Anyway buy my lovingly human made slop so I can feel less defeatist about watching AI slop perform so well. 💖

mybook.to/hisprotector...

(Which isn't to say something being a diagnosis is the be-all-end-all, since a lot of perfectly normal things such as Queer identities have been pathologized. But it gives you an idea of where the thinking on this is in the "expert" circles.)

A drum I will bang on forever.

Studies consistently find that people who self describe as "porn addicts" have completely normal engagement with porn, they just feel shame about it. Porn is not addictive. It's not a diagnosis. No respectable psychologist treats it.

I jinxed myself. It was 1000 pages read on Kindle Unlimited in a day (which would roughly equate to 8 people reading the book in full, though of course more likely more readers reading various amounts) but we ended just short of it.

I have a teeny tiny bit of hope left, but my day job for a few years has been in marketing for a company specializing in romance ebooks, audiobooks, and adaptations, and in their A/B tests the AI covers have consistently outperformed the real stuff for years. We're in a minority.

I don't know what the answer is. I'm gonna double and triple down on human creation. I'm gonna keep unfollowing and blocking anyone I see positively engaging with or creating this stuff. But it's hard not to feel some kind of doomer-ish feelings about it.

And the consistent thing about all of these is that they are flat, and that they frequently appropriate from marginalized people. A disproportionate number of these creations are Black and/or Queer in nature. Made anonymously.

We have automated cultural appropriation to massive acclaim.

AI generated songs frequently topping the Spotify charts lately.

"Fruit Love Island" being the fastest growing TikTok account of all time when millions of real people have been making comedy skits there for years,

Fake AI drawings of Black Sailor Scouts with millions of likes and shares on Instagram uplifted as representation when real human artists have been drawing that for decades getting 500 likes.

Fake AI "porn stars" gaining 100k followers in the time the most beautiful real sex worker you know got 2k.

The most insidious thing about genAI is constantly seeing soulless, cynical AI creations outperform things put together lovingly by humans on social media everywhere around us. It makes you wonder what even the point is if everyone apparently wants the slop. And you gotta resist that feeling.

Issue resolved!

I'm on track to hit an arbitrary but meaningful little goal with my book today. I don't wanna celebrate before it happens. But it's really affirming to see my metrics climbing there.

Cover art for HIS PROTECTOR by Richard Vein. The cover is placed on top of a dark mountainscape backdrop. The cover art features an extremely muscular man, his back turned partway to the viewer, sitting on his motorbike. He is in the desert, dust is thrown up all around him. The top text says "The Drake Silver Series #1", the middle text says "HIS PROTECTOR" and the bottom text says "from the naughty mind of richard vein"

💥 OUT NOW 💥

HIS PROTECTOR, the first in a series of kinky, smutty, explicit gay biker books!

Buy now on Amazon or read for free on Kindle Unlimited to meet Drake Silver and find out what makes him so wildly intoxicating.

mybook.to/hisprotector...

#gaysmut #gayromance #gayauthor #queerauthor #mlm

I also have some more high concept, more unique ideas in different genres or overlapping with different genres but I think I wanna explore some simpler fare before I move onto the much more difficult stuff.

I had a lot of fun playing around with a popular setting and its tropes for my first one so I'm gonna do that again with a different set of popular erotica tropes and a different setting.

(I have loose concepts for 4 more Drake Silver books but I feel it's better I take breaks)

I actually have an idea for a crime/mystery novel set in a gay sex venue dsjdkjdkjgfjk

But it's unrelated to this.

Trying to come up with another ridiculously stupid name for the love interest in my next novel and this shit is harder than the actual writing process because now I wanna one-up myself and come up with something better/more ridiculous than DRAKE SILVER.

You get paid based on pages read, so if my book was longer, and people read in full, income would go up proportionally.

I definitely understand why genre authors swear by Amazon Kindle Unlimited. 3 people reading my very short book in full is roughly equivalent to the revenue from 1 sale, and it's a whole lot easier to get people to give your book a chance for "free" as part of their membership vs to sell a copy.

I considered fixing this in an editing pass but I decided it’s just how I speak/write and that’s valid. If language is clearly understood, it is correct. The same word can be spelled with an s sometimes and a z other times.

The twin giveaways of a writer who speaks English as a second language:

Doesn’t mix up homonyms, but does mix and match US and UK spellings, terminology and idioms willy-nilly because our English isn’t firmly rooted in one or the other.

People “writing” with AI going into the text and purposely adding typos and grammatical mistakes so their text isn’t clocked as AI is crazy.

I don’t need to add human stupidity to artificial intelligence. My jumping back and forth between US and UK spellings randomly is all natural. 😂

Hey babes! I’m aware my book can’t be found through Amazon search rn. Trying to figure out the issue and work it out - hoping it’s just search indexing delays!

Until then, the link in my bio will take you to the listing for your local Amazon store ❤️

Is this how you sell a book? I’m not above slutting myself out for attention 🫣

Inspired by the water heater in the steam room of Boiler that it’s really easy to accidentally touch and burn yourself on especially on a busy day when there’s literally 150 guys sucking and fucking all around you. Because I’m as much of a whore as my characters and know these things.

Final Destination but it’s porn and all kills are ridiculous gay sex mishaps like a motorized butt plug exploding in your hole or dying from suffocating during too aggressive a mouthfuck or getting your skin burned off by the exposed water heater at the bath house falling on you mid orgy.

🙏🙏🙏

It’s a new week and I’m energized to start on my second book. I have a few ideas that are all dragging me in their direction, let’s see which one I end up starting on.

Goes completely against the supposed theme of the show. The winner ends up being the least villainous.

Hey! Thanks for letting me know!

Yes, I noticed this issue on my side as well. Not sure what is causing it, I hope Amazon search just needs a few day to index new listings.

Glad you could find it with the link 🙏