What a $2 Million Book Deal Cancellation Reveals About Who Really Owns Your Credibility
I felt lost a few seconds after reading an article.
I sat there thinking. I don’t know who and what to believe.
The article was about a writer who had just gotten their 2 million dollar book deal revoked because of the suspicion of using AI.
2 million dollars. That’s a lot of money.
His agent was the one that snitched. Cold.
He said he didn’t do it. I don’t know.
His publisher washed their hands off him quicker than a soccer player flopping in the last minute of a game.
Then I saw other recent articles of other authors who had either lost book deals or been accused of using AI in their work. It’s hard to know what to believe. Everyone had an opinion.
However, I didn’t hear anything directly from the most important group for these authors.
Not their agents. Not their publishers. But their audience.
It re-affirmed the importance of something I had been working on for years.
It’s time to double-down.
Because this made me wonder: if your audience never gets to weigh in, who gets to decide your credibility?
No direct access to your audience. No control
It’s more important than ever to own the relationship you have with your audience than it’s ever been.
The further away you are from the people you want to help, the bigger your problems.
In other words, you’re renting relationships and narratives that you can own.
Back to the AI-writing conspiracy. There were too many people in the chain between the producer of the work (writer) and the consumer (readers). The agent that’s pitching to editors. The editors that have their editorial voice. The publisher that has its own sales goals. The distributors who have a portfolio of titles and limited book shelf space. They all have their own incentives. The author said there could possibly be racial bias. Apparently the three public cases of “AI author fraud” are all black authors in a publishing industry where black authors are underrepresented.
Is the race card legit? Maybe.
Did the author use AI? I don’t know.
Abi is it AI-detection false positive? Can’t tell.
Did the publisher have clear AI guidelines? I’m not sure.
But one thing is for sure. Trust has been broken, and since the book deal is cancelled, we will never get the most important judge of content from the audience.
On the other hand, I watched this AI movie (it’s one of the best I’ve seen) It’s been watched 7.3 million times. Everyone knows its AI, and the audience loves it. The problem is not whether the writer used AI or not. The problem is the lack of disclosure between writer, publisher, and audience.
The farther away the creator is from the audience, the more murky it becomes.
That’s when you get a shit show, finger-pointing, like whether AI was used in the work, and whether readers want that or not.
This is relevant to anywhere value is created – a product, book, service. That value has to be distributed. The longer the value chain, with too many middlemen, the less value that the creator of the value captures. The corporation that most people work on is the biggest middleman. They take value created by their employees, distribute it to customers, and give the employees just a fraction of the value in exchange for the cash cushion of a consistent paycheck.
They own the narrative. They own the distribution pipeline. And when things turn sour, the value creator gets shafted.
The corporation in this case is doing its thing. They are doing what they need to do to increase enterprise value for their shareholders.
The problem is the value creators that know this and continue to stay far away from the end-consumer, not owning that relationship.
When this happens, the middlemen get to dictate when you eat. They decide who the favorites are to allocate pieces of the pie to. They discard you when you don’t fit into their narrative bucket. They allow some authors to use AI in their work while others get ostracized.
Most of my books I sold directly to my audience. I printed, signed, and sent them to their address. If I decide to use AI in my work, my audience and people that value my work will be the first to know. They get to choose.
Your audience is the judge.
Not an agent. Not an editor. Definitely, not a publisher.
As Nipsey said “F****k the middleman”
The direct access to who you want to serve matters now more than ever.
It reduces the chances of murkiness.
That’s why owning the relationship is the best option.
But how do you get there when there are too many options and flashy tools to choose from.
Over the years, I’ve learned that making it simple really helps.
Build the shortest link chain
The people I most want to emulate don’t go through job boards or pitch decks. They just call.
I’ve noticed how short the chain is between them and the person they’re trying to help.
Look at where you’re creating value and count all the people or business units between you and the people you want to create value for. Eliminate as many links in that chain as possible.
Whenever I need to deliver value for myself or my clients, I send out emails, DMs, or make phone calls. I don’t go to a job board. I’m not using some 5-step automation tool. I just identify who has a problem I can solve, contact them directly about how I can solve it, create an offer that matches the investment they’re willing to make to solve the problem, get rejected or accepted. That’s it.
Direct contact
This week, to further get closer to my audience, I’m running a simple audit. I’m mapping every person or system between me and the people I actually want to help. Then I’m cutting one link.
That’s the whole experiment.
You can do the same too.
Otherwise, there will always be a middleman trying to scheme off the top of what you’re doing.
Closing Reflection:
When I read that article, I was concerned about the future of creator credibility.
The news on the Internet can throw you off. Then I realized that the same Internet is the tool that allows me to easily find, connect, and build with the people I want to work with – directly. No gatekeeper.
So here’s the question I have for you today: “Can you call or text someone that you want to help today to see if they need help? Or do you have to wait for someone to give you access?”
Yours truly,
Nifemi.
P.S. If you read this far, what is most important to you as an audience, AI, no AI, disclosing how AI is used?
