Any author who’s actually seen what AI models produce when attempting to write fiction and is still worried about being replaced is worrying about the wrong threat. (Or they’re a spectacularly mediocre author, but I digress…) And before you say “market saturation,” hold that thought. Because it’s moot. The market is already saturated by content … Continue reading The Real Threat to Indie Authors Isn’t AI
The Evil Isn’t Coming; It’s Already Being Retweeted
Hannah Arendt went to Jerusalem in 1961 expecting to report on a monster. She found a middle manager instead—a bureaucrat who spoke in clichés, followed orders, and never thought about where the trains were going. Evil wasn’t demonic, she argued. It was banal. Ordinary. Thoughtless. Now, seventy years later, the banality of evil has a retweet button. When Donald Trump accused Haitian refugees of eating pets during a presidential debate, thirty-three bomb threats followed. When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, conservative circles erupted in eliminationist rhetoric against half the country. And millions of ordinary people hit “share” without thinking about what they were amplifying or where this pattern historically leads. This is Arendt’s framework applied to America in 2025 in real-time, while we still have a chance to stop where history warns we’re headed. Reading time: 28 minutes.
Eucatastrophe Isn’t Moral Order or: Why Reformed Readers Misread Both Tolkien and Martin
After writing my essay arguing whether “Game of Thrones” is nihilistic or hard-won humanism, I realized the real debate isn’t about Martin at all—it’s about Tolkien. Reformed apologetics has so thoroughly appropriated “The Lord of the Rings,” flattening its Catholic sacramental theology into moral triumphalism, that even Martin’s sophisticated critiques argue against the appropriation rather than the actual author. Tolkien wrote about grace redeeming failure despite permanent wounds. Martin inherited that same Catholic framework for analyzing tragic dilemmas—situations where both choices are objectively wrong—but stripped out the eucatastrophe. Reformed readers can’t see what either author does because they need moral order to reassert itself. The irony? Martin thinks he’s correcting Tolkien’s naïve triumphalism when Tolkien never wrote that. Both work from Catholic tragic moral theology. One just doesn’t believe in Grace anymore—or so he tells himself.
Game of Thrones Isn’t Nihilism—It’s Hard-Won Humanism
The critics who call Game of Thrones nihilistic have never been at the lever when the trolley’s barreling toward both tracks. Everyone “knows” honor matters—until honor costs you your head. Everyone condemns oathbreakers—until you’re sworn to both king and realm and your king plans genocide. Everyone thinks they’d never make Daenerys’s mistakes—until they’re holding power with advisors dead, ideals crashing against reality, and no good options left. Martin doesn’t write nihilism. He writes the gap between moral philosophy in the classroom and the trolley problem in real life. Between theoretical principles and the moment you’re actually forced to choose—knowing both tracks lead to blood and neither choice will let you sleep. The people calling that “unrealistic”? They’ve had the luxury of never pulling the lever.
AI Isn’t the Problem: Fraudulent Authorship Is
The indie publishing world accepts undisclosed ghostwriting—where someone else writes the prose and the credited author takes full credit—but treats AI-generated book covers as a betrayal of readers’ trust. This is completely ass-backwards. The line that matters to me is simple: did the credited author actually write the story? I don’t care how the cover was made. And why should I? How did we get to a point where fraudulent authorship practices are dismissed as “just business” but marketing materials created with AI-assistance are some kind of moral crisis?
Don’t Lecture Me About AI Ethics While Typing on Blood Cobalt
A Twitter user called me unethical for defending AI in the creation of book covers. “It is certainly unethical to use AI in the creation process of anything intended to be sold for profit,” they declared—while typing on a device built with components sourced through child slave labor and weaponized rape. Six-year-olds work 12-hour days in the DRC to fund armed militias. Indigenous communities lose their water to lithium extraction. Rare earth mining poisons entire provinces. Every electronic device you touch on a daily basis requires human suffering on a scale you probably can’t comprehend. But an indie author using AI for marketing? That’s the great moral crisis facing us today. So let’s talk about principles—and why critics can’t answer basic questions about their own.
Far More Authors Than You Think Are Using AI—Guess How Many Won’t Admit It?
Authors are quietly using AI for covers, marketing, research, plotting, and more, while anti-AI activists rage impotently on Twitter and threaten boycotts on BookTok that never materialize. When a Midjourney-generated cover won a fantasy reader popularity contest, 2,500 scrutinizing fans couldn’t spot it. Only forensic metadata analysis revealed the truth. The backlash came after disclosure, not before. Authors who admit AI use fear review-bombing and boycott threats. Authors who stay silent? They face nothing and collect their royalties because readers can’t tell and frankly DGAF. At least 45% of all authors now use AI for their work in some fashion—and you won’t believe how many of them don’t admit it.
Picking the Best AI Video Model for Book Promo Videos and Trailers
I’ve been drowning in AI video model options while building promo videos and trailers for “Doors to the Stars.” Google Veo 3? Kling 2.5? Runway Gen-4? Sora 2? The marketing claims all sound identical—until you actually test them. Mixing the wrong model to the wrong shot wastes hours (and dollars) generating unusable footage. I’ve researched the major players included in Freepik’s umbrella subscription to figure out which models excel at what, and the differences matter more than you’d think. The lessons I learned about matching AI video tools to actual storytelling needs will save you time and money.
Guest Review: Death or Glory
Goodreads reviewer Joanne Budzien calls Death or Glory one of her top 10 books of 2025—so compelling she reread it within a month, finishing both times in under 24 hours. This middle book in my Doomsday Recon trilogy masterfully blends military action, fantasy, and literary fiction without typical sequel slump. Real stakes, visceral character development, and genre-defying storytelling create something rare: a philosophical war story that never lectures. Budzien’s spoiler-filled review wrestles with an unexpected problem—too much excellent character development—while praising my handling of everything from realistic dialogue to traumatic events. Her verdict? Read it, then immediately continue to Born in Battle for the full emotional impact.
How I Plan to Build 1,500 Readers from Scratch in Four Months
I have 123 days to launch Doors to the Stars with the wrong audience and no real platform. My Twitter followers are mostly middle-aged men, not young women who want dark YA space opera. Email lists convert 40x better than social media, so I’m building 1,500 engaged subscribers from scratch in four months using reader magnets, group promotions, and strategic ads with a $2K budget. The book is good—I know that. My fear is that quality doesn’t matter if no one sees it. I’m documenting everything publicly with real numbers and real failures. This will either work or become a very public lesson in how not to launch a book.
The Annex 