The Devil offered to promote my book | AI in publishing gets weird
Updated: Aug 18
There is a particular kind of irony in writing a novel about an author being manipulated by algorithms, artificial intelligence, and the Devil–and then attempting to market that novel on the internet.
I'm beginning to think Prose & Cons may be conducting its own publicity campaign.
Let me explain.
When I published my first novel, I discovered a very strange corner of the internet.
Authors probably know exactly what I'm talking about.
Post a picture of your book and they appear.
"SeNd mE tHIs pOsT!"
"DM us for promotion!"
"We'd love to feature your book!"
Sometimes they're obviously automated. Sometimes they're promotinal accounts. Sometimes you stare at the profile for thirty seconds trying to determine whether you're interacting with an actual human being.
Meanwhile, writers and readers talk constatly about "the algorithm."
What does the algorithm want?
When should I post?
Should I make a Reel? What about a trial reel? Are they favored by the alogorithm?
Why did 4,000 people see the photograph of my coffee but only 137 people see the post about the book I spent two years writing?
Eventually, all of this started rattling around in my head. What if the algorithm wasn't simply deciding which stories became popular? What if it started deciding which story got told?
That question eventually became Prose & Cons.
The novel follows Hannah Johannesson, a struggling writer who finally gets everything she has spent years dreaming about: a book deal, a glamorous New York publisher, and the possibility of real success.
Unfortunately, the publish house is under the influence of a sentient, trend-obsessed algorithm called The Feed.
And the woman controlling it?
Well... she has horns.
Which brings us to the past few days.
First: The Devil Offers to Promote My Book.
I recently posted a save-the-date on Instagram for my Prose & Cons launch party.
Among the comments was the familiar offer:
"This book has caught my interest. Send the post to @coffeebookescape if you'd like it featured."
Nothing particularly unusual there.
Until I looked at the username.
iam_devil_mahir
Of all the accounts on Instagram that could have appeared beneath a post promoting my novel about an author, an algorithm, and the Devil...
The Devil offered to promote it.
You really can't make this stuff up.
I shared the comment because it was simply too perfect. I joked that at this point, I was going to assume Lucy Sinclair–the impeccably dressed, horned publishing executive in Prose & Cons–had an Instagram account.
I thought that would be the end of it.
It was not.
THEN: "I was Researching Literary Fantasy That Explores the Publishing World..."
A few days later, an email arrived.
It began:
"I was researching literary fantasy that explores the publishing world when I found Prose & Cons."
Of course.
That bustling area of scholarly inquiry.
But whoever–or whatever–generated this email had done its homework.
It knew Hannah.
It knew her librarian best friend, Solveig.
It knew Virgil, Hannah's mysterious literary agent.
It knew Sinclair & Ward.
It knew about the magical archives and unfinished books.
It had pulled language from my description of the novel. It had looked at my author profile. It commented on the kinds of books I write.
Then it identified the problem.
My upcoming book, it informed me, currently has "very limited presence on Goodreads."
And, conveniently, the sender works with authors on exactly that kind of problem.
I laughed.
Because underneath the obvious sales pitch was something that felt remarkably famliar. It identified what I care about, what I was trying to accomplish, where I might feel insecure about my launch, and what I might want to hear. Then, it packaged all of that information into a flattering message designed to ge me to say yes.
If you've read Prose & Cons, you may understand why I started looking around for Lucy.
The marketing is becoming alarmingly immersive.
This is the strange part of satire.
You take something recognizable about the world, push it just beyond reality, and ask:
What if?
What if an algorithm knew exactly what readers wanted?
What if publishers became so desperate to predict the next bestseller that they stopped asking whether a story was good and started asking whether it was marketable?
What if writers became so focused on giving the system what it wanted that they slowly surrendered the very things that made their stories theirs?
What if technology learned exactly what we wanted to hear–and offered it to us?
I took those questions and exaggerated them.
At least, I thought I did.
Now I'm promoting the resulting novel, and the internet keeps responding with examples that feel suspiciously like deleted scenes.
So I've decided to start keeping track.
Episode One: The Devil offered to promote it.
Episode Two: A suspiciously well-informed stranger emailed to say she'd been "researching" an impossible niche market.
I have no idea what episode three will be, but...
If a glamourous woman with a black bob emails me a publishing contract, I'm not signing it.
Probably.
After all–
Every dream comes with terms.
Authors Note: After writing this essay about the absurdity of tailoring creative work to algorithms, I optimized it for SEO, selected a focus keyword, and embedded my Instagram content.
Lucy is delighted.
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