Nathan Bransford | Writing, Book Editing, Publishing

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A new literary agent scam to watch out for (This week in books)

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This week! Books!

Victoria Strauss at the indispensable site Writer Beware has a new scam to watch for, which starts with a “literary agent” promising to work only on commission who will take your book to the next level, only for additional fees to start rolling in. Be careful out there!

Also from Writer Beware, a very helpful post that educates writers on the difference between rights and copyright, which are two distinct things. Make sure you understand the rights you’re granting to publishers.

Controversy swept the children’s book world the past few weeks as author Maggie Tokuda-Hall wrote about her experience being pressured by Scholastic’s Educational Division to remove language in the author’s note of her picture book Love in the Library that describes America’s legacy of systemic racism. Let this one sink in: the book takes place in a Japanese internment camp during World War II. School Library Journal Editor in Chief Kathy Ishizuka argues that it’s high time publishers started operationalizing their ideals.

Ebony Magazine has a cool new feature on 10 Black-owned bookstores across the country, including my adopted hometown’s Octavia’s Bookshelf.

PEN America has a depressing report on the state of book banning in the United States, which is picking up steam. Are we really doing this, America?

ChatGPT continues to blow some writers’ minds out there, while mine remains stubbornly unexploded. Still, I aim to provide you with a range of views! Farhad Manjoo is already using it as a writing buddy to locate that word that’s just out of reach and to summarize longer texts, Elisa Lorello uses it to help generate outlines and work schedule prioritization, and Stephen Marche used three different AI programs to craft a novella.

I read all these articles. I’m still meh. I just continue to be so underwhelmed by ChatGPT’s results and the extent to which it hallucinates garbage that I’m nervous about incorporating a bunch of B-minus-at-best messiness into my processes and exposing my brain to it except in small doses.

And this made me irrationally angry.

Meanwhile, in human-based writing advice, Lincoln Michel talks about how to conjure fantasy language of yore without making your novel unreadable, David Moldawer examines Robert Jordan’s “wanderings” as he went about constructing his famously epic Wheel of Time series, and I really enjoyed Erin Bowman’s reflections a decade after her debut, which considers the ebb and flow of careers.

This week in bestsellers

Here are the top five NY Times bestsellers in a few key categories. (All links are affiliate links):

Adult print and e-book fiction:

  1. Dark Angel by John Sandford
  2. The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
  3. Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
  4. Yours Truly by Abby Jimenez
  5. It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

Adult print and e-book nonfiction:

  1. Outlive by Peter Attia with Bill Gifford
  2. The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
  3. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
  4. I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jeanette McCurdy
  5. You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

Young adult hardcover:

  1. Five Survive by Holly Jackson
  2. Silver in the Bone by Alexandra Bracken
  3. Nick and Charlie by Alice Oseman
  4. The First to Die at the End by Adam Silvera
  5. The Little Mermaid: Against the Tide by J. Elie

Middle grade hardcover:

  1. Wonder by R.J. Palacio
  2. Refugee by Alan Gratz
  3. Nic Blake and the Remarkables by Angie Thomas
  4. Odder by Katherine Applegate
  5. The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America’s Test Kitchen Kids

This week on the blog

In case you missed them, here are this week’s posts:

Don’t forget that you can nominate your first page and query for a free critique on the blog:

And keep up with the discussion in all the places!

And finally, a house with a writing wing on a railroad track that detaches from the house to be closer to the forest? YES PLEASE.

Have a great weekend!

Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!

For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel and my guide to publishing a book.

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Photo: The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA

Reader Interactions

Comments

  2. Neil Larkins says

    Bravo, Nathan! What AI seems to lack is that elusive abstraction — heart. Because they don’t have one, of course, but also because intelligence doesn’t mean you can think in abstractions. Or maybe it believes it can… but belief is another abstraction. Whatever, cold and calculating bits, bytes and electrons chasing each other has nothing on old-fashioned sweat, blood and tears. Which they also don’t have. And never will,

  3. J R Tomlin says

    Did they pay for the content they used to produce it? As far as I have been able to learn, no, they did not. The word for taking other people’s content for your own use without paying is called theft.

    • Neil Larkins says

      This was my thought when I heard it. People taking quick action through lawsuits to protect their rights will put these arrogant geeks in their place tout de suite!