On this episode of the Self-Publishing with ALLi podcast, Dan Holloway reports on concerns around companies using AI-generated staff profiles to sell high-priced author services, including Melbourne Book Publisher and related outfits in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. He also looks at Tulia’s new author platform that builds customizable book pages from ISBN data, highlights a small-group social reading app, and notes a case from New Zealand where AI-assisted cover design led to books being disqualified from a major award.
Listen to the Podcast: AI-Generated Staff Profiles Raise Concerns
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About the Host
Dan Holloway is a novelist, poet, and spoken word artist. He is the MC of the performance arts show The New Libertines, He competed at the National Poetry Slam final at the Royal Albert Hall. His latest collection, The Transparency of Sutures, is available on Kindle.
Read the Transcript
Dan Holloway: Hello and welcome to the Self-Publishing News.
Today, it's one of those columns and podcasts where I need to be very careful. I will say that our main story concerns a lot of alleged behavior and alleged poor practice on behalf of some companies in Australia and elsewhere across the world.
It's a story which has been referred to Scam Watch in the UK and to the Anti-Scam Council in Australia. So, there are people who are saying this is a scam. Absolutely not, I'm using “alleged”. Nonetheless, this is something that authors need to look out for.
Alleged Scam by Melbourne Book Publisher
Dan Holloway: The story features Melbourne Book Publisher, and Melbourne Book Publisher is part of a group of companies that also includes the UK-based First Page Press, and Aussie Book Publisher, Oz Book Publishers, and also the New Zealand based, BookPublishers.co.nz.
These are companies who offer author services, or claim to offer author services. It's a model that we are very familiar with, one where there is a package of services, they are quite highly priced. They will offer you marketing packages. They will offer you a book number, and they will do everything that this kind of author service company claims to do for a price that's well over a thousand dollars.
They are targeting first time self-publishing authors. So far, so very old model of not-so ethical publishing.
Dan Holloway: What is different about this is that they are using AI-generated staff profiles.
So, if you go onto their websites, they will have, in the about our team section, they will have lots of pictures of their team members, and if you get in touch with them to ask about what their services are and how they might be a fit for your book, those team members will converse with you, they'll have a Zoom call with you, and you can discuss all sorts of questions about what they can do for your book, what their terms are. They can answer, it seems, really quite detailed questions. The only problem is it's not an actual person who's doing that answering, it's an AI-generated image, voice, and possibly text.
It's not clear whether the text is someone behind the image, a human being sitting, typing it, or whether it's autogenerated itself.
Nonetheless, these are people who don't exist, and they are giving very realistic sounding accounts to authors of what they can do. Authors are then paying money and then finding, of course, as is always the case in these things, that it seems as though the services they thought they were paying for aren't being provided.
So, the allegation here is that this is extremely deceptive practice.
Dan Holloway: It's also the case that Melbourne Book Publisher has a very similar name to the company, Melbourne Books, which is a legitimate company, and its CEO and founder is obviously very unhappy with this, and has issued a warning.
So, if you go to the Melbourne Books page and their Facebook group, you'll see that they have been issuing warnings saying, we are not the same as this company. So, it might seem that they are a legitimate, long-established company, but that's actually us and not them.
So, this is the first time I've come across quite such a high-profile example of this kind of use of AI, to enhance an author service, maybe not quite so helpful, not quite so servicey company, but it's clearly the kind of thing that is going to become more and more prevalent.
It adds a feeling of legitimacy that you feel like you're speaking to a real human being. In fact, you are not speaking to a real human being. So, do watch out for this.
Obviously, let us know if you come across any other companies who are doing this because it is really important that authors do not get sucked in by what seems to be the case rather than what necessarily actually is the case.
So, that's the warning and bad news story.
Tertulia Launches New Platform for Authors
Dan Holloway: Good news story, or more positive story, is that ALLi Partner Tertulia has launched a new platform, Tertulia for Authors, and it's a really interesting business model.
They started life as a reading group platform. They are there to provide a curated alternative to algorithms.
So, the idea is that you go along as a reader, they provide you with personalized recommendations. You are then able to find books that are actually a genuine fit for you and what you are really interested in.
Now they have gone beyond readers, and they are offering a platform for authors, and what they will do is they will convert your book into a website from which you can sell. You'll have a direct buy button, and you'll have everything that readers need to know about your book. They do this, not using AI, but using one of the oldest technologies in the book trade, which is the ISBN.
Basically, if you have an ISBN, you put your ISBN into their platform, and from that, it will pull through all the data associated with your book, including the cover, the blurb, and so on, and that will create a template webpage for you which you can then customize.
It's a nifty idea using existing technology and some of the real benefits of ISBNs, which is that they are actually a bucket that holds quite a lot of information. So, that's one really interesting development.
New Social Reading Site Offers Twist on Reading Groups
Dan Holloway: Another interesting thing I came across is a social reading site, and I believe this is called Phictly. Obviously, social reading sites, nothing new. What's interesting about this, is it's designed to limit the size of its communities. So, this is a community built around books and television shows, and it's designed to imitate those student days: I remember very well my student days, sitting around in our, it wasn't actually a room that could cope with 20 people, but we had 20 people in there sprawled out on beanbags and sofas, and we'd all watch Friends of Ally McBeal or whatever, and then we'd sit and talk about it afterwards. It's designed to replicate that.
So, the groups are capped at 20 so that it always feels like an intimate coffee shop, front-room type experience, rather than the kind of place where you get lost.
So, that's an interesting twist on the reading group idea.
Authors Fall Foul of AI Terms in Ockham Book Awards
Dan Holloway: I will end bringing us back full circle to an unexpected peril of the changing landscape of AI, and this is another story that comes from Oceania. This time it comes from New Zealand, from their primary literary prize, the Ockham Book Awards, where two authors have found themselves on the wrong side of terms and conditions.
Elizabeth Smither and Stephanie Johnson have found themselves ruled out of the awards because their publisher outsourced the cover design to a firm that uses AI to assist with the generation of cover art, and the book awards have changed their terms and conditions recently so as to prohibit the use of AI in any circumstances, including cover design.
Their publisher has said, we were too far down the line to change what we were doing, we are really sorry.
There is a moral to this story, which is that this is a rapidly changing landscape. Also, read terms and conditions really carefully. If you're going down the route of using AI, you may be excluding yourself from certain things.
Dan Holloway: So, do go into everything that you do eyes wide open, and that feels like a very good way to have brought us back full circle to our first story.
So, I will leave it there and very much look forward to speaking to you again at the same time next week. Thank you.
