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FAQs

questions for kj

  • I believe strongly that the makers of LLMs, image generators, and voice generators which were trained on stolen data (books, articles, art, voice recordings etc) should be obliged to pay for what they stole and to seek retrospective consent. In the current state of affairs, I do not believe the use of LLMs or image generators in the publishing process can be ethical: they are tools created by flagrantly breaking the copyright law on which our industry depends. I have serious concerns about the energy consumption of AI and the environmental, human, and ethical harms being created by this unregulated industry. Also, everyone who runs an AI company seems to be a fascist. Just saying.

    It is my firm view that any author who uses Gen AI to generate or amend plots, characters, or text needs to clearly label their work as AI-generated or AI-assisted. If it is such a fantastic and legitimate creative tool for authors, why don’t you want to admit you used it?

    In my own work:

    I do not use any form of LLM or Gen AI for any purpose. Never even logged into one. I use the basic Microsoft tools for spellcheck etc, nothing beyond that. I don’t use generative AI for research (I prefer not to be embarrassingly wrong in public). I don’t use it to come up with ‘ideas’, draft, write, rewrite, or edit. I don’t use it to create marketing copy or social media posts. I do not use it on a train, I do not use it on a plane. I do not like it, Sam I Am.

    When contracting with publishers, I now ask to have a clause in the contract that restricts the use of generative AI as much as possible. The wording depends on the publisher (and their lawyers) but typically provides that the editing and the cover image will be done by humans, and that if they have the audio rights, the narrator will be human. I forbid the use of my work as training data for any LLMs including in house (for what that’s worth, given the wholesale theft of copyrighted material).

    I am aware that publishers are looking to incorporate more AI into their processes; as an author, there’s a limit to what I can insist on. But I put my foot down regarding the use of machine-generated imitations of human creators and experts where I have the ability to do so.

    I insist on a human narrator clause when selling audio rights, and will insist on a human translator clause when I next sell translation rights.

    I have checked with my most recent covers that no generative AI was used, and will continue to do so. My cover and voice artists are named each of my books’ pages.

  • You can contact me in a variety of ways, depending on what you’re after.

    ‍Social media

    ‍I have a terrific Discord group. I often drop in to chat, talk about writing, share book recommendations, answer questions, and complain about my cat. It is a moderated group with high behaviour standards and about the nicest place on the Internet. If you want to talk to me this is your best option: just @ me there.

    ‍I waste far too much time on Bluesky: if you have any doubt about my political opinions or want to know how much I really swear, come follow me @kjcharleswriter.com.

    ‍I post on Instagram @kjcharlesbooks but honestly mostly promo as I remain unsure how to work it.

    I review lavishly on StoryGraph crossposted to Goodreads but very rarely engage there.

    ‍Sign up for my newsletter: it is, to say the least, infrequent.

    ‍Professional queries

    ‍Please contact my agent Courtney Miller-Callihan at Handspun Literary for any queries regarding rights, publishing projects, translation etc. ‍ ‍

    I do try to blurb/review books where I can but I am exceedingly picky and also busy. Requests to blurb should go through Courtney. Please don’t contact me directly, it’s kind of awkward and I will probably forward your email to Courtney anyway.

    ‍You can email me on kjc@kjcharleswriter.com for things like interviews, fundraising requests etc. Fair warning: I don’t reply to inappropriate emails, and I really don’t have the time to answer questions along the lines of ‘how do I get published?’

    ‍Please don’t send me

    • sexually explicit materials of any kind, I don’t consent to that‍

    • anything AI generated‍, ever

    • fan fiction. I love that people write it but for a variety of reasons I can’t read it‍

    • reviews. I fully support the rights of readers to review exactly as they please without author input, but the flipside of that is that the author gets to choose whether to look at reviews or not.‍

  • Please check the News and Events section.

    The publishers of my new books are arranging preorders of signed copies: please check in News and Events to see if one is coming up. I don’t generally do individual signing on request because the posting process is very time consuming (it’s miles to my post office and the queues are huge, and no I don’t have a person who does that for me lol).

  • Let’s save us both time and skip to the part where I tell you to sod off.

  • Yes! The Magpie Lord can be downloaded as a free ebook from all etailers. Further to that, all my books are available through libraries. Support your library!

  • I don’t have a street team. TBH it sounds like paying people to graffiti my name on underpasses. Don’t do that.

    I also don’t have an ARC list, but I always do a random draw for ARCs of new books in my group. Join the Discord to put your name in the hat!

  • Send your query to my agent courtney@handspunlit.com (see the “How can I contact you?” section above). It will reach me, though I’m not promising anything.  

    NB I don’t read YA, and if the description includes the words ‘cosy’ or ‘whimsical’ I probably won’t be a good fit. Nothing against those things, they just aren’t for me.

  • No, sorry. Far too busy.

  • Hahahahaha. No.

  • Yes, please check the Redbubble shop!

    I haven’t done anything new for a while, you are welcome to offer suggestions in the Discord.

Books

  • My ebooks are always distributed wide (so you can get them from Kobo, Apple etc etc as well as Amazon). This means they will never be in KU unless I’ve lost a fight with a publisher, because KU demands Amazon exclusivity. I distribute to libraries, and I sell my self-published books on Gumroad (there’s an icon on the top right) as well as the usual etailers, so you can buy files there and upload to a Kindle if you want to stop supporting Amazon.

    Print books are available at the whim of bookshops. Do please ask your local shop to order!

    People often ask which is the best place to buy for authors. Honestly, any sale is better than no sale (and library reads count!) so do what works for you. Just don’t pirate.

  • Check the specific book page, but books are standalone unless they’re listed as part of a series, and the series is finished unless it says otherwise.

    I’m really sorry that I haven’t finished the Green Men series. I hit a wall that I have not been able to get past despite my best efforts.

  • All my new books are likely to come out in print, e and audio. Audio may be slower depending on the publisher. I get a say in the narrator, but not final say.

    Translations depend entirely on being asked by the foreign publisher. TV depends entirely on a whole lot of people doing expensive things. Neither, sadly, is up to me!

    Society of Gentlemen and Sins of the Cities series have not come out in print because the publisher refuses to use or release the rights. I will advise should that change.

    I am unlikely to license language rights to individual translators on a speculative basis unless it’s for a cool project (eg Latin!). Queries should go to my agent.

  • Ask me in the Discord.

  • If the book is self published (KJC Books) I can help with formatting or availability issues. If it's through a publisher, I probably can't do anything, although I can pass on any serious concern.

    If a sale or offer isn’t happening in your region, that’s almost certainly outwith my power: I will always try to make things equally available when I can.

    If you’ve found a typo in a publisher book, feel free to tell them, though they won’t do anything about it.

    If you’ve found a typo in one of my self published books, my apologies, but I probably won’t do anything about it either unless it’s egregious. (Sorry but it’s a solid half hour of my life to correct files and reupload to all the various sites and I’m not doing that for a pair of transposed consonants. Nor would you.)

    If you have read Slippery Creatures and you want to tell me that Harrison Ford was not an actor in the 1920s, please refer to a search engine first. I realise I brought this entirely on myself.

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