Creatives ascendant; AI-publisher roundup; Big 5 publisher challenge: Newsletter 17 July 2024
Newsletter 53. Why AI will boost, not threaten, true creative workers; Jane Friedman summarizes AI’s impact on publishers; Audible shares royalties. Plus three people to follow, three books to read, and how to get 77 Kindle books for less than a dollar each.
The future belongs to creative workers
There are so many ways to create. You can write, design, draw, record, make video, edit, plan, code, make objects, and inspire.
All creators use tools. Some of the tools are basic (paintbrushes, word processors). Some are sophisticated (AI, marketing technology stacks).
So let’s take a look at types of creators and the value they create — and how that might change over time as automation improves.
Individual creators who hand-craft creative content are valuable. They continually come up with new ideas and new ways of using words, images, sounds, and video to connect with others.
Creative leaders who manage other creators can have a multiplier effect, inspiring creativity that blossoms across the whole group that they manage.
Automation-enhanced creators who build things with automated technology tools and then refine each one personally will become more productive. But it will be harder for them to be original and creative since the pieces they make are coming from a generic source.
Automatic content generators who use automated tools to generate masses of similar content will become far more productive. However, each piece of content that they create is less effective, because it is more generic and less likely to actually reach and move the end-consumer.
Creative technology system managers who are expert in the use and management of suites of technology are essential to the operation of creative shops, and can increase the productivity of those shops. But they run the risk of increasing automation at the cost of decreased originality and humanity.
Automation builders who create automated tools that other creators use are not directly contributing to creative output, but they can increase the reach of those other creators.
Now let’s look to the future.
The individual creators and creative managers have human qualities that are irreplaceable. They can broaden and deepen their experience and become more versatile. The more automation there is, the more their originality and creativity will be needed to make creative work stand out.
The automation-enhanced creators and especially the automatic content generators will fill the world with more and more generic drivel. Worse, as automation becomes more and more effective, it will creep up and eventually take over large swaths of their work. They are creating self-limiting careers of lower and lower value.
The creative technology system managers will always be essential. But they will be on a constant treadmill of keeping up with advancing technology — and automation will take over more and more of their work as well. A few will have high paying future jobs as priests of technology; the rest will be replaced by machines.
The automation builders will likewise continue to find work. But increasingly, that work will be limited to the most sophisticated design work, as learning machines design their own successors. As with the creative technology system managers, there will be high pay for the brainiest among them and fewer jobs for everyone else.
The conventional wisdom is that AI will kill jobs. But ironically, in the creative business, it will mostly kill the jobs of people who operate generic content-generation machines, not the truly creative.
A recent study suggested that AI helps people be more creative individually but reduces collective creativity. Sounds about right.
Here’s the bottom line truly creative people will be valued more and more over time. Automation is good for them, because it enables them to differentiate. In a world awash in AI-powered hacks, artists will shine.
Double down on creativity. It’s the talent that will most increase your value.
News for writers and others who think
The Copyright Clearance Center announced a standard license for AI-use rights. This is an encouraging step in the negotiation between AI creators and content owners.
Amazon’s Audible announced a program to allow all audiobook publishers to participate in (paltry) royalties from its membership programs.
The estimable and authoritative Jane Friedman summarizes the state of the publishing industry’s grappling with AI. “The . . . concern is that AI-generated work will be less creative and interesting in the long run, since it tends to generate what’s rather average or what’s already dominant in the culture.”
The New York Times describes the challenges in the publishing industry in an article about Reagan Arthur joining Hachette (gift link): “a challenging moment for big publishing houses, which are struggling with rising supply chain costs, tepid print sales and a changing market, as sales are increasingly driven by viral trends and it’s become more difficult to help authors break out.” But people still read. This is basically a roadmap for the weaknesses that hybrid publishers and self-publishing service companies can exploit.
Three people to follow
Ashlee Vance, author and chronicler of tech heroes.
Seth Godin 🌔: I don’t know how this guy keeps generating original marketing ideas for multiple decades, but he never lets up.
Jarrett Collins , CEO at Pan-Mass Challenge, a cycling fundraiser for cancer that’s just keeps on rolling.
Three books to read
The Upside of Disruption: The Path to Leading and Thriving in the Unknown by Terence Mauri (Wiley, 2024). Why making bold decisions actually decreases risk.
What Matters Next: A Leader’s Guide to Making Human-Friendly Tech Decisions in a World That’s Moving Too Fast by Kate O’Neill (Wiley, 2025). The tech humanist’s long-awaited followup on leadership.
The Courage Gap: 5 Steps to Braver Action by Dr Margie Warrell (Berrett-Kohler, 2025). Be, don’t do: steps to enable courageous action.
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