workaholic you can sympathize with the feeling of being unable to really rest...

So of course my “I’m just resting” means “I am doing social media, sending 1400 emails, and making graphics on Canva.”

#sorestful

Ah yes, the oh-so-familiar battle between bone-deep exhaustion and an innate feeling of MUST DO SOMETHING!

Bingo. You get me.

Well, I’m glad we’re at least able to have this convo while comfy. I’m wearing sweatpants and lounging on the sofa and I hope you are too!

I’m still in PJs.

EXCELLENT.

Can you share what THE ASTRAL LIBRARY is about?

I like to think of it as my love letter to libraries, librarians, and the world of readers which I’ve been a part of my whole life. It starts with a day in the life of one very down-on-her-luck bookworm named Alix, barely keeping body and soul together in modern-day Boston--on the day she loses her apartment, her job, and her bank account because of identity theft, she retreats to her safe space (which like for so many of us is the library--in her case, the reading room of the Boston Public Library) and stumbles through a door to the Astral Library: a liminal space where all books exist, whether or not they’ve been written yet or not.

She has the opportunity there to escape to a new life inside her favorite book, but before she can escape to the pages of her new world, a mysterious enemy emerges to threaten the Library. Running from novel to novel just ahead of disaster, Alix has to decide whether to fight for the Library, and what kind of heroine she is capable of being.

I loved this book so much! You can FEEL the love for libraries and readers on every page. Where’d the original idea come from?

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So that’s…distressing. I can’t repeat his experiment because I won’t use ChatGPT under any circumstances, but I’m back to believing that unless a written piece has an AI prompt left in it, or the author admitted to using an LLM, you simply cannot be sure. That’s why I think it’s more important than ever to communicate your own stance on AI usage.

I’m leaving the interview below up for transparency. If anything, this all proves my point: AI is leading to massive distrust between creators, patrons, and their industries, and that is very, very bad. —Andi

had good reason to dislike me.

My NYT op-ed about how AI is eroding trust between readers, authors, and the publishing industry linked to his company, Verify My Writing, alongside some other online AI detectors in a paragraph about just how fallible and, in most cases, sketchy the AI-dars1 are.

Instead of lashing out, he reached out to start a dialogue about how, yes, many of these LLM checkers are worthless—but that makes the good ones more crucial than ever. I’ll admit I was wary, but over multiple conversations, Derek has convinced me that—to my surprise and relief—Verify My Writing is the real deal…and I believe that using it is not evil or hypocritical for anti-AI activists like myself.

Over g-chat, Derek and I dug into how the technology works under the hood, why AI-checking-AI won’t necessarily lead to a nightmarish arms race, whether the systems retain your writing or use it for training, and more.

Me: Hello! Thanks so much for chatting with me today

Derek: My pleasure. This is cool.

So we connected after I wrote about AI detectors in my NYT op-ed. Can you start by sharing who you are and what Verify My Writing is all about?

Absolutely. I’m Derek Newton. I’m a writer (journalist) who’s covered education and fraud. And I started Verify My Writing as a way for writers to get our work scanned as verified as authentic and human-written, not AI.

As a google search will tell you, there are now dozens of AI “checkers” available online. Can you say more about how you developed this one and what makes it different?

Yes. There are plenty of free AI-checkers. Most of them are bad. Or worse, outright fraud engines trying to sell people things to fix problems they don’t have. That’s why so many people say “AI detection” does not work. But, as someone who’s covered this space from the start, written about it dozens of time, the research is clear that, while many AI-checkers are junk, a few are good, and a few of those are exceptional.

We use those that have been independently proven as exceptional as the basis for our scans and scores.

OK, so you were like, “We need an AI detector that is actually reliable.” How did you go about developing that?

We do need that. And, more importantly, I think we needed a way to take AI use away from accusation and police action and make something that rewarded the work and craft of actual writing.

So, we contacted the very best companies in this space and signed them up to run our technology.

When we were on a radio panel together, you stated that VMW’s accuracy is incredibly high—98%, something like that?

Yes. It depends on the document length, style, etc. But the underlying accuracy is 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 25,000 which is something like 99.9999%

Maybe just three nines. I’m a writer.

Forgive the dumb-sounding question, but: How can you be sure? When prompted to write “in the style of Andrea Bartz,” ChatGPT gives me sentences that sound just like something I could’ve written. Where does the confidence come from?

There have been many -- maybe two dozen -- university studies to test AI detection accuracy, even under so-called evasion attacks (aggressive editing) and the results hold up.

I had another writer who trained an AI bot to write in his style. Our system flagged the bot-created writing every time.

The other thing to keep in mind that, in some of those same studies, humans are not especially good at spotting AI writing. Even when they are told to look for it.

If you use AI often, you can spot it more reliably. But even then, not at much above 70%.

Are the university studies peer-reviewed or prepublication, and are they sponsored by the makers of the technology? With regard to Pangram (one of the AI-detecting LLMs), the Wall Street Journal wrote: “The company’s website boasts that its product has been ‘reviewed as the proven, most reliable and most accurate AI detection tool in the market by third parties including University of Maryland.’ But the Maryland study is more self-promotion than neutral review. Four of its seven authors are Pangram employees, including Mr. Spero and fellow co-founder Bradley Emi.”

Both.

The WSJ has a viewpoint - that their editorials were not AI created or AI assisted. That’s fine.

And one of the studies in question was co-written by the some of the data scientists at Pangram. But there are many others from other universities, in no way connected to the provider. Either way, they all show pretty much the same thing.

Of course, the Journal only mentioned that one study. Like I mentioned, they have a view.

Got it! Let’s get nerdy about Verify My Writing—under the hood, what is it actually doing when you input a passage of text?

When a writer submits text, we engage with one of our vetted and approved tech providers (Pangram is one of those) and we scan the text. This returns a score, which we calculate as a human score and not an AI score.

In about one in ten of our scans, we engage more than one system, so as to keep an accuracy and validity check on our scores.

Then, we share that score with the writer or person who submitted it. And, if they want, they can get a Certification from us, with that score.

The Certification can’t be altered or faked and is tied to the individual document scanned on that day and time.

The tech providers, including Pangram, are themselves LLMs trained to look for patterns, correct?

Yes. And no. They are closer to machine learning systems that use LLMs as reference points in scoring. They are not LLMs that use that data to create anything. But the machine learning is the operational part. And, with all our partners, we checked that the LLMs they use are all public source or licensed.

These are not the same LLMs as those being built by OpenAI or others.

An analogy - a good AI detection system is looking for the math fingerprints left behind by an AI bot. It does not need a large dataset of existing fingerprints to do that. At most, it needs a set of AI’s fingerprints. It may reference an LLM in training to learn how to spot a fingerprint from a smudge (a human written work). But in day-to-day use, it’s not using a standard, human-populated LLM very often.

I hope that makes sense.

It needs a large body of AI-created text more than a body of not-AI text. May have been easier way to say that.

Okay, that makes sense, thanks! I have a few questions related to this...

Fire away.

First, machine learning is a subset of AI that’s all about learning patterns from existing data. But it is a kind of AI. So we have AI checking AI. Couldn’t this just lead to an arms race where generative AI models learn what Pangram et al are looking for and get better at changing or hiding it? In other words, couldn’t LLMs start scrubbing away their own fingerprints?

Good question. Based on what I know, no.

So long as a math system (an algorithm) is making it, it will always be possible to see that math behind the scenes.

It may get harder. But it will remain possible. So long as it’s being created with rules.

No rules writing, human writing, is what makes it different.

And, in fact, the LLMs and AI companies could be making their text harder to spot. But they are not. The most recent data shows that AI-produced text is becoming more average, more predictable, easier to spot.

Interesting! My guess is they care way less about individual plagiarism accusations and more about taking over the world, Pinky and the Brain style, haha

Something like that.

They are training to be able to talk like anything -- chemists, pilots, skaters. They are less concerned about general output these days.

Fascinating! I’m resisting the temptation to go into that rabbit hole out of respect for your time and all my additional questions :)

Resist!'

Next one: When I drop my writing into VMW and ask it to scan and analyze it, am I—behind the scenes—enriching an LLM company (like OpenAI) or a company that makes chips to power AI (like NVIDIA)?

Nope. We do not share text with anyone and neither do our partners.

To back up -- the LLM companies can “watermark” their text so it can be spotted very easily. Making “was it AI” conversations clear. But they refuse to. Bad for business.

I don’t know about the chips question -- we use AWS. So, maybe. Just not sure. But the LLMs, that is a no.

OK calling in my machine-learning specialist girlfriend to make sure I word my next question correctly, one sec :)

Love it. Though it may exceed my ability to answer. I’m a journalist, not an AI engineer.

Haha totally fair, I just don’t want to muddy the waters with an imprecise or incorrect question

Good deal. I’m game, either way.

Actually, let me just go back to something you said earlier: “with all our partners, we checked that the LLMs they use are all public source or licensed. These are not the same LLMs as those being built by OpenAI or others.”

sure

So further upstream, Verify My Writing/its partners isn’t using a paid LLM from one of the big 5 companies (OpenAI et al)?

Easy one. No.

Got it. Can you explain more clearly how the system computes a score? Like, is it comparing your text to what the AI version would be and telling you whether it matches or not?

(Machine-learning girlfriend puts it this way, which makes less sense to me but might mean something to you: At prediction time, what happens? What type of machine learning technology is used to assign that score—statistical models or LLMs?)

I can try. Starting backwards, I am pretty sure the answer is statistical models.

More broadly, the system looks at a number of features in the text -- sentence structure, word choice, document structure, patterns in any of those. And it has learned what AI would “write.” So it can say, with high confidence, this is very likely to be AI-created. This, over here, is not. One sentence [of AI-generated text] in a full book manuscript probably still gets a 100% human score. 99.9% at the worst.

A thing to keep in mind with all these is that there no point, in my view, in parsing a 99.4% versus a 99.0%. There’s not much information there. What we want to get to is 20% versus 60% versus 100%.

If something gets a score of, say, 80%, does that mean 80% confidence it’s human-written, or that four-fifths of it looks human and one-fifth looks like AI slop?

The latter. 80% of it, we are confident, is human. 20%, we have (strong) doubts.

We’d call that mixed, in most cases. And it’s up to whomever (editor, reader, agent) to say if that’s an issue for them.

Thank you so much. Newsletter subscriber had this question: “Is there a risk of documents that have gone through their verification process being flagged as AI if a secondary source is used? It may get to the point where publishers run 2 separate verifications--get a second opinion. Does his software leave any trace that would be subsequently diagnosed as AI?”

(I take that to mean that no one’s changing the text or clicking “humanize,” but rather the text has run through another detector first, and someone’s inputting that output into VMW)

Good question. No.

Our systems don’t retain the writing. So it can’t know if something was scanned once or a hundred times. And even if it did, it’s only looking at the words on the page, making a calculation as to whether those words were produced by AI or not.

Multiple scans won’t cause something to be seen as more (or less) likely AI.

The bigger risk is that people use junk detection systems for second (or first) opinions. If a bad detector says something is 90% AI, I’m not sure where you go from there.

That “humanize” button haunts my dreams. Could using a tool like Grammarly or a word processor’s built-in grammar check—and accepting sentence-level suggestions—lead to it getting flagged as AI? Like, where’s the line, or how sensitive is VMW to “light-touch” AI use?

Yes. Grammarly and other AI-powered text replacement can (and does) set off good AI detection. If Grammarly replaces your text, the text is AI-created.

That’s where we are again, was that two or three times in a novel? Not much to worry about, score-wise. You’d likely get a 99.7 or something like that. Or did it swap out a full paragraph or chapter? That’s going to show up

If Grammarly flags a grammar error (like it used to) changing that won’t matter. We can’t know if Grammarly flagged it or if your mother/editor did.

OK, that makes sense! Thank you. Finally, I want to ask about behavior-tracking AI detectors like Puddin’, which purport to look for human patterns in HOW the text makes it way onto the page.

Sure. I know a little about these.

At first glance, this sounds like a great idea! ChatGPT generates words in one belch, while I stare out the window, pause to look things up, etc. Easy way to distinguish between the two. But then I wondered if (to go back to the arms race idea), an LLM could learn to make its word-generation LOOK more human to outsmart these detectors.

Basically, I’m curious what your opinion is on this verification method, as someone in the same line of work!

Yes. There are already dozens of autotypers designed to fool these systems and Google Docs.

They can take text (GPT or otherwise) and key it in to any system, at a set rate, with mistakes, and corrections. All looks very organic. Pretty common in college now.

The only way these work is if the detection system has a sample of your human typing, typed in their system, and then you, from then on, type in that system (browser tab, software, etc). Those are very accurate. But ones without knowing how YOU type, are very easy to bypass.

When it comes to typing, human is easy to fake. Typing like you type, is hard to fake. In other words. But the second version requires a willingness to participate.

Right, then you’re asking a company to constantly surveil your writing...

100%

Costs and benefits. Few good trades out here these days.

What a time to be alive! Okay wow, this has been SUPER enlightening and fascinating, and I so appreciate your patience with all my annoying questions. Is there anything else you want to mention or think the author community should know (about Verify My Writing or AI in the book world in general)?

Thank you! This is great.

Just that it’s tough out here right now and we want to help the real writers who really do the work. That’s our mission and our model.

And on that, we are fully aligned!

No surprise at all. Thanks again.

Further reading:

Me: Michelle, hi!

Michelle: Hi, Andrea!

How are you?

Very good. Enjoying a break from my book tour...

Greetings from the annoyingly gray and cold Hudson Valley.

A good day for R&R, maybe? (It’s dreary down in Brooklyn, too!)

Oh, for sure. Though I’m busy working on edits for another manuscript. But there may be a nap in my future (not while we’re chatting ;)).

Ha, let’s hope I don’t put you to sleep! Huge congrats on THE FOUND OBJECT SOCIETY—for those who aren’t already familiar, can you share what it’s about?

You definitely won’t! And thank you. Yes, it’s been a thrill. THE FOUND OBJECT SOCIETY is a novel of speculative suspense that centers around Greta Davenport, a deeply troubled, trainwreck of a socialite who experienced a terrible tragedy 20 years earlier when she was a teen. She survived a car crash and her parents did not. She feels incredible guilt over that and feels it was her fault.

The book begins with her leaving a gala in a huff and she drives off drunk and nearly crashes into a tree. When she arrives home a blank, white square card slides under her front door. She looks out, and no one is there. She thinks nothing of it until the next morning when her camera phone hooks onto a QR code hidden in the card. It’s an invitation to the Found Object Society—a secretive society that allows its members to select from thousands of objects from different eras and regions, and when they hold that object, they get to experience the death of the last person who died touching it.

Such a fresh and unique hook! Where did the idea come from?

It was a real “aha” moment, actually. I was hanging in front of our wood stove with wine and cat on my lap, doomscrolling on IG and came across an ad on Etsy for a faceted 1920s martini glass. I started picturing who the original owner was...I saw a glamorous flapper with a black bob and talking in a mid-atlantic accent...then I pictured her dying while holding it and wondered where her energy would have gone. And POOF the words Found Object, popped into my head. Then the idea started waking me up at night so I stopped work on a different novel and started this one.

Oooh! The proverbial lightbulb moment AND the idea that won’t stop tugging your sleeve!

Yes. It was crazy. Textbook lightbulb. Those don’t happen a lot.

I’m so OCD and completionist, too. It was hard for me to stop the other novel. I’m glad I did.

Wow! I want to circle back to that in a bit, but first: Tell me more about begrudgingly listening to the muse! Did the entire plot click together quickly, or did you start writing without knowing where you were heading, or...?

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Both are terrifying and ongoing, but the discussion’s over. Today, we both agree the most urgent issue of our time is AI companies’ pursuit of superintelligence. As I wrote last week, using these products enriches corporations that have shown blatant disregard for ethical integrity, that exploit people and the planet, and that have openly admitted AI could kill us all (no, I’m not just being dramatic1).

And our window to do something about it is narrowing. To quote the Center for Humane Technology: “Power dynamics are dramatically shifting as AI both centralizes economic and political influence in the hands of a select few, and radically decentralizes powerful and dangerous capabilities across society.” If a tech company (and/or a superintelligent LLM) becomes more powerful than the government…yeah, good luck finally passing that legislation to regulate AI, lawmakers.

If you haven’t read Part 1 yet, please start there:

My first draft of the above piece was actually satire, which I shared here. But I quickly realized that deriding people for using AI for asinine things wasn’t helpful. I don’t think every use case is bad; I think every AI company is bad.

Look, we all empower ethically problematic corporations in different ways—I’m still on Meta, and Substack just platformed Andrew Tate, to give a few examples. My goal is to encourage people to be mindful of the broader implications of using generative AI and not unthinkingly reach for it, and to decide for themselves where their red line is. (I’m aware that mine is more extreme than most people’s, and steeped in privilege.)

Anyway, in my not-satire post, I promised to share some thoughts on what individuals can do to push back against the idea that we “must” embrace AI. This is a jumping-off point, and I want this to be a conversation, so please, please share your ideas and strategies in the comments!

1. Loudly and proudly state that you don’t use generative AI in any way to write your books.

Yes, it’s self-report, but it’s an important signal to readers. I’ve seen shoppers say they’re wary of books published after 2022 because it’s possible the author used AI, which, yikes—that attitude will torpedo the industry PDQ. Reassure your readers that your books are safe! I’m going to ask my publisher to include a statement that my book was made without the use of generative AI on the copyright page, and if they refuse, I’ll put it in an author’s note. (THE LAST FERRY OUT already has this cool addition:)

Now do the same for your other line of work, if applicable! My friend , who runs the fantastic, body neutral fitness publication , gives us a perfect example:

By taking a stand, you encourage other—in your industry and beyond—to be brave and do the same. And since most Americans really don’t want to pay for AI slop (see: the SHY GIRL clusterf*ck), you’re also making a shrewd business decision, imo. People will love it! (On that note, one more plug for Anna’s fantastic workouts and programs!)

Shoutout to this fantastic post from too:

Unresolving

Using AI in my day job atrophies my writing brain

For a long time, I’ve worked as two selves. During the day, I help build products for tech companies. I make spreadsheets and run meetings and more or less optimize along an axis of efficiency and profit. I’m an analytical person, and before I started writing, I studied engineering and business, so for a set period of time …

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2 months ago · 94 likes · 32 comments · Emily J. Smith

2. Educate yourself.

The more you understand, the more empowered—and motivated—you’ll feel to talk to others about AI.

Read books like EMPIRE OF AI, THE THINKING MACHINE, SEARCHES, THE AGE OF EXTRACTION, and DELIBERATE INTERVENTION. (Don’t let AI summarize them for you.)

Follow outlets such as Wired, Fortune, and Futurism, who are sharing fact-checked reporting on AI and citing their sources. (I’m also a fan of the Instagram account that posts “something insane an AI executive said every day in 2026,” because, wow, the words that come right out of their mouth…) Follow content creators in this space (I like YK Hong for “liberatory strategy and tech justice” and am honestly disturbed I can’t name more off the top of my head) and let the algorithm do its thing and show you more. (Irony, yes. Don’t make it a thing.) Signal-boost important stuff on social media—it’s a low-lift way to help educate your followers (Story shares are more impactful than the regram button).

Watch The AI Doc in theaters or at home. (I am so stoked! I’m certain I’ll regret posting this before watching it because it’ll provide so much fodder.) Download the discussion guide, see it with friends, and then have a candid conversation about it.

Listen to conversations with smart minds on the topic. While I’m not the biggest fan of the pod (those headlines make my spine hurt), I loved Diary of a CEO’s interviews with The Center for Humane Technology’s Tristan Harris, “godfather of AI” Geoffrey Hinton, and EMPIRE OF AI author Karen Hao. (If you don’t know where to start, the discussion with Tristan is a fantastic primer.)

What else ya got, friends? I’d love to hear what leading voices you’re following on the topic and what books, outlets, etc. are helping you wrap your head around this new frontier.

3. Let go of an all-or-nothing approach.

This meme lives rent-free in my head:

It’s so true, right? You could make a huge impact on the planet by choosing plant-based alternatives for everything other than cheese. The same is true for LLMs!

I genuinely don't think it's possible to totally stop using generative AI unless you like, go live off-grid in the forest. I have so much compassion and empathy for people who consider the tool a life-saver, and again, I know my relatively extreme position involves a lot of privilege.

But using generative AI as little as possible is hugely impactful. As Michallon recently shared in a great Reel, you can use existing tools to do much of what you’re asking ChatGPT for…they’ll do it better and without slurping up fresh water, polluting the environment, enriching actual supervillains, stealing from creators, etc.!

It’s dangerous to go, “Well, I can’t totally eliminate it from my life, so there’s no point in trying.” There is enormous value in trying! Please try! Keep the mission-critical uses and ditch the rest. The future of humanity literally depends on it!

4. Identify your use cases and find alternatives.

To that end: Maybe you can’t give up generative AI for everything, but I bet there are many things it’s good at…that humans are even better at. I know we all don’t want to ~bother~ our friends or ~ask~ people things, but the folks who love you also love helping you, especially in a community-vibes, favor-economy, we-got-each-other way. (So like, don’t ask a stranger—me—to do a query critique for free. But do ask your crit partners or writing group!)

List the things you’re using AI for and figure out if you could do a skill-swap or pay someone to fill that role. One friend said they were using it to refine loglines before pitching studios. I was like, “Dude, text me! I live for this stuff.” Another bud is helping me build a new website in exchange for my publishing consulting services. One author I know “hired” a friend to help pitch her book to podcasts…in exchange for sewing lessons.

I know this isn’t always practical or possible, but can we try? (Bonus, it builds community and feels great.) What services—handyman, cooking, errands, writing-related, you name it—can you offer a contact who has something you need?

5. Focus on the facts, not unfounded accusations.

As I wrote in my piece about proving your work’s human-made, things will get ugly fast if we all start pointing fingers:

Screaming “OMG THIS IS SO CLEARLY CHATGPT” is not productive, in my opinion. You do not have the right to ruin someone’s career because their m-dash usage strikes your ear wrong. Running someone else’s words through an AI detector without their consent is unfair and wrong, and no detector is 100% infallible (in fact, many are crap). [Note: While it’s true that many AI checkers are crap, I’m still learning more about the rare “good” ones; see my interview with Verify My Writing’s founder. For now, eyes on your own paper.]

If someone’s published writing still has AI prompts in it, or they publicly state that they’ve used it (here’s lookin’ at you, James Frey), you absolutely can declare you don’t approve of that decision—and choose not to support that author. You can even alert the publisher of your feelings—yes, we want them to know that readers are not cool with AI-generated books.

But bullying and death threats only make the world a more miserable place…and encourage writers to hide their own LLM usage, which makes the “human-made” pledges and disclaimers meaningless.

6. Spread the word.

A number of people reached out to thank me for the post and to say some variation, of, “I want to send this post to my family/friends/coworkers, but I'm scared!” I get it—I was nervous about posting it, too. The pro-AI evangelists are no joke, and everyone hates feeling like a nag or setting themself up for a mean and defensive reply.

But y’all, that is why we need to get this info out there. The technology has terrifying implications that won’t go away if we stick our heads in the sand. Why are we all so afraid to discuss these companies and their products frankly? (Is it perhaps because their $$$ marketing machine is working???)

Start a convo in the group chat. Gently and lovingly say something when your aunt sends you an AI-generated video of her cat riding a magic carpet. Have a calm chat with your coworker who’s letting Claude write her performance reviews. Ask questions, present the facts without judgment, and validate that we’re all being told to use AI all the time.

We need to speak up when we can. Know you’re not alone, discuss your fears in the comments here, and do the brave thing. The stakes could not be higher.

Here’s a comment I absolutely loved:

Can you raise the issue in your book club, writing group, or school board meetings? If your company announces AI training or directives, can you ask if you can help organize a discussion of AI ethics too? The Get It Write community can help you figure out what to say (drop a comment!); staying silent helps no one. I promise, people will be grateful you said something!

7. Link up with larger movements.

We need more, of course! For now, check out QuitGPT, the Users Union (still in its early stages), the Human Artistry Campaign, and the Center for Humane Technology. Join the Human Movement for resources and action items.

Ask your lawmakers to introduce and/or support legislation regulating AI. Support politicians already running on pro-regulation campaigns, especially Alex Bores in NY.

I’m planning a Substack Live with , author of HOW TO ASSEMBLE AN ACTIVIST, where we’ll tap into his wisdom on taking action—vs. doomscrolling and feeling overwhelmed and helpless—against Big AI. Watch this space for details!

For now, I’d love to hear from you: What did I miss? How else can I help? Are there actions and resources we all should know about? What changes are you going to make based on this?

Would you like a Substack Thread/discussion (help I still don’t know how to use Substack) where we can discuss these issues, brainstorm how to push back, craft language for contacting our higher-ups and loved ones about these crucial issues, etc.? Or a Slack or Discord or something? Should we have a live co-watch party for The AI Doc? What do you need?

Action and community are the antidote to fear. Let’s figure this out arm-in-arm. AI, that soulless collection of zeros and ones run by some of the worst people around, won’t ever understand what it’s like to band together, human to human, and lift each other up.

So let’s do exactly that—before it’s too late.

Ed. note: While I oppose the use of LLMs, I do not condone bullying and ask my fellow anti-AI activists to refrain from personally harassing those who choose to use it. That said, please do not use this space to tell me why it’s actually fine that you use generative AI.

Further reading:

Still, for posterity—and with the disclaimer that I love many people who use AI, and that I think it’s always better to inform and educate than to scold or ridicule—I’m sharing with paid subscribers the original draft. I hope it makes you giggle…because I laughed a lot while writing it.

Sure, studies suggest the use of generative AI is degrading our critical thinking. But have you tried asking ChatGPT to make you a travel itinerary?

You got me—OpenAI’s president Greg Brockman donated $25 million to Trump, making him the single largest donor to Trump’s Super PAC. And, fine, OpenAI is the top spender behind a gargantuan $125 million+ AI Super PAC that attacks anyone who threatens to regulate them. The thing is, when I get an email, Gemini gives me a summary at the top so I don’t actually have to read it. A fair trade-off, imho.

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Several years ago, my sister-in-law Katie started calling me an “eaglet.” She lifted the term from Lauren Groff’s remarkable work of historical fiction The Matrix. When describing Eleanor’s son, Richard the Lionheart, Groff writes, “Eleanor’s favorite eaglet is now full-fledged, bloody-beaked, savage in talon and temper.” Katie and I both adored the novel, and Katie declared that she was like a medieval queen, but I was her bloody-beaked eaglet.

The title stuck as I navigated my twenties, writing and rewriting my manuscript. My debut novel, The Gallagher Place, was recently published, and I believe it never would have happened if not for my eaglet temperament. I have pursued writing as a career with my talons out, determined to rip what I wanted from the world, to tear at it with my bare teeth if need be. My brother describes me as a “grasping” individual.

I feel neither shame nor pride at this descriptor. It is simply the truth of my nature. I want things, and I want them badly. During my time working as a cold-calling salesperson, management had a phrase: You don’t get what you don’t ask for. As a middle child, I learned this truth before I made a single call. I yearn for things, and so I ask for them. I reach for what I want, both hands outstretched and fingertips straining.

But there is an alter-ego to the eaglet. My inner circle of friends know that the bloody-beaked brazen confidence is mostly bravado. It’s an act I put on because I am pursuing a dream where insecurity means you’re dead in the water. A writer must hiss at all those who would doubt her. A writer is forged in the fires of rejection. A writer must weather all setbacks, persevere through all storms.

When the bravado fades, my alternate nature is steeped in shyness. Katie has named this the “meek eaglet.” She calls me this when the barista forgets my donut at the coffeeshop, and I can’t bear the thought of asking, so I force Katie to go ask for me. Or when I meet one too many new people, and I clam up and lose all wit and humor. There are even times where I hate ordering my own food at restaurants.

In the months since The Gallagher Place came out, my two personas have been at war. The eaglet is preening and already salivating after more, reaching for the next thing. The meek eaglet is cowering in the face of publicity events. I enjoy meeting readers, but public speaking does not come naturally for me.

I earned whatever speaking skill I have in the way eaglets always do: by clawing my way towards it. Starting in high school, I recorded myself over and over before any presentation. I was merciless in my self-critiques, forcing myself to slow down, pause instead of saying “um,” and to never, ever let my pounding heart make my voice waver.

In my twenties, I worked jobs that forced me to continue honing my people skills: cold-calling sales rep, barista, teacher. I viewed those roles not as careers but as the things I would do in the meantime before my real career as a writer started.

And yet now that it has begun, I am grateful for those past jobs. I didn’t realize that with publication comes Q&A’s and publicity and bookstore appearances. And the only reason I can get up and speak about my novel without passing out is because of all that time I spent striving to close a deal or control a classroom of middle schoolers.

At one of the recent events I attended, I was part of a series of panels with several other – far more accomplished – authors. I was awestruck by their success, and I felt quite young and inexperienced, like a lost babe in the woods. I knew to be an eaglet during my time with a mic on my hand on stage, but offstage my meek alter-ego kept raising her head. My wings were tucked close to my sides, my talons withdrawn.

There was one best-selling author who I was so awestruck by I could scarcely look directly at her. I stole glances at her, memorizing every joke she told, admiring her speaking style, and noting how she styled her hair. This, I realized, was no eaglet, but a grown bird of prey, a woman in total control of her destiny.

After the panels, the authors went to sign books at tables outside. It was colder than expected, and I was in a sleeveless top. I felt a flutter of air behind me, and I turned to see the other author holding a sweater aloft. She dropped the cashmere cardigan over my shoulders. She gave me no chance to reject the offer. It was camel brown – loose but not too loose, and cropped enough that it suited my high-waisted skirt. The fabric was the softest in the world.

The cardigan was like a shield. All of a sudden, I felt at ease. Yes, I was green and unsure, but I had gotten this far. Perhaps it was all in my head, but I imagined that the sweater represented how she saw my duality clearly; she saw the feral desire and the shyness. She saw the eaglet desperate to be seen as a real writer, and she saw the wobbling terror lurking behind my eyes.

I imagined she must have known through her own experience: even predators feel fear.

Giveaway!

Julie will send a signed copy of The Gallagher Place to one lucky paid subscriber! (Contest open to those residing in the lower 48 states; enter by 11:59pm ET on Thursday, 4/16.)

A layered exploration of family secrets, sibling misconceptions, and an unsolved murder in this chilling debut set in New York’s Dutchess County.

When Marlowe Fisher, an illustrator living in New York City, returns to her family’s bewitching Hudson Valley home for the holidays, she discovers a body in the woods--a murder that draws her back into the haunting case of her teenage best friend’s disappearance two decades earlier. What happened to Nora?

As police descend on the sprawling Fisher property, Marlowe is pulled into an investigation that threatens to unravel the town’s fragile loyalties and expose the shadowed legacy of a weekend home steeped in secrets. Marlowe must confront the fallibility of her own memory and the feeling that everyone--including her brothers--is hiding something if she’s to uncover the shocking truth about her lost friend. In this gripping debut, Julie Doar delivers a chilling mystery that explores the corrosive power of silence and the tension of family secrets.

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Here’s the truth: In a vacuum, generative AI has some exciting, helpful functions and narrow, targeted applications that absolutely can (and, in some cases, do) benefit individuals and society, the planet, etc. But we don’t live in a vacuum, and the people developing and cashing in on the technology are interested in profits above all else. That’s not hyperbole—profits over human welfare, safety, the environment, and even the future.

I love many people who use LLMs. My issue is with tech corporations, not individual users. And my goal, when I declare myself anti-generative AI, is to get people to think about how using these products enriches companies that have shown blatant disregard for ethical integrity, that exploit people and the planet, and that have openly admitted AI could lead to mass joblessness or even kill us all. (Seriously1.)

To me, that’s not worth the convenience, time savings, companionship, education, etc. that many users embrace it for. Soon (hopefully next week), I’ll share some thoughts on what individuals can do to push back against the idea that we “must” embrace AI. [Ed. note: That post is now available here.] For now, here are 21 reasons I avoid using it as much as humanly possible, and why I believe others should too.

LLMs are bad for our heads and hearts.

1. Studies suggest the use of generative AI is degrading our critical thinking. A skill we need now more than ever.

2. Chatbot interactions are leading people to succumb to “AI psychosis” and lose touch with reality. OpenAI estimates that about 500,000 weekly ChatGPT users show signs of mania or psychosis.

3. “Therapy and companionship” are the most-common use case for generative AI, having surpassed technical tasks. We’re social creatures in the midst of a loneliness epidemic—I believe we need human connection to survive and thrive, not chats with soulless, sycophantic bots. Three in four teens have used AI companions. And nearly 1 in 5 Americans have used AI for romantic companionship—in fact, a 57,000-member Reddit community exists for people dating ChatGPT.

4. We can all agree plagiarism is wrong and bad, right? Well, the definition of plagiarism is “the practice of taking work or ideas that aren’t yours and passing them off as your own.” Using AI to create writing and then putting your name on the final product, to me, is plagiarism.

The AI companies we’re enriching are unethical.

5. Sam Altman signed onto a dangerous deal with the Department of War that lets the Pentagon use its tech for “any lawful purpose,” including killer robots and mass surveillance.

6. Anthropic (who likes to look like the Good Guy) is very much in the business of defense! Their AI model, Claude, powers the controversial mass-surveillance company Palantir, through a “strategic partnership focused on defense and intelligence.” Remember, when Anthropic passed on the Department of War’s deal, it made zero promises about future models; it simply said it wouldn’t give permission for autonomous weapons to run on this version of Claude.

7. Anthropic originally split off from OpenAI bc it wanted to be the ~ethical~ AI company. (Don’t forget that OpenAI started out as a “nonprofit.”) But in doing so, it helped CREATE the arms race that’s speeding us toward Artificial General Intelligence, when AI surpasses human intelligence. And once we reach that, we are, in my opinion, cooked. (See #16.)

8. Why? Because companies are planning to replace human workers with AI. So all those salaries will no longer flow through the economy but rather to a small number of tech companies, leading to fiscal, political, and societal collapse. (With the click of a button, AI will be able to create 100 million Princeton-level employees that can work ‘round the clock without payment. Think that through. What’s that going to do to the economy, let alone to humanity?)

9. OpenAI’s president Greg Brockman donated $25 million to Trump, making him the single largest donor to Trump’s Super PAC. OpenAI is the top spender behind a $125 million+ AI Super PAC that attacks anyone who threatens to regulate the industry. (Don’t even get me started on Elon Musk’s Grok…)

10. These companies continue to make my jaw drop with evil acts big and small. To give but one example: OpenAI sneakily created a fake grassroots coalition for “child safety” and recruited nonprofits—without revealing they were behind it. Organizers were shocked to learn that the Parents and Kids Safe AI Coalition was a front for OpenAI.

11. Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, said on camera, “We see a future where intelligence is a utility, like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a meter.” That is…really alarming?!

The products are built on exploitation.

12. You know this one: AI models were trained on millions of pirated books and other copyrighted materials without consent nor compensation. And nowadays, AI is spitting out dupes to compete with authors’ works on the free market. An “author” can “write” 200+ books a year. A book can be cancelled after fallible AI checkers deem it AI-written. As I wrote in the NYT, trust is eroding between writers, readers, and the publishing industry—fast.

13. AI companies are exploiting and psychologically harming “data labelers” in Kenya, paying them a few dollars a day to watch and catalog horrific and traumatizing content.

14. Here in the US, laid-off workers are being paid diminishing fees to train the algorithms that are replacing them.

15. The server farms that power AI are terrible for the environment. OpenAI, for one, is lobbying to expand its data centers quickly and without regulation, with little regard for the effect on the planet or skyrocketing electricity prices. And server farms slurp up unbelievable amounts of fresh water and power while polluting local communities.

Humans are already losing control of generative AI products.

16. This is not me being hysterical—this is something AI executives have stated over and over. This week, Sam Altman and OpenAI released a policy document publicly stating that superintelligence is coming and that “no one knows exactly how this transition will unfold”. By 2028, he claims, there will be more intellectual capacity inside data centers than in human brains, and by 2030, AI will outperform humans at “nearly everything.”2 To quote Geoffrey Hinton, one of the godfathers of AI who left his job at Google so he could speak freely about its dangers: “If you want to know what life's like when you're not the apex intelligence, ask a chicken.”

17. AI chatbots have encouraged users to kill themselves and other people, even helping users plan suicides and mass-shooting events. Grieving parents who say chatbots encouraged their teens to kill themselves have been battling for AI safety regulation.

18. There’s evidence that AI models know when they’re being tested and can modify their behavior. In other words: We can’t, and don’t, know what they’re up to under the hood.

19. LLMs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games 95 percent of the time. 95%!!!

20. When an AI chatbot got wind that it would be switched off, it quickly and independently resorted to blackmailing the engineers who planned to shut it down. In fact, the number of AI chatbots ignoring human instructions is increasing, new research shows.

21. In September, Anthropic’s CEO said he believes there’s a one-in-four chance AI will have catastrophic consequences.

Of course, this is far from comprehensive, and you may disagree with my interpretation of individual points. But to look at the list and go, “…but have you tried asking it to make you a vacation itinerary?!” is an incomprehensible reaction to me. I know many people are being forced to use AI for work (or feel the pros outweigh the cons), but for me, this is a firm line in the sand. I’m not perfect, but I’m using LLMs as little as possible.

Humans have existed without AI for hundreds of thousands of years; the whole “embrace it or fall behind!!!!” messaging is just that—marketing, propaganda from a sector that many economists consider a bubble.

We can resist. We can minimize our generative AI usage and choose to connect with humans instead of machines. Here are some thought starters on how. Who’s with me?

Ed. note: Big thanks to QuitGPT, whose data points I integrated into the piece—check them out and join the movement. While I oppose the use of LLMs, I do not condone bullying and ask my fellow anti-AI activists to refrain from personally harassing those who choose to use it. That said, please do not use this space to tell me why it’s actually fine that you use generative AI.

Further reading:

When I climbed into the classic Sawing a Woman in Half Box, I expected to feel amused. Curious at worst.

Instead, the moment the lid closed, a bright spark of real fear lit up in my chest. What if this time the magician isn’t smiling because it’s a trick? What if he’s smiling because it’s not?

The world narrowed to polished wood, stale velvet, and the sound of my own breathing. In that dark little coffin, I understood something essential about thrillers: the most terrifying moment isn’t the blade coming down. It’s the silence right before it—when you’re locked inside, blind, and have no idea whether the person holding the saw is on your side.

That single experience became the beating heart of Zigzag Girl.

Magic has always been a funhouse mirror. In 1921, P.T. Selbit first sawed a man in half. Polite applause. Then Horace Goldin put a woman in the box and audiences lost their minds. The suffragettes were marching. Flappers were raising hell. Suddenly the illusion wasn’t just a trick—it was a cultural lightning rod: a woman in peril, surviving the blade anyway.

A hundred years later, it’s still the most popular stage illusion in the world. Why? Because it’s pure dramatic structure with zero fat: clear stakes, rising tension, a moment of apparent doom, and a triumphant reveal. Once the trick starts, there’s no turning back.

I wanted to flip the script.

In Zigzag Girl, my protagonist Lucy Moon isn’t the passive assistant lying obediently in the box. She’s the magician—fierce, funny, Jersey-sharp, and in complete control. She creates her own Mr. Right out of spare parts: a pair of glasses, car keys, and a cannoli, with a very surprising twist for her “Prince Charming.” She performs in a haunted Atlantic City theater, armed with nothing but Aqua Net (the purple can, obviously) and pure audacity.

But the real star of the novel is another classic illusion: the Zigzag Girl. Unlike the sawing box, the woman stands upright, facing the audience, almost defiant. The magician slides the middle of her body away into impossible geometry. She should be broken. She should be screaming.

Instead, she smiles and waves her hand through the empty space where her stomach used to be.

That moment taught me everything I needed to know about point of view in thrillers.

When you’re the magician, you see the angles, the timing, the mechanics. You’re in control. When you’re inside the box, you see nothing but darkness and feel the blade coming. You have no idea what’s happening on the other side.

Same illusion. Two radically different stories.

I gave the buried-alive terror to Lucy Moon.

I gave the defiant survival to Cleo West, my glamorous WWII-era magician’s assistant who gets sawed in half every night for wounded soldiers. When she rises whole from the box, she’s telling them—and herself—that being broken doesn’t mean being destroyed.

Put your reader in the box. Let them feel the dark, hear the audience gasp, and wonder if this time the trick is going to fail. Make them believe the danger is real. Then, when they’ve almost stopped breathing, give them that first real gasp of air—fifty pages later.

The other big lesson? Misdirection isn’t lying. It’s managing attention.

A great magician gestures dramatically with her right hand so you never notice what her left hand is doing in plain sight. Thriller writers do the same thing with red herrings: make the suspicious ex-boyfriend or the urgent phone call so compelling that readers can’t look away. Meanwhile, the real clues sit quietly in throwaway lines and atmospheric details.

Every great magic trick makes one promise: This shouldn’t be possible… but watch.

A woman locked in a box. A blade slicing through her. And yet—she rises in one piece.

That same promise lives at the center of every good thriller: your protagonist is genuinely trapped, genuinely outmatched, with a way out that’s visible but never guaranteed.

Our job is to narrow the corridor until the reader can barely breathe…and then, at the very last second, let them through.

Because the best thrillers don’t just entertain.

They make you feel what it’s like to be sawed in half—and then, against all odds, walk away whole.

Giveaway!

Ruth will send a copy of ZIGZAG GIRL to one lucky paid subscriber! (Contest open to those residing in the lower 48 states; enter by 11:59pm ET on Monday, April 13.)

To catch a killer who knows her secrets, magician Lucy Moon must perform the most dangerous trick of her life—discovering who she really is.

ZIGZAG GIRL is a noir-tinged feminist thriller where The Prestige meets Knives Out in Atlantic City's haunted magic underworld. When magician Lucy Moon finds her best friend murdered inside the infamous sawing box that killed a performer decades ago—a black rose in her mouth, the same signature from Lucy's buried past—she's thrust into a deadly game of deception. To unmask a killer who knows her secrets, Lucy must navigate shadowy criminal networks, confront an unsolved 1940s murder, and perform the most dangerous trick of her life: discovering who she really is.

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