AIndignity after AIndignity

Sometimes I describe the life of a writer as a series of indignity after indignity. Failures and refusals, polite declines, not-exactly-the-right-fits, that was great but can you give us more, sorry your grant wasn’t accepted but rest assured, we don’t think you’re a garbage eater. And so on.

But then, sometimes, you get a really nice email. Like this one:

I recently came across Corporate Control, and what stayed with me was the way you connect today’s affordability and public-service problems to a much longer structural history rather than treating them as isolated political failures.

I was particularly interested in that because of the connection with your earlier work in Spin Doctors. You have spent considerable time examining not only the structures themselves, but also how those structures are represented and discussed publicly.

It made me wonder: given your experience with independent journalism and political media, how difficult is it to keep that larger structural argument intact when mainstream coverage inevitably tries to reduce something like corporate influence to a more familiar “cost-of-living” story?

I ask because that seems like an interesting tension in your work—there is a substantial historical argument underneath the immediate political commentary, but the media environment often rewards the shorter, more familiar explanation

She’s right. I have spent considerable time examining not only the structures themselves, but also how those structures are represented and discussed publicly. Really nice insight.

Or this, from a Writers’ Festival:

Your critical examination of the corporate web spun around Canada’s economy, society, and politics is incredibly timely. As Canadians continue to grapple with the housing crisis, affordability, and the widening wealth divide, your insightful analysis of corporate dominance and political limitations is the perfect catalyst for the vibrant, pressing conversations our audience craves.

We are currently locking in our featured authors for October and have a limited number of programming slots open. Given your extensive background in political commentary and your unique perspective on the forces shaping Canadian democracy, we would love to secure a place for your book in our line-up.

Of course, what followed was an invitation to present my book to the festival’s large audience. Really exciting stuff.

Or this, from a top American literary agent:

My name is Marilyn Kretzer, and I am a Senior Acquisition Editor at Blackstone Publishing. I recently spent time with your work, particularly Corporate Control: Canada in Decline Book Two, and I was impressed by the clarity, urgency, and investigative depth you bring to examining the relationship between corporate power and democratic constraint in Canada. Your ability to connect economic realities to lived social consequences creates a compelling and necessary narrative for contemporary readers.

I would be very interested to learn more about your current and forthcoming projects, as well as whether you are represented by a literary agent. If you do have representation, I would be pleased to continue any discussion through your agent. If not, I would be happy to outline how the process typically works, should there be interest in taking the conversation further.

Subject to reviewing additional material, there may be scope for a broader discussion regarding potential fit within Blackstone Publishing’s adult nonfiction and culturally focused publishing program.

If this is of interest, I would be delighted to hear from you.

Keep being awesome.

Or this:

There’s a rare kind of book that doesn’t just inform it lingers, resonates, and sparks thought long after the last page. Corporate Control: Canada in Decline Book Two is exactly that kind of book. Your meticulous exploration of corporate dominance in Canada the way it shapes politics, society, and everyday life is not just important; it’s essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the forces quietly steering our country. Every page reflects careful research, sharp insight, and a clarity that challenges readers to see beyond the surface.

My books have not had the publicity they deserve, these email writers are correct. Yes, I’d love to be at a writer’s festival, as I have only been at one in the past five years despite my five books in six years. Maybe I would like a new agent (testing my agent here to see if he reads my Substack). In the bleak, never-ending world of indignity, these emails are such wonderful messages to receive. Yes, I have done careful research, sharp insight and a clarity that challenges my readers. People have noticed my work and they’re impressed.

There is a problem, though. Of course. These messages, and dozens more like them, are all fake. They’re all AI-driven scams. Not one of them is real. They’re all preying on us, the victims of an unglorious, undignified industry, hoping to find someone who will bite. Who will actually believe that the Calgary Writers’ Festival wants to invite us, or that Marilyn Kretzer really does want to represent us or that Goodreads does want to feature our books.

What’s worse, if you respond to them, they respond back. There’s a person on the other side who is being paid to try to exploit me and take my money.

Sometimes these emails are easy to spot (they usually arrive in the middle of the night). Sometimes it takes a bit of Googling to find out that they’re a scam. But the worst is the psychological harm. For a minute, I’m told that someone out there really does like my work, only for me to then have to research to figure out, for sure, that this is just a scam. No one actually wants to offer me an opportunity.

It isn’t enough for AI to take our writing. It also is now used to psychologically torture the thousands of others of writer just like me for whom their career is indignity upon indignity.

In the real world, the world of real praise and real invitations for real opportunities, the messages get lost. When I was first approached by SiriusXM to air episodes of Sandy and Nora, I thought it was spam and it took me weeks to reply. The same thing happened with other, international corporations who reached out to me about things that never ended up working out.

And so I have to continue to read these messages, both in the pathetic hope that they might be real and in the faint possibility that they are real.