The Self-Appointed Police of the Author World

On self-appointed gatekeepers, mob mentality, and the author world's obsession with policing other people's choices.

Photo by Sander Sammy on Unsplash

There’s a thing that happens in the author world every so often.

Someone decides they don’t like the way another author is doing something. Not something illegal. Not something harmful. Just something they personally disagree with. And instead of scrolling past, they screenshot it, post it publicly, and wait for the mob to arrive.

It always does.

I saw it again today. An author’s book cover was being passed around on social media with the accusation that it was clearly AI. Someone had taken a screenshot, tagged the author, and the comments were filling up fast. The author was defending themselves. Other people were piling on.

And I thought the same thing I always think when this happens. So what?

So what if it’s AI? Who decided that’s wrong? Who gave that person the authority to publicly drag another author for a creative choice they made about their own work? There’s no law against using AI for cover art. There’s no industry standard that says you can’t. It was one person’s opinion, delivered as if it were a verdict. And the crowd treated it like one.

This isn’t new. And it isn’t just about AI.

The Mia Ballard Situation

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few weeks, you’ll have heard about Mia Ballard and Shy Girl. The book was originally self-published, picked up by Hachette, published in the UK, and was all set for a US release. Then the accusations started.

Readers on Goodreads and Reddit began speculating that the book was AI-generated. A YouTube video titled I’m pretty sure this book is ai slop racked up over a million views. Max Spero, founder of an AI detection tool called Pangram, ran a test and said 78% of the text appeared to be AI-generated. The New York Times brought the evidence to Hachette, and within a day, the book was pulled.

Now, there are several things worth unpacking here.

First, Ballard denies she used AI. She says a freelance editor she hired for the self-published version introduced AI tools without her knowledge. She’s pursuing legal action. So right out of the gate, we’re not even dealing with a confirmed case. We’re dealing with accusations assumed to be fact.

Second, someone uploaded her book to an AI detection tool. Let’s go with that for a second. They took someone else’s copyrighted work and ran it through third-party software. Is nobody going to question whether that’s okay? Whether uploading someone’s intellectual property to an external platform without permission is a reasonable thing to do? Because I think there’s a conversation to be had there.

Third. Let’s say, hypothetically, that she did use AI. Let’s say every word of it was generated. So what? There is no law against it. None. Publishers can set their own contractual requirements, and if an author breaches those, that’s between the author and the publisher. It’s not the public’s job to police it. It’s not a reader’s job to act as judge, jury, and executioner on social media. And an AI detection tool giving a percentage score is not proof of anything. These tools are unreliable. They flag false positives constantly. A percentage is not a conviction.

It’s Not Just AI

I’ve been in this industry since 2012. Full-time since 2016. I’ve published over fifty books. And I have watched this pattern play out over and over again.

I watched an author get torn apart because she offered ARCs as part of a reward tier on her Patreon. The accusation? She was charging readers for ARCs. People were furious. Other authors were posting about it. Readers were outraged. And I sat there thinking, it’s her intellectual property. She created it. She can distribute it however she wants. If she wants to include early copies of her book as a perk for people who support her financially, that’s her business. Who decided that was wrong?

I watched an author post a set of rules for their reader group. Just boundaries. Things like what could and couldn’t be discussed, how spoilers were handled, that kind of thing. Nothing extreme. Suddenly screenshots were flying everywhere. Other authors were sharing the posts mocking it. It went viral in that small, insular way things go viral in book world. And the author was dragged for having the audacity to set boundaries in their own space.

In both of these cases, readers and authors actively went and one-star bombed the authors’ books. Not because they’d read them, or not because there was anything wrong with the stories. But because they disagreed with business decisions that were none of their business, really.

They tanked someone’s ratings, damaged their visibility, hurt their income, because they’d appointed themselves judge and jury over how another author runs their career.

I mean, come on. Really. Doesn’t that make you the dick?

What about pen names?

Authors have been writing under pen names for as long as publishing has existed. And authors have been writing as a different gender for just as long. The Brontë sisters published as Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Mary Ann Evans became George Eliot. Amantine Aurore Dupin became George Sand. J.K. Rowling published crime fiction as Robert Galbraith. Nora Roberts writes futuristic suspense as J.D. Robb. Louisa May Alcott published gothic thrillers as A.M. Barnard. Men have written under female pen names. Women have written under male pen names. It is as old as the industry itself.

And yet I watched an indie author get outed on social media because someone discovered their real name didn’t match the gender of their pen name. People were sharing their real identity. Posting personal information. Treating it like some kind of gotcha, as if writing under a pen name of a different gender was a scandal.

Except it’s not a scandal. It’s a choice. A legal one, and a common one.

What is actually problematic, and potentially illegal, is doxing someone. Sharing someone’s real name without their consent when they’ve chosen to publish under a pseudonym. Putting their personal information out into the world. That’s not holding someone accountable. That’s harassment.

The Lucifer Effect

Dr Philip Zimbardo wrote a book called The Lucifer Effect that I think about a lot when I watch these situations unfold. Zimbardo was the psychologist behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, and his book explores how ordinary people can be led into doing terrible things when the right social conditions are in place.

One of his core arguments is that we are remarkably easy to manipulate when someone positions themselves as an authority. When one person stands up and says this is wrong with enough conviction, other people fall in line. Not because they’ve independently assessed the situation. But because someone told them how to feel, and it was easier to agree than to question it.

That’s what happens in every single one of these situations. One person decides they are the moral authority. They make their accusation publicly. And then the mob fills in behind them, convinced they’re on the right side, because the alternative is to stop and think, and that takes more effort than retweeting.

Zimbardo called it the power of the situation.

The Real Question

I’m not saying nobody should ever have an opinion. I’m not saying there’s no room for critique or discussion. I’m saying there’s a difference between having a conversation and launching a public campaign against someone.

If you see a cover you think is AI-generated, you can think that. You can choose not to buy the book. You don’t have to screenshot it, tag the author, and invite the internet to weigh in on whether this person deserves to keep their career.

If you think ARCs shouldn’t be part of a paid tier, you can think that. You can not subscribe. You don’t have to publicly shame the author for making a different choice to you.

If you discover an author’s pen name doesn’t match their gender, you can process that information privately. You absolutely do not get to share their real identity with the world.

Because at the end of the day, nobody made you the gatekeeper. Nobody elected you. Nobody gave you the authority to decide what another author can and can’t do with their own work, their own business, their own identity. And wrapping it up in moral outrage doesn’t change that.