Do Readers Care Who Writes the Book?

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

I listened to a podcast panel the other day, all about (can you guess?) Artificial Intelligence. It was a robust discussion of what AI means for writers and publishers, as has been covered several times here at TKZ and just about everywhere else in the known universe. The podcast and transcript can be found here.

One of the interviewees is a romance writer who openly admits utilizing AI generative tools to crank out her product. She released 200 romance novels last year, under 12 different pseudonyms. She sees this as a business, starting out each project by researching what tropes are selling, then interacting with LLMs to set up an outline. “I can then ask the system to generate the first draft for me.”

When asked if she reveals to readers that the books are largely AI, she said she does not. The one time she did she got 14,000 death threats. (A post about the darkness of human nature run amok may be inserted here.)

Anyway…the question came up about whether readers ultimately care how a book is produced. Well, 14,000 wackos seem to. But what about the sane? Journalist Derek Newton offered an answer:

I think the reaction that she received is probably good anecdotal evidence of what the market wants and expects. And my personal view is that a minimum, readers ought to have information about where their books come from….is this a purely human written piece, a work from the mind and spirit and soul of an author? Is it a mix up, a mash up? Did the author have an idea and use AI to put it together? Or is it something that Claude or ChatGPT banged out in 15, is it on the Amazon bookshelves fifteen minutes later? Those are very different things. And I think since we can know that, we should share that information with readers. Maybe some readers don’t care. Maybe they prefer AI. Maybe they only wanna read human stories. But I think the minimum standard ought to be we ought to tell people. And one more thing. She did mention in the interview that she discloses to Amazon. Amazon does ask that, but they don’t share that information, and they don’t have any way to verify it. So any author could simply say no or check the box. Oh, yeah. I didn’t use AI, and there’s nobody looking into that. So sharing it with Amazon may be true, but it really doesn’t add any value to the process or to readers. Readers don’t get that information, and there’s no way to know it’s true.

New York Times reporter Alexandra Alter said:

Yeah, I think it matters, when readers have the choice to decide, okay, I would love to read something written by a human, or I’m curious. Can AI write a good story? I’ll check this out. I think, you know, some might be curious and wanna read something generated by AI. But my impression from comments I’ve seen online and from my conversations with readers is that one of the things that draws people to books is the opportunity to connect with another human mind. And most people, like that human connection and would would opt for that, you know, given the choice.

On the other hand, a listener offered this comment:

We all need to accept that AI is a part of the future. Just like in the past, people had to accept the advances in technology. I believe there should be transparency about AI use, but I think the panel would be surprised to find out that most readers don’t really care if a book is written by AI or an author. Most readers are reading for enjoyment, not loyalty to a particular author.

Ah, as Hamlet might have muttered over his Kindle, that is the question. I don’t believe for a moment that most readers don’t really care if a book is written by AI. If a reader gets massive reading pleasure from a book, they’ll want to a) find more by this author; and b) get to know this author on a human level. When I read my first Bosch, I wanted to know all about Michael Connelly. I read more Bosch, and wanted to meet Michael Connelly…and did, at a book signing. That mattered to me.

And when I’ve done signings and people come up and tell me how much they love my books, there’s no greater feeling in the world. I extend my human touch via my Substack newsletter and, of course, right here at the Zone.

However (and I’m just spitballing here), maybe there is an exception in the romance world. Category romances have always been the largest market in the publishing ecosystem. Many of these are written under pseudonyms. Voracious romance readers go through them like candy. Perhaps for this market human agency is not a big deal.

What about everywhere else?

Let’s talk about it. Do you care about human authorship? Do you care if an entrepreneur uses AI to crank out hundreds of “entertaining” books, making real money on volume? If you read a book and liked it, then found out it was 90% AI generated, how would you feel?

The Author’s Guide to Generative Search Optimization (GSO)

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What is GSO and why should writers care about it?

Thank you for inviting me to be a contributor to the Kill Zone! I am thrilled (pun intended) to be here.

I’m Lindsey Hughes, a former Hollywood development executive turned story coach for novelists and screenwriters and a non-fiction author.

How to make sure AI can find and recommend you and  your novel

In the last few months, you may have noticed that internet search has changed. Now when you Google something, Gemini, Google’s AI, answers your question in a paragraph, giving you links if you want to read further. Many people have stopped Googling altogether, starting their search with their favorite AI tool.

This shift is why writers need a new internet visibility strategy – GSO.

What is GSO?

Generative Search Optimization (GSO) makes your work easy for AI tools to understand, trust, and surface inside their answers. AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, Gemini, and Perplexity, are summarizing, recommending, and quoting the internet for people searching. Your job is to make your work easy for the AI to understand and recommend.

Think about it like this:

  • Traditional SEO was a treasure map. You sprinkled keywords around your site and hoped Google sent explorers to your link.
  • GSO is different. It’s about showing up inside the answer.

AI-powered conversational search is fundamentally changing internet search by moving away from basic keyword results toward nuanced, back-and-forth dialogues between readers and AI tools.

Traditional search engines struggle with long, specific phrases, forcing readers to think in basic keywords like “novels about birdwatching”. In contrast, AI can process language nuances to handle highly specific requests. For example, a reader or producer can ask for “a good thriller set in a small town with a female protagonist who’s a journalist investigating a cold case” and receive a recommendation that matches those exact criteria.

Search becomes a conversation where every response uncovers deeper aspects of what the user is looking for. People can modify their requests as they go, guided on a journey of discovery rather than just asking for directions.

Through conversation, AI tools get to know users’ behavior, search history, and preferences, enabling them to tailor results to an individual’s specific interests. They can remember a user’s preferences over months or years, making increasingly accurate recommendations.

AIs can read and analyze pictures too. A reader can take a photo of their physical bookshelf. Then the AI then analyzes the titles and recommends what they should read next based on their established tastes.

Why GSO Matters for Writers

AI is becoming the new librarian, bookseller, and research assistant. If the model doesn’t know your work, it can’t recommend it. As a writer, you want AI to have read your books.

AI is the new librarian.

When someone asks, “What are great cozy mysteries set in Maine with innkeeper sleuths?” they will not scroll ten results anymore. They’ll read one AI summary and click one recommendation. If the model can’t confidently describe your book or script, you’re invisible.

This is good news for readers, authors, and screenwriters. It will be easier for people to find stories they like and easier for creators to build a fanbase.

GSO levels the playing field.

Generative engines don’t only reward big brands. They reward clear, consistent, well-structured information that’s easy to verify and cite. That’s good news for indie and traditional authors.

GSO fluidly links discovery and purchase for books.

The line between discovering a book and buying it is disappearing through agentic commerce.  Soon readers will be able to find a book through a conversation and complete the purchase without ever leaving the chat interface.

What does AI know about you?

Search for yourself and your projects with a few of the AI tools.

Try these prompts:

  • What do you know about [Your Name] as an author?
  • Summarize [Book Title] and list themes, tropes, and comparable titles.
  • Where can I learn more about [Book Title]?
  • What genre is [Title] and who is it for?

Notice:

  • Is the info accurate?
  • Is it thin, only one vague paragraph?
  • Does it point to the wrong page or another person with your name?

Optimizing Your Website for GSO

Let’s get visible!

SEO helped Google know who you are. AI visibility is about what the internet thinks you mean.  Now you must write your website for people and AI bots.

Make your writer identity clear with a dedicated About page

  • Who you are (author)
  • What you write (genres + audience)
  • What you’re known for (awards, credits, specialties)
  • Where to start (your best entry title)
  • Your writer logline. “I am a  novelist and I write [genre] + [kind of stories] with [tropes].”
  • Your short bio.
  • Your agent  contact information and how to reach you directly.
  • Links to social media. Don’t forget: Linked In, YouTube, Goodreads, and Amazon Author Central, your podcast, podcast appearances, legacy media mentions.  (AIs read social media. It’s another place you are mentioned. The more data points on you and your book the better.)

Give every book its own page on your website

Instead of lumping all your books together on one page, give each one a dedicated, content rich page. The more information about the story, the better the AI can know and recommend it.

Include: 

  • Title, series, genre, tropes,
  • Cover art
  • Back cover description
  • Formats (ebook, paperback, audio), ISBNs
  • Retail links + Start here for first book
  • Reviews and awards
  • Agent’s contact information,  if traditionally published
  • Your contact info for podcast and media interviews

Strong Bonus Content

Sample chapters or scenes: Provide the first two or three chapters or scenes in text or PDF format. AI bots will read these samples to understand your writing style and story.

List of Tropes: Clearly state the tropes in your story (e.g., “enemies to lovers” or “small-town cold case”). AI models are thirsty for tropes and use them as a primary way to recommend books for specific reader queries.

High-Resolution Visual Assets: Upload high-resolution maps, character art, and book and movie trailers, teasers and pitch decks. Detailed visual descriptions help the AI recommend your book to readers interested in specific settings or aesthetics.

Frequently Asked Questions: AIs love the question-and-answer format.

Book Group Discussion & Classroom Guides for Teachers

Guest Blog Posts or Podcast Interviews: Where you discuss the book. These inbound links help the AI associate your work with other popular authors and themes in your genre.

Secure Mainstream Media Mentions: Many AI models use mainstream media (newspapers, local TV news, and Wikipedia) as a source to determine a book’s cultural relevance. Links from these authoritative sites to your website significantly boost your standing in generative search results.

Optimize Your Goodreads Profile: All major AI models train on Goodreads because its data is highly structured, public, and follows best practices for bots.

Blogging: AI models use associations to categorize authors. Write blog posts like “10 authors similar to [Famous Author]” or “10 best books for fans of [Bestseller],” and include your own work on that list. This trains the AI to cluster you with established names in your genre.

Core Metadata & Identifiers

  • Official Identifiers: Explicitly list your ISBN and ASIN (Amazon’s ID). This allows the AI to link your website’s data with information from other platforms like Goodreads. This is the primary key AI uses to connect data from across the web.
  • Copyright Details: Include the publication year and publisher name.
  • Buying Options: Link to every site that sells the book, this creates more “data points” for the AI to train on.

Techie Stuff

This is the nerdy part that helps the AI behind the scenes. For best results, use WordPress to create your site.

Install and Use Yoast SEO to label the Schema.org: This is the most recommended free plugin for handling technical metadata. Within the plugin, there is a specific tab labeled “Schema”.

  • Configure the Schema Tab: Simply click the Schema tab and choose the labels; it is designed to be straightforward and involves turning specific dots green to enable different metadata types.
  • Utilize Question/FAQ Schema: You can add “Question schema” to your frequently asked questions pages.
  • Why this matters for AI discovery: AI models and search bots “gobble up” this structured data because it provides technical labels that are easier for them to parse than raw text.

Contextual Formatting: Use clear H1, H2, and H3 headings, bullet points, and internal hyperlinks to help the bot find the most important information.

Descriptive Alt Text: Add detailed alt text to images, as current multimodal AI models use this text to understand visual content.

Final Take Away

Re-run your AI audit and see what improved. Congratulations you are visible to the new internet! Now your website is written for humans and for the AI bots that work for humans.

More About GSO

AI Optimization for Authors

Book Discoverability in the Age of AI: GSO for Authors

How to get ChatGPT to recommend your book

Get ChatGPT to recommend your YouTube videos 

2026 Trends for Indie Authors

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Reader Friday-WordNerds Unite!

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Good morning, and welcome to all my WordNerdy friends and family!

Quick question to get the fun ball rolling:

Can you add to this list?

(Credit for this meme goes to Chip MacGregor–saw it on his FB page, and almost snorted coffee!)

I did an internet search on “WordNerd”, and boy howdy, did I get some fun stuff to read.

Your turn…and, go!

 

 

True Crime Thursday – Blurry Line Between Fact and Fiction

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by Debbie Burke

Here’s a familiar trope in crime fiction: an author protagonist details a fictional murder that the author is later accused of. The book they wrote is used as evidence to prove their guilt or innocence.

Today’s True Crime story is a real-life case that carries that trope to the extreme.

In 2000, a Polish businessman named Dariusz Janiszewski disappeared. Four weeks later, his body was pulled from the River Oder near Wroklaw in southwest Poland. He had been tortured and tied with a rope noose around his neck that fastened to his ankles, pulling him into a painful backward cradle shape. If he struggled against the bonds, the noose would tighten, strangling him.

According to a scholarly paper (public domain) by Katarzyna Struzińska entitled “The Murderer as Writer, Storyteller and Protagonist: The Case of Krystian Bala”:

“The autopsy revealed that Janiszewski most probably died because of ligature strangulation; however, owing to some indicators showing that he was still alive when someone dropped him into the river, the possibility of death by drowning was not excluded [34]. Furthermore, the traces left on the deceased’s body showed that he had been beaten and starved for several days before he died.”

The gruesome crime shocked the community but there were no leads. The case went cold for several years.

Then in 2003 an author named Krystian Bala self-published a grisly novel entitled Amok that described a murder with specific details similar to Janiszewski’s death. The protagonist was named “Chris”, a variation on “Krystian.” Chris was portrayed as an arrogant narcissistic sadist who pushed beyond the limits of social, religious, moral, and legal boundaries.

A detective named Jacek Wroblewski had been working the unsolved cold case. When he learned about Bala’s book, he pursued that line of investigation, gathered some damning circumstantial evidence, and questioned Bala.

The alleged motive was jealousy for an affair between Janiszewski and Bala’s wife. A polygraph was inconclusive.

Bala reportedly confessed to the murder but then recanted. 

Per Polish law, he was released after 48 hours because of insufficient evidence.

Bala made public accusations against the police, claiming he’d been kidnapped, a plastic bag placed over his head, and tortured during questioning. His claims were disproved but the media had already kicked into high gear. The sensational case went viral with articles in Europe as well as international publications including The Guardian and Time.com.

Without physical proof or eyewitnesses, the detective continued to collect more circumstantial evidence. Phone calls to the victim shortly before the murder were traced back to Bala. He had also done online research about hanging and strangulation. Within days of the murder, Bala had sold Janizewski’s stolen phone through an internet auction site.

Meanwhile Bala vehemently protested his innocence, claiming an “oppressive police and justice system” had “treat[ed] the book as if it was a literal autobiography rather than a piece of fiction.”

In 2008, an in-depth account by David Grann was published in the New Yorker after Bala’s trial. Grann examined Bala’s background, influences, and beliefs. It’s a long article but gives considerable context detailing why many people were convinced of Bala’s guilt.

Grann’s article quotes Bala’s friend and former classmate Lotar Rasinski:

“He would tell these tall stories about himself,” Rasinski says. “If he told one person, and that person then told someone else, who told someone else, it became true. It existed in the language.” Rasinski adds, “Krystian even had a term for it. He called it ‘mytho-creativity.’ ”

Struzińska’s paper observes:

“Bala’s case might be one of the first stories that drew global attention to such a possibility of crossing the border between facts and fiction; nevertheless, this case of a writer-murder is not one-of-a-kind. For instance, in 2018 world media extensively covered the story of Nancy Crampton-Brophy, an American romance novelist, author of the novel The Wrong Husband and the essay How to Murder Your Husband, who was accused of killing her spouse, and in 2017 there was similar coverage of the case of Liu Yongbiao, a Chinese author (e.g., of the novel The Guilty Secret), who was sentenced to death for murdering four people after a 20-year-old cold case was solved [cf. 14, 17, 23, 26].”

During Bala’s 2007 trial, the court decided his book couldn’t be treated as evidence but still found him guilty based on other circumstantial evidence. He was sentenced to 25 years. He appealed and the case was retried, again resulting in conviction. He continued to protest, ultimately presenting his case to the Supreme Court of the Republic of Poland. They decided against him, which ended his legal recourse.

The case inspired Dateline-style true crime shows in Europe. Grann’s New Yorker article was reportedly optioned for film.

Despite the publicity, Struzińska’s paper says Bala admitted his book only sold a few thousand copies. He claimed to be writing a second book while in prison but apparently it has not been published.

Grann’s article quotes Bala as saying:

“I’m truly convinced that one day my book will be appreciated,” he said. “History teaches that some works of art have to wait ages before they are recognized.”

Bala achieved notoriety but the jury’s still out on the author’s “work of art.”

~~~

At TKZ, we often joke about police knocking on our doors based on our internet research.

As a writer, how consciously do you draw the line between fact and fiction?

~~~

 

In The Villain’s Journey-How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate, discover fictional and real-world villains to inspire your own stories.

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When You’re Right, You’re Still Wrong

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When You’re Right, You’re Still Wrong,
Terry Odell

top of a bald man's head

I’ve been dealing with writing stuff I know little about recently, and I’ve turned to reliable sources for research. As so often happens, I end up relying on “It’s FICTION” as I write. My philosophy is it has to be plausible for the situation.

This brought to mind something from years and books ago. I had written the following:

Touching base about the accident. I noticed a couple of units pulling away from the scene not long ago. Wondered if you had anything you could share. The Yardumians are concerned about the missing woman. Told them I’d see where things stand.” Okay, so that was a boldfaced lie. But he figured the Yardumians were concerned, and if they’d asked him to, he’d have called.

When my critique partners got their eyes on it, one suggested either barefaced or bald-faced, which he thought were the “right” usages.

I’d thought I’d used a correct term, so I looked it up. I discovered all 3 usages could be considered correct. (You might like to read the article for yourself.) Curious, I posed the question on my Facebook page, and a short time later, I’d had over 1000 views of that post, and over 40 comments. (To put this in perspective, if I get 150 views of a post, and a dozen comments, that’s a lot.) Granted, Facebook isn’t a scientific sample by any means, but I found the results worth thinking about. It wasn’t the number of hits that was of interest to me, or the number of comments—rather, it was that there was no consensus. Boldfaced and Bald-faced were almost tied with 18 and 16 “votes” respectively, while Barefaced had 7 people saying that’s what they were used to hearing.

What does this mean for a writer? Clearly, no matter which term I used, there would be a whole lot of readers who thought I got it “wrong.” And, as my first critique group used to say, “Just because it’s right doesn’t make it good.”

This can happen a lot, given how many regional differences we have in our language. But it’s not only language; sometimes it can be a ‘fact’ that you get right but readers believe the truth lies elsewhere. Getting police investigation and forensics procedures right when your readers believe what they watch on television is reality can make them think you don’t know your subject.

An author friend who wrote historical novels used the term technology in her book, and her editor called her on it. Although she could document the word’s usage in that time period, she decided to change it simply because readers probably wouldn’t take the time to look up the word’s etymology.

When I was writing Finding Sarah, I wanted to thwart her efforts to get away, so I made the only car she had access to one with a manual transmission. People who drove stick shifts years and years ago (myself included) know that you can start the car by “popping the clutch.” I made sure the car was parked facing a tree so Sarah would have to use reverse, which complicated that solution. However, in reality, in modern cars with manual transmissions, you can’t even start the car unless you’ve got the clutch depressed. Sarah didn’t know that, but critique partners who’d driven stick shifts back in the day thought I was “wrong” when the car didn’t start.

What are the solutions? For Sarah, I had Randy explain it to her later. Readers might have thought I was ‘wrong’ at the beginning, but I hope they understood when it was explained. For cop procedures, it’s nice if you can have either another character or some internal monologue to explain that “life doesn’t work like television.”

As for my bold, bald, bare dilemma? Rather than have over half my readers think I’ve got it wrong no matter which word I chose, I did a write around and said ‘blatant lie’ instead.

How do you deal with people thinking you’re wrong when you’re right?

Find me at Substack with Writings and Wanderings

Deadly Ambitions
Peace in Mapleton doesn’t last. Police Chief Gordon Hepler is already juggling a bitter ex-mayoral candidate who refuses to accept election results and a new council member determined to cut police department’s funding.
Meanwhile, Angie’s long-delayed diner remodel uncovers an old journal, sparking her curiosity about the girl who wrote it. But as she digs for answers, is she uncovering more than she bargained for?
Now, Gordon must untangle political maneuvering, personal grudges, and hidden agendas before danger closes in on the people he loves most.
Deadly Ambitions delivers small-town intrigue, political tension, and page-turning suspense rooted in both history and today’s ambitions.

Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.”

Pardon My Paranoia – Are Nosy Bots Reading Our Emails?

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by Debbie Burke

 

Recently I had a disturbing email experience.

For some months, circumstances had prevented the five members of my critique group from meeting face to face. So we began exchanging group emails to bring each other up to date.

Since we’re friends as well as writing colleagues, our emails often include personal information about families, friends, dogs, health, etc.

With five people chiming in, a recent email chain became quite long.

Then one member received a pop-up notice at the top of her gmail that gave an “AI Overview” summarizing each person’s contributions to the discussion.

Where the &$%# did that come from??? How did a bot gain access to our emails?

Our conversations included deeply personal medical information about ourselves, family, and friends such as…

Who’s struggling with symptoms that doctors can’t diagnose? Who needs heart or brain surgery? And so on.

Private, personal, confidential conversations among close friends.

Out of nowhere, an AI bot gave us a nice, neat, efficient, accurate summary.

How helpful. But intrusive as hell.

How did this nosy bot access, read, and summarize our discussions?

Had an update from Gmail changed settings to allow AI summaries?

Click the following link for an article from HuffPo that describes what probably happened and reasons why we might not want a nosy little bot to read our emails.

More insights from Proton.me:

“Today, companies like Google are expanding AI access to private communications such as email, framing it as productivity and convenience. But Gemini operates under its own terms, making it harder to distinguish what data is handled by Gmail itself and what is processed by AI systems.”

If you don’t want Gemini AI summaries on Gmail, here’s how to change “smart” settings: help page.

When I checked my settings, I had already turned off “smart” features. Yet the AI summary still showed up. Hmmm. 

That leads me to believe someone else hadn’t disabled their smart features, which opened access to our Gmails.

***TKZ’s tech experts, please feel free share your knowledge in the comments.***

What does that mean for medical and legal professionals who send and receive confidential records? If a recipient doesn’t know to shut off their device’s smart features, can Gemini suck up private information for its own commercial use?

Doesn’t that violate HIPAA rules and attorney-client confidentiality???

I foresee class action lawsuits from victims damaged by confidentiality breaches.

What about writers?

We routinely email manuscripts to agents and editors. We also exchange manuscripts for beta reading, critique, editing, etc. Those manuscripts are copyrighted as soon as the author commits them to tangible form, on paper, digital file, etc. That protects our work, right?

Not necessarily.

You may have heard about the $1.5 billion judgment against Anthropic for using illegally obtained copyrighted books to train Claude, their large language model (LLM) AI program.

The award was a win for authors, right? Uh, only under limited conditions.

To qualify for compensation in the Anthropic settlement, their books had to be registered with the US Copyright Office, not just copyrighted.

Typically, traditional publishers register copyrights but some companies didn’t. Their authors were out of luck.

Also typically, copyrights are registered upon publication, after edits, rewrites, additions, etc.

That leaves many manuscripts in limbo.

What if we email manuscripts to agents or editors? Our work is copyrighted but, while it’s under submission, it’s probably not yet registered. Can these be vacuumed up to train LLMs?

Currently, regulation of AI’s use is virtually nonexistent. Laws haven’t caught up with constantly changing developments. Legislation to control and limit use is likely years away, maybe even decades.

Meanwhile, the ease, convenience, and efficiency of technology has seduced us into giving up privacy and confidentiality.

I turned off annoying Gemini intrusions by changing settings on my own computer, but I can’t control others’ devices. And of course I trust Google as much as that nice Nigerian prince who’s sending me millions. 

Yes, I could switch to a different email server but that would cut off my main contact point as an author.

I don’t know how to deal with this except to be more cautious of what I write in emails.

Back in 2019, I wrote about text messages that I naively thought were private. Then I learned Facebook, Amazon, Google, etc. had accessed my texts to send advertising related to them. Stealth permissions buried deep in the phone’s terms and conditions grant access to third parties. By using the phone, you agree to the conditions, even when they’re next to impossible to find.

Six years later, Gmail is in a similar state where the onus is on the user to go extra miles to opt out of invasions into privacy.

This reminds me of wise advice from an attorney mentioned in the 2019 post: “Don’t put in writing anything you wouldn’t want to be read in open court.”

~~~

TKZers: Have you run into Gemini’s email summaries? What do you do to maintain online privacy? Or does that no longer matter?

~~~

You can’t believe your eyes. Can investigator Tawny Lindholm and attorney Tillman Rosenbaum save an innocent woman’s life after deep fake videos show the world she’s guilty? Find out in Deep Fake Double Down, winner of BookLife’s best mystery contest.

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The History of Books

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“My best friend is a person who will give me a book I have not read.” —Abraham Lincoln

* * *

Thursday, April 23, 2026 is World Book Day. According to Wikipedia,

World Book Day, also known as World Book and Copyright Day or International Day of the Book, is an annual event organized by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to promote reading, publishing, and copyright. The first World Book Day was celebrated on 23 April in 1995, and continues to be recognized on that day.

Clearly, all authors should be celebrating World Book Day, but I have to admit I never heard of this special day until my husband and I were invited to give a presentation on the subject. As a result of that invitation, I did a little research and found it to be such a fascinating story, I figured TKZ folks would be interested.

Much of the information below outlining the major milestones in the history of books came from tckpublishing.com.

* * *

Mesopotamia, 3500 BC – Clay Tablets

The Mesopotamians used wet clay and wrote on it with a reed stylus. The tablets were then dried or baked to preserve the writing. Much of the content recorded inventories, sales information, contracts and legal agreements.

Egypt, 3000 BC – Papyrus

The Egyptians used marrow from the papyrus reed to produce sheets which were glued together to create scrolls. Some of the scrolls were very long—one measured more than 40 meters!

 

Greece, 500 BC – Goat skins

A shortage of papyrus gave the Greeks incentive to go in another direction, and they used sheep and goat skins to make parchment. It was a good solution, but not as good as leather.

 

China, 100 BC – Paper!

The Chinese are credited with inventing paper made from rolls of bamboo that were bound together.

 

Rome, 100 BC – Codex

Romans made a giant leap forward with the invention of the codex, a way to bind pages together to form what we would recognize as a book.

 

It took 3500 years to get to books in the format we’re used to seeing, but printing books in mass was still to come.

Movable type – 1000 – 1400

The Koreans invented the first metal movable type in 1200 AD and produced the first book with that type in 1377AD.

 

 

Gutenberg’s printing press – 1439 

Gutenberg’s brilliant invention provided for the mass production of books. The first mass-produced book was the Gutenberg Bible, printed in 1455.

 

Pocketbooks – 1500

Aldus Manutius is credited with inventing this precursor to the modern paperback.

 

Printing comes to America – 1640

The Puritans brought over a printing press and printed The Bay Psalm, the first book printed in the new world. It contains the Book of Psalms from the Bible. A few copies of the original printing are still in existence.

 

Project Gutenberg – 1970s

Michael S. Hart founded Project Gutenberg in 1971 as a way to digitize and preserve important books. As of March 2026, this volunteer effort has made over 75,000 free works available to the public.

 

Amazon Kindle – 2007

Amazon’s Kindle was introduced in 2007 to light a fire in the reading public. Over 80,000 titles were available for purchase on the first release. There are currently over 44 million book titles on Amazon.

 

According to medium.com, around 2.2 million books are published each year, and there are around 155 million books (unique titles) in the world today!

* * *

So TKZers: What are your thoughts on the history of books? What’s your favorite book? How many books have you published? Do you write in one genre or several?

* * *

THE WATCH MYSTERIES

Half-sisters Kathryn and Cece never meant to become sleuths, but trouble has a way of finding them. With Kathryn’s problem-solving skills and Cece’s theatrical talent, these reluctant detectives prove the search for truth is worth the effort.

Three complete novels on sale this week for 99¢ on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, and Google Play.

Rejections and Successes

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by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

All writers get rejected. Well, almost all…there have been a few first-time-out successes (though often followed by a second-book failure, leading to another form of rejection: no new contract).

Many writers report on the rejection slips and letters they received, putting them in a pile, or in a file, or on a spike in the wall. Persistence and production is what mattered. The pulpsters would get their stories returned by SASE (quiz, kids: what does SASE mean? No Googling!) and put them in another envelope and send them out again.

There are some famous rejections in literary lore.

“It is impossible to sell animal stories.” (To George Orwell re: Animal Farm)

“We are not interested in science fiction which deals with negative utopias.” (To Stephen King re: Carrie)

“If you insist on re-writing this, get rid of that Indian stuff.” (To Tony Hillerman re: The Blessing Way)

I will add mine. I was going through some old file drawers the other day, and found it. My very first book proposal and my very first rejection letter! Now, this was for a nonfiction book, and I was truly wet behind the ears (i.e., just out of college). It was a form letter, which began with a warm “Dear Author.”

In answer to your present query, we are not interested in seeing this manuscript as we are not looking for this type of book on this subject matter at this time.

We appreciate your writing us about your manuscript and would be open to future queries about other books you are writing.

Sincerely,

The Editorial Staff

Hey, at least they appreciated me! And said they were open! (That they said this to every author they rejected was a thought that did occur to me.)

In that same file drawer, I found an even earlier letter, this one concerning a screenplay I had written as a film student in 1975. It was from Hal Barwood, whom I’d met when he was living in a house on the street I grew up on. He was the writer, with his partner Matthew Robbins, of Sugarland Express, Spielberg’s first feature film. And other successes. He’d invited me to send him my script, which I did. (I also found the script. Boy, was I not ready for prime time!).

He wrote me a very nice letter on Universal Studios letterhead, with some sage advice.

The idea underlying your story would make a charming and professionally workable premise for a TV movie. But what I think you have started to write is a stage play. There’s nothing wrong with that — much of the dialogue is very snappy — however, in the movies much of the storytelling should happen on the bench during the “time outs.”

He could have ended it there, but finished with this:

Don’t despair — anyone who can crank out engaging stories like this one should keep his nose to the grindstone.

That’s the kind of encouragement that can make all the difference to a young writer. When I finally put my nose to that grindstone thirteen years later, it would be another seven years before I started to sell.

Persistence and production.

Now let’s talk about successes. I was also going through my bookshelves clearing out space. Over the years I’ve collected bunches of Alfred Hitchcock and Ellery Queen magazines. These I decided to donate. And then I just happened to look down at one of them, and this is what I saw:

Our own Elaine Viets got the cover for the debut of her new series! Boom! I’d call that a major score.

I’ll never forget the box of books I received when my first thriller was published. My book! In print! From a real publisher! I was on my way. It wasn’t always smooth sailing (is it ever?) but I stuck around. I’m still sticking.

So let’s take a stroll down Memory Lane. Do you remember your first rejection slip? (For you kids, rejection email.) How about your first success, however you define that? Let’s hear your stories. And keep producing and persisting. Carpe Typem!

Reader Friday-Let’s Talk Billets…

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Okay, Killzoners, let’s be up front with each other…and have some fun while we’re at it.

 

Be it paper delivery, fast food shenanigans, kiddo-sitting, or shoveling out your neighbor’s chicken coop . . . what was your first paying billet (or J.O.B.)?

I like to think of my first job as the First Draft of My Life.

 

Remember these?

 

I was the advanced age of fourteen when I was hired in my mother’s office. I worked after school three days a week, filing real estate cards—way before the digital age—and answering the black dial phone. Not exciting, but I could start buying my own clothes!

 

We won’t talk about the other job I had . . . intermittently dog-sitting for our neighbor’s twin St. Bernards . . . actually, I don’t know to this day who was sitting who. (Whom?)

Two of them!

 

Your turn—what was your first experience with a paycheck (and, dare I say, taxes?)

And, second question: How has that first paying job influenced your writing–such as plot, character development, etc.?