Standing Up

In Publishing News this week,

Striking a blow for librarians, a Rhode Island judge has ordered a halt to the dismantling of the U S Institute of Museum and Library Services. Publishers Weekly has updates on the legal challenges and efforts to save these and other important services.

This week the US government fired the Librarian of Congress and the Director of the Copyright office. This comes at the moment when the U S government must make a stand on how the law will treat AI. There are many lawsuits over the illegal use of copyrighted material used by tech companies to train their AI’s. Publishers Weekly looks at the potential outcome of this move, open season on copyright material by AI.

Mark Williams also takes a look at the potential disaster for copyright holders if the US government allows tech companies free rein.

Publishing Perspectives talks with the head of the American Publishers Association about their recent annual meeting. They had a panel discussion over the threat of AI to the fundamental protection of copyright. What do they think of this latest news?

In Europe people are heading in the opposite direction with petitions in support of creative workers being circulated and handed in to various parliaments. Every government has to make a decision on the ethical and legal use of AI. Does copyright count anymore?

Ingram has appointed an AI chief according to Publishers Weekly. They will be in charge of implementing Ai across the whole group. This is quite wide ranging and so PW asked him a few questions.

Audible has finally moved on using AI voices, joining Spotify in making AI narration available to authors. The Guardian reports this as a worrying trend. (A bit late) Audible are almost the last audiobook company to openly admit they are using AI voices for narration.

Victoria Strauss of Writer Beware writes on two new scams doing the rounds internationally. The Book Order scam and the fake review scam. Remember keep yourself up to date on what new lows the scammers are going to, if not for you, for writer friends or newbies. They crush dreams.

BookVault are expanding to Australia and they are moving to be truly global in their Print on Demand technology. BookVault specialise in integrating their services with direct shipping and shopping off your own website. Check out the podcast transcript from a recent interview with The Alliance of Independent Authors.

Ruth Harris writes about the clip file being the writer’s secret weapon.

Rachel Toalson has an interesting article on Writer Unboxed on what she has learned writing for children. For those of us out there who write for our inner child this will be familiar. If you want to do one of the hardest writing jobs, check out the article.

Sally Hamer has a great article on what to do if you have a great short story that you want to expand into a full length novel. First … don’t pad it with fluff.

In The Craft Section,

2 great posts from Gabriela Pereira using the Hunger Games- three act analysis and Organising your manuscript.- Bookmark

Is your book a romance?- Selene Grace Silver

How to write a 5 star sequel- Suzy Vadori- Bookmark

Working with relationship driven scenes- September Fawkes- Bookmark

In The Marketing Section

How to write a powerful About page- Sonya Matejko

Insider tips to make Goodreads work for you- Rachel Thompson- Bookmark

The Bookstore of You- Jonny B Truant- Interesting

The authors edge- not knowing any better- Mathew Holmes- Bookmark

Book Marketing Plan- Kindlepreneur- Bookmark

To Finish,

Recently a librarian thanked me for writing about the ongoing saga of the Institute of Library and Museum Services that I highlighted in every week of April’s blog posts. It was not a pleasure to have to write about the death of an institution dedicated to funding libraries. It was pain and a feeling of helplessness.

So why did I highlight this news story? I don’t live in America. Why should I care? Libraries provide information. It costs nothing to walk into a library and open a book. They even let you read right there in the building.

Information educates people. This a fundamental right. An informed educated population can make up their own minds about whether governments are uplifting their people or not.

When fundamental rights to information are taken away the world notices. They speak up, highlight the problem, witness the injustice on behalf of the people affected. Because if we don’t who will speak when it happens to us. Randy Susan Meyers has an interesting post on Writer Unboxed this week on writing to save democracy. Writers can imagine futures without democracy. They can inform and educate through their work. Throughout history writers have witnessed what happens to a population denied freedom to think for themselves.

I am a witness.

Maureen

@craicer

Do you want the best of my bookmarked links in a handy monthly newsletter? You can subscribe here to join our happy band.

You can check out my children’s books at www.maureencrispbooks.com

You can follow me @craicer on Twitter, Mastodon, and Bluesky.

If you like the blog and want to buy me a coffee, I appreciate the virtual coffee love. Thanks.

Pic from Vox article on the 10^th anniversary of The Hunger Games.