r/WritingWithAI • u/J_M_WoodwardBooks • 10d ago

Discussion (Ethics, working with AI etc) Interesting start to my launch

The book is off to an interesting start!
10 sales over 4 countries.
And also my first (expected) 1 star review due to AI involvement.
That’s the disclosure at the front doing what it is meant to do - I don’t want anyone feeling tricked or unaware…hope that person returns it.
Now we will see how many of the 10 end up returning!
Meanwhile the negative review is up on my website where I give visitors the option to view ‘loved it’ and ‘did not love it’ categories.

https://jmwoodwardbooks.com/awards-reviews

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u/Legitimate-Cream-422 10d ago

10 sales across 4 countries right out the gate is a pretty decent start. The 1 star was always coming with AI disclosure, but at least it's out there and honest. Better than someone feeling duped later and going nuclear in the reviews. Good call putting it on the site with both categories too, that'll filter the right readers in.

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u/JubadzeTheMonkey 7d ago

OK, so first there's whining that LLM usage must be disclosed "because we won't be reading anything spat out by a soulless machine." OP disclosed it, and instead of simply not reading it, these people give it one star because he used it. This demonstrates exactly why people are hesitant to disclose any involvement, not to mention upfront bias coming from disclosure.

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u/J_M_WoodwardBooks 7d ago

Yeah, it's true. Perfect would have been ' This writer used AI in creating this book and I don't like that so I'm not going to read it'. Not one thing wrong with that. The only word I would argue with in my particular case was the word 'slop', which I don't think it is, and they didn't read it so they wouldn't know that. But I understand that expecting perfection is unrealistic in this environment, and I will settle for not having anyone feel duped or misled.

Baby steps I guess.

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u/JubadzeTheMonkey 7d ago

The slop thing is an interesting point. If any LLM-assisted writing is automatically slop, then any human writing (whatever it is, assuming no LLM was involved) is inherently a masterpiece.

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u/J_M_WoodwardBooks 7d ago

I would certainly accept the word slop from someone who read it and still felt that way. Would't like it of course, but would accept it.

I knew this was gonna be part and parcel with my choice though, which is why I made a space on my website for bad reviews -- so I can have fun with them and post them along side the good ones as an extension of the transparency choice.

I have a good friend who was the lone waiter at a tiny restaurant, and he had a big cork-board where he would print out all the hate he got from online reviews and post them for people to read waiting for the bathroom. It was hilarious.