Authors Never Graduate

Sparkle Abbey

Summer has ended, and the new school year is about to start.
But for authors, school is never out of session. In fact, authors never graduate.

Many authors are continuously in search of the next best craft book, workshop, or webinar. We certainly enjoy honing our craft. We especially enjoy lively discussions with fellow writers, people we respect and whose work we admire. We’re endlessly working to elevate our storytelling.

But it’s not just our craft where we need to expand our knowledge. It’s also learning and re-learning the ever-changing landscape of marketing, social media, discoverability, and how to keep readers coming back. It seems like we’re constantly testing what’s working in marketing and what’s not.

And then there’s AI.

AI has completely changed the landscape of writing, publishing, and marketing.

To use AI or not to use AI.

For those who choose to use AI, how will you use it? Editing, plotting, suggestions? Marketing strategies and tactics? How much time do you invest in a new tool that’s still evolving?

And for those who choose not to use AI, it’s already here, and we still need to stay up to date on what’s going on.

Then there are the AI ‘detector’ programs you may have heard of, such as GPTzero.me, Scribb, Text Defender. These highly ‘trained’ programs claim to detect how much of a submission was written by a human versus AI. It’s been in the news lately due to a two million dollar deal that was recently canceled over AI claims. That’s still being sorted out. But the bottom line is some tools are flawed, and some are downright wrong. So, more education.

Mystery author Donna Andrews decided to run her first book, Murder with Peacocks, through a couple of programs. We won’t spoil the results. You’ll have to check out her report to see how that turned out, but we will say…we weren’t shocked. Check out her Facebook post here.

Keeping yourself educated is never-ending when

it comes to marketing. What worked today won’t necessarily work tomorrow.

AI has transformed marketing and discoverability, too. Keywords and comparables, genre-morphing. Readers using AI shopping assistants to find book recommendations.

And just when we update all our book descriptions, reformat our “keywords,” and master the new “system” of discoverability, the new system is six months old, and we’re back to evaluating what’s working and what’s not.

Authors can never graduate. We’re lifelong learners, and so we’ll keep going “back to school” whether it’s learning more about the writing craft or what’s happening in the publishing industry.

But don’t worry! It’s all worth it as long as we get to continue to keep our readers entertained and moved by our storytelling.

Sparkle Abbey is actually two people, Mary Lee Ashford and Anita Carter, who write the national best-selling Pampered Pets cozy mystery series.