What can publishers learn from BARBENHEIMER?

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

The WGA/SAG-AFTRA fight is our fight as authors, too. Donate here: entertainmentcommunity.org Or find others ways to support them here:mashable.com/article/how-to-support-wga-writer-strike

[@wordsofstarlight]

Michelle's videos land on especially horrible days. It's like the universe knew I'd need cheering up. Are you sure we can't give you control of publishing? We'd all be better off if they listened to you!😊❤

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Aw, I'm so sorry you're having a bad day! I hope things are looking up. And thank you for watching! :)

[@rebeccadey]

You hit the nail on the head again, Michelle. Your videos are so refreshing, even when they're DISTRESSING, for the eloquent directness and honesty of them. Thank you.

[@vespertilia342]

Your comment about Marvel fans losing interest in new Marvel movies is spot-on!

[@ravensthatflywiththenightm7319]

Also as someone still trying to get an agent of my own, I cannot really imagine myself getting into these trends. TikTok? That's just not my thing.

[@kanashiiookami6537]

Exactly. I'm glad that there are agents out there saying fiction authors don't need a social media presence to sell their book. But I wish publishers would get with the program. Lol. Good luck with querying!💜

[@MargaretPinard]

Yes to being creative in publicity campaigns! Great topic, Michelle 🤗

[@prashantkumar4217]

Hi Michelle! I love how you blended both the mediums of entertainment with such ease. The only book that came to mind when you said 7-figure deal was Skandar and the Unicorn Thief. I read it (at the risk of suffering from reading slump), and I found there was nothing special about it, full of clichés, down to the most cringy villain's line: join me, muwahaha. If the editors are advocating for such cookie-cutter books then no wonder the publishing is going on a decline. I think agents aren't at fault for showing unwillingness to sign unorthodox concepts since they earn only when their clients do. Publishers should do a survey among avid readers and I guarantee they'll find that originality will trump.

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

I haven't read that, but it sounds like a good (bad?) example as any! I think it boils down to these industries actually propping up their creatives and letting them lead the way, rather than making it so that those that succeed do so in spite of the industry. (And thank you for watching!)

[@kirtiomart]

Scary 😮

[@lightquest2]

YES! I’ve been thinking on how publishing could learn from this. The Barbie marketing especially is one that needs to be studied going forward

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Totally agreed!

[@ayakachan9894]

I wonder if agents and authors will start (if they haven't already) pushing for a no-AI clauses in contracts. Freelance illustrators are leading the charge on that, as far as I've seen, and sharing the language they've put in their contracts with clients forbidding the use of the commissioned art as training material for AI. I think it would be a relief and an encouragement to new authors to see the same trend emerging in publishing, protecting them from having their words and styles copied for mass profit without having had the chance to build a career for themselves off those words and styles. An insightful video, as always, thank you for posting!

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

100% agree - it's absolutely necessary. And thank you for watching!

[@gporto.]

We should join in with the strike not only because of AI but also to request that the publishing industry bring back the midlist, which makes writing an accessible career to so many.

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Could not agree more!!

[@JoeyPaulOnline]

Word on all of this. Another great breakdown and dealing with important facts here

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Thanks, Joey! :)

[@jpch8814]

Hear! Hear! 👏👏👏You really hit the nail on the head with this video! Your insights are always so enlightening. Nowadays, a lot of people are snapping out of capitalistic corporate manipulation. People want fair wages and they're not backing down. I hope more strikes are planned because the pigs understand one language 💲

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Thanks so much!! Agreed - this strike is absolutely necessary and they aren't going to back down. We need more of this!

[@brihager2471]

Well said!!!

[@jhagen22]

Well said!

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Thank you! :)

[@crlake]

Excellent.

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Many thanks!

[@alwaysapirateroninace443]

Great analysis as always! Would like a video about how social media doesn't help book sales but how to mobilize what dies. I know authnicality is key, but how do you know what you're doing is working vs just screaming into the void? Marketing still perplexes me.

[@Sue-pn7mq]

I love this video subject. It isn’t easy to not fit into traditional publishing because you’re doing something new at the moment. After some frustration, I decided to go for a different approach. I don’t know if I can make it work, but at least I’m trying.

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Thank you - and best of luck!

[@DaisyXMachina]

Trying to wrap my head around an Uno movie... maybe quantum realities where you REVERSE and SKIP? Talking about tiktok and book sales, publishers don't seem to realize it can take years to build an audience (same as KZbin), not to mention tiktok often requires multiple uploads a day to start catching on. BTW, just watched Liselle Sambury's video discussing the newly launched BinderyBooks, a "traditional" publishing house that creates imprints for influencers (mostly tiktokers) and gives authors 50% royalties. Am curious about what other authors think!

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

I've heard of it but I don't know much about it - yet! Definitely curious as well...

[@markphillips7538]

I saw a post yesterday by Cat Rambo saying Grammarly was using client works to train their AI. And I've been in a back and forth argument with Pro-Writing-Aid about their addition of an AI "assistant." They claim it will not use client's work to train it but at this point I don't care anymore. AI is a threat and the PWA Lifetime License I paid for, so I could catch typos and bad habits, is worthless now. I'm in a writing class for mystery writers and just today got into an argument with someone using an AI to generate plot elements. Why pay $400 for a class and then use an AI to cheat? It's really distressing.

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Oh wow, that is all very alarming!

[@ravensthatflywiththenightm7319]

The unfortunate thing though is Hollywood "always learns the wrong lesson". When Peter Jackson proved to them that people will sit down for a 3 hour epic movie [where so many intended 3 hour epics were chopped up into 2 hour movies before] when LOTR was a huge success, Hollywood's reaction was "make every 2 hour movie stretch to 3 or 4 hours". And when Peter Jackson also proved that FAITHFUL adaptations of the source material can sell, when before it was basically tradition for directors to "toss their junk in" and sometimes outright bastardize the source material, what Hollywood "learned" was "adapt more fantasy novels - and make them EXACTLY like LOTR". I don't know if the Publishing Industry functions differently but, well, there it is.

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

It's almost like these executives AREN'T creative visionaries themselves, which is maybe where things need to change...

[@ravensthatflywiththenightm7319]

@@MichelleSchustermanAuthor The more I learn about the industry, the more I feel maybe a lot of things need to change. I personally worry about creative people trying to get their first novel out, and being blocked off by these executives. Life isn't forever, and I got to wonder how many of these would-be authors, trapped in this bizarre limbo, simply just gave up or had Author Existence Failure while these executives are blissfully ignorant about what they're missing.

[@ledafrost]

Great video!

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Thank you! :)

[@winkletter]

I'm bullish about AI, but I find it works best as a conversation partner: to explore the possibilities of visual imagery, to brainstorm ideas, or help explain a complex concept. I don't know that publishers want to replace their authors (if they do, they're vastly uninformed about which party is unnecessary in their relationship) but they probably are realizing how valuable their authors' works are for training data. Companies are circling the wagons around their data sources so they can either train their own AI models, or charge other companies for access. This access could generate lots of revenue since AI companies want high-quality data to train on, but I guarantee the authors won't earn much themselves from their contracts. Guess what, though, new AI models like Claude 2 are capable of reading long contracts and chatting with you about them, so you might want to try out AI as an extra set of eyes to read through contracts.

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

That's an interesting idea, using it to read contracts! Hmm...

[@trinaq]

I love how two completely different movies having the same release date became a cultural event! Have you seen both yet, Michelle?

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Not yet, but I'm going to! You?

[@trinaq]

@@MichelleSchustermanAuthor I've just seen Barbie, but plan to see Oppenheimer later on in the week.

[@miramari732]

@@trinaq I've seen Oppenheimer but not Barbie. Is it as good as told? Oppenheimer is well... blast. Really good, but also sad - it tells more about how politicians use and discard science and scientists than about anything else, nuclear bomb included

[@MikaylaKennedy]

Re: unionizing and striking on authors: HC also fired their union leader after the strike last year, which is disgusting.

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Did they really? At the risk of sounding naive...isn't that illegal?!

[@MikaylaKennedy]

@@MichelleSchustermanAuthor it is! The union has filed a grievance over it. I'll link it in a reply but KZbin might filter it.

[@kanashiiookami6537]

Oh, just when I though standard contract negotiations sounded confusing enough for authors (based on videos I've been perusing and the odd forum of published authors giving newbies a heads up they wished they'd had) now I gotta worry about making sure to either put in a no-AI clause or make sure they didn't sneak AI allowance in to the fine print?! (Course these are just scenarios in my head. But the dread is real!) At what point do authors, including the big name authors, say "hell no" and turn to self publishing? Will trad pub run itself into the ground with all this trend chasing like Musk is with Twitter? And on that note, with publishers pushing tiktok and all that on authors, how's it looking for them pushing Twitter on them now that that platform is a dumpster fire? Add in the pop up of so many Twitter alternatives and I wonder which way publishers (and agents) will be encouraging authors to go. Threads? Mastadon? Blue sky? All of them so we reach the amount of followers we might have had on the original Twitter? I thought it was bad enough that i may have to plan for a Twitter presence in future if I ever get published. But will they expect us to spread ourselves so thin to reach every social media platform that's in that we have zero time to do the writing and editing we're (hopefully) getting paid for? Is that why they want to force AI on authors, so the books can still be pumped out and the author can get on the social media trends? Because I cannot understand why they'd possibly think any of this was a good idea. Unless their plan is to be like Musk and completely destroy what should have been a good thing. Like they want the downfall of books or something. 🤷🤦 I dunno. This is just making my brain spiral. I hope your week is a good one, and that your work is going well. Thank you for posting a video. And sorry for the ramble!😅

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Well, re: when big name authors turn to self-publishing...after Brandon Sanderson's wild success last year, I can't imagine many of those authors aren't at least considering it at this point! The idea of AI writing books so authors can do the social media work is a dystopian I do not want to live in lol Hope you have a good week, K!

[@lemonblue2387]

Script and book authors need a way to make their work public - and the public needs to simply not buy or see works created that way. We need to know beforehand though. Also, none of this would be happening if anyone in the world agreed with me for the last two decades - that people should own their own image, voice, likeness as surely as they own their bodies. If you're on a camera or photo or video or film or recording - it may be legal to make the similarity - say for law enforcement or security reasons - but outside of a legal investigation it shouldn't be distributable without a contract from the person or their face and voice should have to be removed. In the old days that was common. Now any stalker can follow anyone they want and put it up on KZbin or sell it to a magazine. It was always wrong.

[@Tannille]

AI is a great brainstorming tool, but like anything, "they" will take it too far.

[@MichelleSchustermanAuthor]

Absolutely.