DEEP CUTS Episode 53: AI-Assisted Book Publishing Is Here

Scott Sigler Slices: SLAY

Empty Set Entertainment

Books, Fiction, Arts, Science Fiction

4.8 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 June 2025

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A company called “Spines” is publishing 8,000 AI-assisted books this year. How does that work? What does this mean for the industry? It’s money-grabbing vanity press again, but now “assisted” by AI. We cover the Spines offerings, price points, and debate if this is good for authors. Deep Cuts is created by Scott Sigler and A B Kovacs Produced by Steve Riekeberg Production Assistance by Allie Press Copyright 2025 by Empty Set Entertainment No matter how you publish your book, you need a website. Use the GoDaddy Promo Code CJCFOSSIG to trim 99% from the retail price of a new domain, including dot-coms. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Vanity Press is a term for companies that take an author's money to help that author publish a book.
0:06.8	Vanity Press has been around a long time.
0:09.3	More often than not, they are predatory companies because the one rule of thumb in publishing is that money flows to the author, not away from the author.
0:19.2	Well, now there's an AI-assisted vanity press called Spines,
0:22.9	and Spines is a very modest goal for 2025
0:25.7	to publish 8,000 AI-assisted books.
0:30.0	8,000, a sure mark of hand-selected quality.
0:35.9	I'm certain.
0:37.4	How could Spines possibly achieve this goal?
0:41.2	We'll discuss right after this short break.
0:48.8	This episode is sponsored by LiveRite, publishers of the new book Victorian Psycho by Virginia Fato.
0:56.4	Soon to be a feature film, this riveting tale of a bloodthirsty Englishwoman who seeks vengeance on the family she's been sent to care for
1:03.9	has been called the Bloody Bell of the 2025 Literary Ball by Oprah Daily, while People magazine deems it a deliciously devious new book.
1:15.2	Winifred Nottie arrives at Ensor House prepared to play the perfect governess to the Pound's family,
1:21.6	but finds herself struggling at every turn to stifle the violent compulsions of her past.
1:29.9	Brimming with sardonic wit and culminating in a shocking conclusion, Victorian Psycho plunges readers into the chilling mind of an iconic new
1:36.8	literary psychopath. Find the horror novel of the year, Victorian Psycho, wherever books are sold.
1:54.2	Welcome to Deep Guts, the bonus episode of the Scott Sigler Slices Fiction Podcasts,
1:58.5	where a sci-fi author and an audiobook narrator discuss things and
2:02.1	stuff in the world of fiction and pop culture. I am Scott Sigler, sci-fi horror author, known far and wide
2:07.8	as the future Dark Overlord. And I am A. B. Sigler, a publisher and audiobook narrator, and tonight
2:14.5	on this deep cuts, we're talking about AI-assisted book publishing.
	...

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