Ethics Statement

 This statement reflects my current position and may change in the future as I grow as an indie author and better understand the issue facing the creative community.

I want to be transparent about my writing process, which is the intention of this statement. It may not include everything, but if you do have any questions that are not covered by the below, please do reach out and I’ll do my best to answer them

Use of tools and AI

I think the self-publishing and indie author industry is fantastic for writers who, for one reason or another have not been able to, or have chosen to not go down the traditional publishing route.  However there are a lot of books, and it is more prevalent in self-publishing, that do contain AI generated content. It is important for me that anything I publish—has been created by me, so for complete transparency I wanted to address what tools I use in my writing process.

I DO NOT use any AI generated written content or artwork in my books, social media posts or marketing materials. 

There has been discourse around how to identify if content is AI generated, with many people pointing to the use of em dashes ‘—’. I do use em dashes in my writing, because they are a legitimate punctuation mark that has many uses and they are used by a lot of authors. So if you see these in my writing I put them there on purpose.

I DO use the tool grammarly in a very limited capacity and only for the purposes of spelling and grammar checking, similar to what you find in most text editors including Microsoft Word and Google Docs. I often think faster than I can type. I DO NOT use grammarly for suggested changes. Grammarly does have a whole host of AI features but to reiterate I DO NOT use these. For an example of how the grammarly grammar and spell checker works, you can see a demo on their website without having to sign up here: https://www.grammarly.com/grammar-check. It is also worth noting that it does not always get it right, and I do not rely on this for spelling and grammar checking, but also self edit.

I DO use the design tool Canva, but I only use stock images. I DO NOT use Canva’s AI tool ‘Magic studio’ for creating or editing images, or generating or editing written content. There are tools on Canva that are similar to other design tools that allow manipulation of images by adding filters and adjusting the image that I DO use. I created the cover for my debut novel ‘Less Than’ using Canva, as well as using it for creating social media posts.

I have in the past used AI such as Chat GPT to get ideas for social media posts (being a total social media newbie), and to create plans for a book launch timeline. However recently I have thought more about the environmental impact of using AI and will be more mindful (both as an author and general human being) of when I use tools like these.

Paid Advertising

I HAVE NOT, and WILL NOT pay for people to review or market my book via social media. No disrespect to anyone who earns their living by charging for reviewing or marketing books on social media intended.

The reason I will not pay for reviews is because I want to ensure that readers are not falsely misled into purchasing my book because they read a paid review, that may not be an honest reflection of what the reader thought of the book.

I will also not pay for paid promotion from book influencers on social media. I have only joined Instagram in the run up to launching my debut novel, and have had many messages for partnering with influencers and book marketers. It is not always clear if someone can help with marketing or will just take payment to shout about your book. I think there is a line but to be completely candid, I am not sure what that line is.

I am not currently working with any external company or person to help market my book and have no intentions to do so.

I MAY in the future look at paid advertising with Amazon, and social media sites such as Instagram and Facebook, but this will be through their standard advertisement channels. This is a common marketing tool.

My Future Goals as an Author - Supporting and Working with Other Creatives

As a debut indie author I am not currently in a financial position to pay for an editor, cover artist, or marketing professional in order to launch my book. I have been lucky to utilise friends and family to help with the copy editing, beta reading and the feedback process. I did employ a beta reader to review an early draft of Less Than, at a cost.

My goal in the future is to be in a position where I can pay an artist for cover art and/or illustrations for future books and related marketing material for those books. There are so many wonderful artists who have perfected their craft that I would love to work with. I will never knowingly work with an artist who uses AI. Many digital artists use non-AI tools to help create their art, this is not the same as AI. For me, it is all about what the creative process looks like, and the lines can sometimes be blurry, but I will always do my best to promote and work with artists who do not use AI, or plagiarise others' art. 

I would also like to work with an editor, I think the work editors do is really valuable, sadly I am just not in a financial position to do so as they can cost upwards of £1,000 for an 80,000 word manuscript.