All systems go: Writing and editing in an evolving world

I’ve worked in the publishing industry for all of my professional life, and I’ve written, edited, and managed blogs for many of the businesses I’ve worked for. But believe it or not, this is the first time I’ve ever had my own blog.

When I was first getting started in publishing, the first generation of Kindles had just hit the market and ebooks were taking center stage. The industry was practically caught on the back foot, racing to update the traditional publishing model to cater to an increasingly digital and on-demand world. I was finishing up my bachelor’s degree in publishing at the time, and all of these changes threw a sizable spanner into the works. My professors devoted more and more class time to discussing these changes. They even adapted our coursework on the fly, taking time during our lectures to explain new topics—such as the evolving updates to the bestseller scoring rubric—that they were learning in real time alongside us. My classmates and I devoted a lot of time to these discussions outside of class, too—first with trepidation, and then with growing excitement, once we got a chance to play with the Kindles ourselves.

And that was just the beginning. Once the industry caught its breath and adapted to the new digital-forward environment, it felt like the changes only accelerated. I spent the first few years of my career navigating a truly odd transition period, where I might spend my morning copyediting an article with an actual red pencil in hand and then spend my afternoon helping my colleagues digitize our back catalogue. As the years went by, more and more of my work began to take place online, first with blogs and ebooks and then with written content destined to be consumed only through a screen.

In fact, change has been the only constant throughout my publishing career. In one sense, that’s pretty nerve-wracking: it can sometimes feel like being stuck on the roof of a speeding train. But that means it’s also exhilarating: I’ve had the opportunity to stay on the cutting edge of each new development as it rolls out.

Lately, with the rise of generative AI and other similar technologies, even the familiarity of constant change feels new again, and we’re all playing the game under yet another new set of rules. One of the most refreshingly disruptive aspects of the rise of ebooks so many years ago was the democratization of the publishing model. Suddenly, anyone with an Internet connection could position their book on Amazon in just a few minutes, placing it alongside traditional titles that had taken 18+ months and a team of in-house publishing professionals to get there. Today, we’re seeing a similar democratization: with the use of generative tools, anyone can “produce” a book, or any other kind of content, and publish it within seconds. This time, however, the new technology comes with a host of ethical considerations and caveats the likes of which we haven’t quite seen before.

(As just the most recent example at the time of writing: the United States Supreme Court has refused to consider whether AI-generated content can be copyrighted. This has huge implications for anyone who wants sell content containing genAI materials for a profit.)

That brings me to my goals for this blog. I want it to be a place where I can lend my writing and editing expertise to the latest news and developments, and I want to offer my perspective as someone who has spent her time in this industry combining old-school approaches and new-school tools. I also want to talk about what these latest changes mean for everyone, not just publishing professionals: that includes independent authors and other aspiring creatives, not to mention all of us in our capacities as recipients and consumers of content.

We’ll get into all of this and more, trust me.