mastodon 4.7.3Steaphan (SHTIF-AWN)
* Founder of Indie Authors Social *
The author's journey is hard-fraught, painful, and sometimes lonely. It's also a wildfire of creative joy to share with growing authors.
My goal is to energize authors to share, teach, and collaborate, raising the indie publishing tides for all of the community. We share hope from our successes. Because a wonderful life derived from our creativity is possible.
Oh, I write Fantscimance (fantasy + science fiction + romance)
Just because a reader, viewer, or listener may not be able to tell that content was AI-generated. doesn't make it okay to push it upon them without a disclosing this fact.
It's the same principle as disclosing certain food ingredients on packaging. Some may be fine with product and others may be physically, morally, or spiritually against the consumption of the ingredients/content or how the product was made.
Today is a good day to write! :win3_write:
Self-publishing is a doable thing. It's a thing you can do!
This is great for #authors looking for human-made art for their book covers. It's a big challenge commissioning artists for book covers where (most) authors are on a tight budget. These budget constraints often lead authors to "go low" when contracting. A lot (but certainly not all) low-bidders are scammers using AI. I have even been presented premium-priced bids from so-called artists pushing AI-gen book covers and book illustrations.
Also, I love the "licensable" column, because my publishing co requires all rights.
The Author to Her Book
"Thou ill-form'd offspring of my feeble brain,
Who after birth did'st by my side remain,
Till snatcht from thence by friends, less wise than true
Who thee abroad, expos'd to public view,
Made thee in raggs, halting to th' press to trudge,
Where errors were not lessened (all may judge)
At thy return my blushing was not small,
My rambling brat (in print) should mother call,
I cast thee by as one unfit for light,
Thy Visage was so irksome in my sight;
Yet being mine own, at length affection would
Thy blemishes amend, if so I could:
I wash'd thy face, but more defects I saw,
And rubbing off a spot, still made a flaw.
I stretcht thy joynts to make thee even feet,
Yet still thou run'st more hobling then is meet;
In better dress to trim thee was my mind,
But nought save home-spun Cloth, i'th' house I find
In this array, 'mongst Vulgars mayst thou roam
In Critick's hands, beware thou dost not come;
And take thy way where yet thou art not known,
If for thy Father ask, say, thou hadst none:
And for thy Mother, she alas is poor,
Which caus'd her thus to send thee out of door."
--Anne Bradstreet, "The Author to Her Book," in Several Poems (1678).
RE: @indieauthornews@indieauthors.social
This is just S A D
And when you think today's book reviewers / critics are tough...
Jenner, Charles. Bell and CO.'s Pocket Novelist, Placid Man, &c. .... United Kingdom: Bell, 1770. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Placid_Man_c/ebQ8AAAAYAAJ
I really, really am going to start doing audiobooks and the market is only getting better! 💯 https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/audio-books/article/100588-u-s-audiobook-sales-up-9-in-2025-reaches-2-43-billion.html
IndieAuthors.Social--why so strict?
I always find this interesting: how we can best reach readers looking for the next good read.
Source: Written Word Media’s “Reader Survey 2026” (published Feb 2, 2026).
Page (dataset/article): https://www.writtenwordmedia.com/reader-survey-2026/
The specific values in the chart come from the section on how readers discover books in 2026 (discovery channels), reported as percentages of survey respondents (n = 3,589).
#Reading #Books #Bookstodon #Author #IndieAuthor
I am starting to wonder if there are AI bots flaming Fedi users for using AI based on an AI's opinion....?????
RE: @indieauthornews@indieauthors.social
1,000,000,000% RE: "Why Recipes for Publishing Success Don’t Work"
But what does this all mean?
External Funding: https://connectedplaces.online/reports/fr159-sovereign-tech-agency-funds-mastodon/
and how that ties in with:
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/05/evolving-the-team
Authors, if you knew you were 100% publishing an audio book, would you ever consider AI-generated narration?
#author #audiobook #indieAuthor #indieAuthors #selfpublishing
RE: @seharinsights@mastodon.social
Connected! LoL! :dancefox:
"Pope Leo XIV tells priests not to use AI to write homilies or seek likes on TikTok"
Now this strikes at the heart of where the use of AI goes wrong---matters of the soul (and the intersection of Social Media).
@alkaid@social.lol is reddit better for finding good scifi than other sources you've used?
Wow! It's getting worse yet. Rakuten Kobo says they rejected 45 percent of submissions last year because of a massive surge in AI-generated books. 😞
https://thenextweb.com/news/kobo-rejects-45-percent-self-published-books-ai
I feel like a book could be written around this song,
https://open.spotify.com/track/1LLa2o8wUi3bmWFOZumVKa?si=cee0f61b6cc24e52
"And now the house belongs to strangers
And the woods are ours no longer
When we grew up, we grew cold
I guess it's much easier
To blend the things within our hearts
It's easier to let go
'Cause life is cruel and complicated
And even though the memory is weak
Our hearts remember fondly all the things that used to matter
It was reckless of me to believe we have forever
'Cause no one has forever" Verse 2. Fallen Leaves. Hunter As a Horse. 2016.
