Submission Control
Unless you're living in a cave (and, if you are, well, go for it, I guess), you've seen the pile of stories about Clarkesworld closing to submissions in response to being flooded by AI bot submissions.
NPR, the Guardian, the NYT, the Washington Post, etc. They all covered it. I have to hand it to Neil Clarke's adroit media acumen in pushing that story out and getting buckets of ink from it.
As a flesh-and-blood human writer who's had stories rejected by Clarkesworld many a time since it started in 2006, to the extent that I gave up submitting to it many years ago, I can only look at their plight and shake my head.
But a joke did occur to me, which I'll share --
two writers are talking (oh, let's put'em in a bar):
*rimshot*
All kidding aside, it does highlight a real problem, in that what remaining publications are still stumbling along out there are getting plagued by a digital zombie apocalypse of AI bot submissions. That's going to make it even harder for unconnected writer(s) to get seen/heard (and it's already a very steep climb).
Clarkesworld has the benefit of being one of the very few good-paying speculative fiction venues still out there, which is also why they're a target of these unscrupulous hacks slinging AI-assembled things (I hesitate to call them "stories").
Inasmuch as these AI bots will choke submission portals like, it's going to make things terribly difficult for actual writers to sell their stories (even the ones who're able to).
Not sure if there's a way out for the industry. I mean, near-term, Clarke's posting and the lavish media coverage will maybe provide a short-term boost of awareness of his publication, but that'll probably only draw more AI bot story pimps (I can't call these people "writers", because they're not writers).
Maybe it'll create more dependence on the known human writers who actually have names, reputations, and followings -- what I'd call The Velvet Rope Scenario (VRS) -- where select writers get fanned through, while everybody else is left curbside.
We're already seeing that in some fashion with the propensity of publishers to extend invitations to well-known writers on anthology calls. But a VRS approach will scuttle the publishing world at large, as it needs fresh blood sooner or later.
Or maybe this'll just hasten the collapse of even more venues, as the burden becomes too onerous for the already overworked editors and screeners to handle, and fewer and fewer writers will even bother slinging stories over the publisher battlements. It's going to be a curious situation. There's no easy answer.
NPR, the Guardian, the NYT, the Washington Post, etc. They all covered it. I have to hand it to Neil Clarke's adroit media acumen in pushing that story out and getting buckets of ink from it.
As a flesh-and-blood human writer who's had stories rejected by Clarkesworld many a time since it started in 2006, to the extent that I gave up submitting to it many years ago, I can only look at their plight and shake my head.
But a joke did occur to me, which I'll share --
two writers are talking (oh, let's put'em in a bar):
Writer 1: I heard that Clarkesworld is closed to submissions.
Writer 2: Really? How can you tell?
*rimshot*
All kidding aside, it does highlight a real problem, in that what remaining publications are still stumbling along out there are getting plagued by a digital zombie apocalypse of AI bot submissions. That's going to make it even harder for unconnected writer(s) to get seen/heard (and it's already a very steep climb).
Clarkesworld has the benefit of being one of the very few good-paying speculative fiction venues still out there, which is also why they're a target of these unscrupulous hacks slinging AI-assembled things (I hesitate to call them "stories").
Inasmuch as these AI bots will choke submission portals like, it's going to make things terribly difficult for actual writers to sell their stories (even the ones who're able to).
Not sure if there's a way out for the industry. I mean, near-term, Clarke's posting and the lavish media coverage will maybe provide a short-term boost of awareness of his publication, but that'll probably only draw more AI bot story pimps (I can't call these people "writers", because they're not writers).
Maybe it'll create more dependence on the known human writers who actually have names, reputations, and followings -- what I'd call The Velvet Rope Scenario (VRS) -- where select writers get fanned through, while everybody else is left curbside.
We're already seeing that in some fashion with the propensity of publishers to extend invitations to well-known writers on anthology calls. But a VRS approach will scuttle the publishing world at large, as it needs fresh blood sooner or later.
Or maybe this'll just hasten the collapse of even more venues, as the burden becomes too onerous for the already overworked editors and screeners to handle, and fewer and fewer writers will even bother slinging stories over the publisher battlements. It's going to be a curious situation. There's no easy answer.
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