Spines is a startup that uses AI to accelerate publishing, but authors worry that too much automation will lead to poor-quality books. | Credit: Pexels.
- Spines is a startup that uses AI to accelerate the publishing process.
- For a price, the company claims it can push a book out in a few weeks.
- However, authors worry that the use of AI will lead to poor-quality books.
From Amazon’s original premise to Google Books, technology companies have a history of fixating on books.
Or rather, they seem obsessed with trying to shake up the publishing industry, with each would-be game changer positioned by its proponents as a kind of digital Gutenberg.
In 2024, the revolutionary potency that this implies is inevitably inflected through the lens of artificial intelligence. Recently, a startup promising to transform the publishing process with AI has received backlash from authors.
Spines Seeks To Automate Publishing
Formerly known as BooxAI, Spines was founded in 2021 with the mission to automate book distribution.
With prices starting from less than $1,500 for on-demand printing, the startup offers services including editing, proofreading, formatting and cover design, as well as marketing and distribution across “every possible channel and platform.”
By using a variety of AI tools, the company says it can take just three weeks to go from a manuscript to a published title—a dramatic improvement on the traditional publishing process.
However, authors and other publishers have slammed the project, arguing that the relentless pursuit of efficiency will ultimately lead to poor-quality books.
Authors Reject AI Publisher
Calling for her peers to boycott the platform, the author Deidre J Owen dismissed Spines as little more than a “vanity publisher,” only worse because “they will flood the market with AI.”
Echoing her sentiment, Marco Rinaldi argued that by trying to speed up self-publishing, the company will not only sacrifice quality but also “screw the book cover artists, translators, etc.”
All in the Name of Speed
In an industry where the publishing process can drag on for years, Spines isn’t the only company looking to speed things along with technology.
Microsoft announced the launch of its new imprint, 8080 Books, this month. In the announcement, Microsoft promised to “accelerate the publishing process, shortening the lag between the final manuscript and the book’s arrival in the marketplace.”
8080 Books doesn’t support self-publishing like Spines, but the speed-through-technology ethos they share reflects the way information spreads in the AI era.
With ideas moving faster than ever, often unchecked and unmoderated, the slow and methodical mode of legacy publishing seems out of step with contemporary trends.
In the world of books, however, older ways of doing things have a habit of enduring, despite all the revolutionary potential of new technologies.
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