Sonya Heaney Category Romance @sonyaheaneycategoryromance - Tumblr Blog

canberramaidan

Covers designed by Christine Armstong. HarperCollins AU.

sonyaheaneyauthor

2nd July 2025: Rainy winter sunset in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. X

sonyaheaneyauthor

Winter sunrise in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. X

sonyaheaneycategoryromance

Book publishers must fight back against AI

Ioan Marc Jones

AI writing is God-awful. It appears intelligent at first glance, empty at second. It possesses the insufferable buoyancy of a…

AI writing is God-awful. It appears intelligent at first glance, empty at second. It possesses the insufferable buoyancy of a holiday rep. It offers little by way of humour, nothing by way of originality. But its fatal flaw is the absence of vulnerability. A writer is a person and a person is a mess and, as readers, as people, as messes, we identify with the mess.

Despite its flaws, AI writing is spreading. Literary agents, drowning in submissions, have resorted to disclaimers discouraging AI writing. Literary magazines have done the same. Amazon, meanwhile, has struggled to stem the tide of AI-generated books.

Authors are finding that, soon after their work hits the shelves, sloppy imitations emerge. Fake books do real harm. On a small scale, uninformed readers might avoid real authors in the future...

...

Publishing houses need to fight back. Stamps should not declare what is human-created; they should expose the machine-made. Litigation disincentivises lying. Publishers could include clauses in contracts prohibiting the use of AI, with appropriate use defined in absolute terms. These clauses should dictate that AI was not used for generating, editing or rewriting any part of the text, providing consumers with legally backed guarantees.

Such absolutism might seem extreme. Writers, however, are unlikely to push back, considering that 10,000 of them protested against AI in a so-called ’empty book’ distributed at the London Book Fair in March. And, if writers do not sign such clauses, their books should advertise their AI credentials. Publishing houses should be happy to draw the distinction. It is the human, after all, that provides a competitive advantage. If AI writing improves and saturates the industry, publishers will suffer. Why buy a book when you can write a prompt?

sonyaheaneyauthor

Ellen Price as the Little Mermaid. Royal Danish Ballet, 1909.

sonyaheaneyauthor

The Aurora Australis over Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. X

valentineua

Westminster (1878) - Giuseppe de Nittis (1846-1884)

valentineua

A Big Bumblebee - Meta Plückebaum (1876-1945)

writingdose

genuine writers getting wrongly accused of using ai because of witch hunt and proper grammar/structure in their works must be what being a woman in the 1600s who is wrongly accused of being a witch because she can read and is intelligent feels like

delgrosso

Those readers (who, in my observations, have always been readers and not other writers) have learned a tiny checklist of surface features and now feel deputized to “spot AI,” but they’re often reading for “gotcha” signals rather than reading for prose. That’s a very different skill, and they don’t have it. Noticing an em dash isn’t the same as understanding non-essential clauses. Noticing a sentence fragment isn’t the same thing as understanding why a fragment lands. A hammer can see nails all day long, but that doesn’t make it an architect.

tl;dr the AI Witchfinders need to read more books above the 6th grade level before they start pointing fingers at experienced writers.

writingdose

genuine writers getting wrongly accused of using ai because of witch hunt and proper grammar/structure in their works must be what being a woman in the 1600s who is wrongly accused of being a witch because she can read and is intelligent feels like

delgrosso

Those readers (who, in my observations, have always been readers and not other writers) have learned a tiny checklist of surface features and now feel deputized to “spot AI,” but they’re often reading for “gotcha” signals rather than reading for prose. That’s a very different skill, and they don’t have it. Noticing an em dash isn’t the same as understanding non-essential clauses. Noticing a sentence fragment isn’t the same thing as understanding why a fragment lands. A hammer can see nails all day long, but that doesn’t make it an architect.

tl;dr the AI Witchfinders need to read more books above the 6th grade level before they start pointing fingers at experienced writers.

writingdose

genuine writers getting wrongly accused of using ai because of witch hunt and proper grammar/structure in their works must be what being a woman in the 1600s who is wrongly accused of being a witch because she can read and is intelligent feels like

delgrosso

Those readers (who, in my observations, have always been readers and not other writers) have learned a tiny checklist of surface features and now feel deputized to “spot AI,” but they’re often reading for “gotcha” signals rather than reading for prose. That’s a very different skill, and they don’t have it. Noticing an em dash isn’t the same as understanding non-essential clauses. Noticing a sentence fragment isn’t the same thing as understanding why a fragment lands. A hammer can see nails all day long, but that doesn’t make it an architect.

tl;dr the AI Witchfinders need to read more books above the 6th grade level before they start pointing fingers at experienced writers.

frostedmagnolias

Day Dress

c. 1910

Glenbow Museum

manyother

On the decorative arch behind the women, the inscription "WHITE FECIT" ("White made" or "White's Work") is clearly visible, which indicates the author of the painted backdrop or the owner of a Viennese photo studio.

The picture shows a full-fledged car with a classic round inclined steering wheel and pneumatic tires. The presented body and steering correspond to the turn of 1900-1903.

The women's clothes also clearly demonstrate that the picture was taken at the turn of the century.

sonyaheaneyauthor

READ THE FIRST CHAPTER

New South Wales, 1885

When Alice Ryan wakes to find thugs surrounding her cottage, on the hunt for her no-good brother, she escapes into the surrounding bush.

It is wealthy landowner Robert Farrer who finds her the next morning, dishevelled, injured, and utterly unwilling to share what she knows. With criminals on the loose and rumours that reckless bushrangers have returned to the area, Robert is determined to keep Alice out of danger, and insists on taking her into his home-despite the scandal it may cause. Convincing her to stay on with him for her own safety, however, is going to take some work.

What Robert doesn’t expect is his growing attraction to the forthright, unruly woman staying in his home. Before either of them can settle into their odd new situation, their home and wellbeing come under threat and they will need to trust each other to survive. But they are both keeping secrets, secrets that have the potential to ruin their burgeoning love, their livelihood … and their lives.

(via The Landowner’s Secret (Brindabella Secrets, #1))

sonyaheaneyauthor

READ THE FIRST CHAPTER

New South Wales, 1885

When Alice Ryan wakes to find thugs surrounding her cottage, on the hunt for her no-good brother, she escapes into the surrounding bush.

It is wealthy landowner Robert Farrer who finds her the next morning, dishevelled, injured, and utterly unwilling to share what she knows. With criminals on the loose and rumours that reckless bushrangers have returned to the area, Robert is determined to keep Alice out of danger, and insists on taking her into his home-despite the scandal it may cause. Convincing her to stay on with him for her own safety, however, is going to take some work.

What Robert doesn’t expect is his growing attraction to the forthright, unruly woman staying in his home. Before either of them can settle into their odd new situation, their home and wellbeing come under threat and they will need to trust each other to survive. But they are both keeping secrets, secrets that have the potential to ruin their burgeoning love, their livelihood … and their lives.

(via The Landowner’s Secret (Brindabella Secrets, #1))

glorious-spoon

certainly not a new sentiment but i am becoming increasingly sour on the entire concept of 'consuming content'. you're not reading a book or watching a show or listening to music or looking at art, you're consuming content. it's such a weird, bland, homogenizing way of talking about art, and i get that it exists as a shorthand, but i'm not at all convinced it's a good or useful one

catsofyore

Meercatting. Photo from my collection, no date/info.

Trending Blogs

Recently Viewed Blogs

Sonya Heaney Category Romance